President’s Report 2023

McDonough Supporters, Clubs and Scholars:

I am pleased and honored to report on my second year as president of the McDonough Foundation. It has been a pleasure to serve this growing organization and its very committed Board of Directors. I am confident the Foundation will be in good hands as Bill Krueger, our current vice president and long-time board member, assumes the presidency in 2024.

This was a year of many accomplishments and milestones for the organization. 2023 marks the McDonough Foundation’s 68th year of awarding college and trade school scholarships to employees of New Hampshire golf courses. In 2023, we awarded scholarships to 96 students totaling over $160,000. It was a record year of scholarship awards, with an increase of 20% in both the number of scholarship students and the total amount of scholarship dollars awarded. Our scholars worked at 34 golf courses and are attending 61 different colleges and universities. The McDonough Scholarship Foundation has now awarded more than $3.3 million in scholarships since 1955.

We greatly appreciate the financial support provided by the clubs in New Hampshire and our many generous individual donors. The club-member contributions represent our single largest source of financial support, and we appreciate your continued support as we move forward. In addition to these contributions, the Foundation ran two successful fundraising events this year. In early May, we held our second annual online auction which featured over 50 donated foursomes of golf throughout the state. And in mid-June, we held our annual McDonough golf tournament at Bald Peak Colony Club. The weather was spectacular, and the tournament was sold out early. Thanks to our very generous sponsors and players, the tournament was a memorable and successful fundraising event.

Keeping the focus on increasing our endowment, we established five new endowed scholarships this year through the generosity of friends of the Foundation. These include:

• The John Wirbal Memorial Scholarship, which is being funded by the Nashua Country Club membership and will be awarded to a Nashua Country Club employee.
• The Pastrick Scholarship, funded by Bald Peak members R. Scott and Courtney Pastrick, will be awarded annually based on criteria which are still being finalized.
• The Tom Mulkern Scholarship, endowed by Dan and Amy Mulkern, in honor of Tommy’s many decades at the helm of hospitality businesses in New Hampshire. This scholarship will be awarded annually to an employee of a Mount Washington Valley course or club.
• The Dartmouth-Upper Valley Scholarship, endowed by Joseph and Kimberly Henley, which will be awarded annually to a Sunapee/Upper Valley scholar.
• The McDonough General Endowed Education Scholarship Fund, which was established by the Foundation as a home for donations made by individuals and organizations who would like to assist in building our permanent endowment, but do not have the financial resources to create a specific named endowed scholarship.

We now have 26 named endowed scholarships and hope to continue to increase that number. The earnings on these endowed scholarships contribute over $50,000 to our operating budget annually, and we expect that number to grow in the future.

While we have been successful in increasing our total scholarship awards, unfortunately we have not been able to keep pace with the increase in the cost of education.  The cost of education at public colleges and universities has risen 179% in the last 20 years; for private colleges it’s up 124%. According to Forbes magazine, the cost of a four-year public education in the 2022-2023 academic year was almost $28,000 and $57,500 for a four-year private education. Student loans have been used to fill the funding gap, which has created a student-debt problem for a generation of students. We hope you will help as we endeavor to help close the funding gap for the golf course employees across the state.

In addition to our ongoing activities, there have been several other significant changes to the organization during the year. Most importantly, Lisa Kress, Director of Operations and Development, was promoted to the new role of Executive Director. Lisa has done an exceptional job for the organization over the last three years, and her energy, enthusiasm, and long-term vision have helped the Foundation enormously. We are looking forward to collaborating with Lisa and expect that she will help the organization and our scholarships continue to grow. In addition, in November 2023, Dan Mulkern, a founder of Vigilant Wealth Management and former McDonough scholar, joined our Board of Directors. Dan’s experience in finance and wealth management will add important expertise to the Board. I also want to thank Eileen Conway, who stepped down from the Board for personal reasons, for her many years of service to the Board. We will miss Eileen with her ever-present smile and positive attitude.

Last year, the Foundation recognized John Doykos as our first emeritus director. Emeritus directors are individuals who have given many years of distinguished service to the Board. Recently, we added four additional emeritus directors to the organization – Mitch Jean, Dave Wilson, John Bottomley, and Paul Lipnick. Together they represent over 75 years of experience on the McDonough Board. We appreciate their wise counsel and willingness to continue to support the mission of the Foundation.

The McDonough Foundation’s goal for 2024 is to increase our scholarship awards to $175,000 to help further lighten the burden of rising college costs. It is an ambitious target, and we cannot achieve it without your help. We hope that you will continue to support our online auction and through club and personal contributions. Contributions can always be made via our website at mcdonoughgolf.com.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the greatest privilege of being on the Board of the McDonough Foundation is that one gets to interview scholars every year. It is an incredibly impressive group of students who come to us for financial aid. Getting to know these highly motivated young men and women has made me very proud and optimistic about the future.

William H. Everett
President
McDonough Scholarship Foundation