The Board of Directors of the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation (GVCF) is pleased to welcome Anne Bowling Tuckwiller as the foundation’s next Executive Director.
She will begin her new role in November. Outgoing Executive Director Courtney Smith will be leaving the area to pursue educational opportunities but will continue to serve GVCF on an adjunct basis.
Having worked with many community organizations, Bowling Tuckwiller is well positioned to be an effective leader of the foundation. She is currently the Development Director for Carnegie Hall. In this capacity, she has been responsible for developing and maintaining positive relationships with Carnegie’s large donor base which includes hundreds of individual donors, corporate sponsors, private family foundations, and public and private grantors. Through this association, she became a member of GVCF’s Board of Directors and an ardent supporter of its mission to facilitate charitable giving. “I am delighted to be part of an organization that has had such a positive impact on our community,” Bowling Tuckwiller commented. “I look forward to continuing the work that the foundation has done to support nonprofit organizations and increase charitable dollars.”
Bowling Tuckwiller has strong ties to the community. A native of White Sulphur Springs, she is the Vice President of White Sulphur Springs Main Street and enjoys being part of the incredible team effort to revitalize the city. Since the flood, Main Street has gone from a small community organization to a structured nonprofit with an annual gift campaign, event and residential rental properties, and a grant program. Recently, Main Street was able to open an endowed fund with GVCF to ensure that it has the resources it needs in perpetuity.
Bowling Tuckwiller earned an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communication at West Virginia University and lends these skills to the Greenbrier County Convention and Visitors Bureau as a member of their Marketing Advisory Committee.
Courtney Smith began serving as the Executive Director for the community foundation in 2009, overseeing its transition from an affiliate of the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation with 74 funds and $3 million in assets to an independent organization with 135 funds and $15 million in assets. She is especially proud that during her tenure GVCF distributed approximately $9 million to the community. These disbursements were used by nonprofit organizations to support annual operating costs, building construction, and programming as well as to provide approximately $2 million for scholarships and other educational purposes. GVCF also disbursed nearly $4 million to assist with flood recovery through the Homes for White Sulphur Springs initiative. Additionally, Smith created and implemented an innovative online scholarship application that is being used in the Greenbrier, Monroe, and Pocahontas county schools. With this system, the Greenbrier Valley is one of the few places in the United States where students can apply for nearly every local scholarship offered by individuals and civic groups with only one, online application.
Another noteworthy accomplishment is the creation of a local Directory of Philanthropy. This reference book includes mission statements and contact information for nearly every nonprofit organization and funder in the Greenbrier Valley. Laura Lee Haddad, Executive Director of the West Virginia Nonprofit Association (WVNPA), remarked, “The Directory is a wonderful resource for people who want to learn about the many nonprofit and philanthropic organizations that service the Greenbrier Valley. It is especially important considering the implementation of area-wide address changes.” Since the establishment of WVNPA, the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation has served as its regional partner, hosting quarterly meetings of nonprofit directors, offering grants toward membership dues, and organizing events to apprise the public of the valuable contributions made by the social profit sector. Copies of the directory may be obtained by visiting the GVCF office at 809 Jefferson Street S or sending an email to: info@gvfoundation.org.
Before joining GVCF, Smith and her family operated Honnahlee, a successful and beloved educational toy store in Lewisburg. She also served on several nonprofit boards and volunteered many hours in the public schools. After producing nine plays as fundraisers for nonprofit organizations, Smith began writing novels. Her first novel, Lies: Based on True Stories, which is set in Greenbrier County during the Civil War, was recently published by Quarrier Books of Charleston. With the success of this book, she decided to return to an academic environment and work toward earning a PhD in history. However, Smith will continue to work with the foundation as its Finance Officer. “Rather than a resignation, I asked the board for a reclassification,” she remarked. “It’s hard for me to leave. Our fund sponsors and the nonprofit community have been my family. I am honored to have worked with so many kind and generous people who make our community a wonderful place to live.”
About the transition, Greg Johnson, Chairman of GVCF’s Board of Directors, stated “We’ve been blessed to have someone with Courtney’s extraordinary talents guiding the Community Foundation for the past nine years. We feel equally fortunate to have Anne joining us at this juncture. We feel strongly that she is the kind of enthusiastic, visionary leader we need to build on our past success and take the Foundation to the next level.”