Major Gifts and Gift Planning
Houston Endowment Inc. Supports Scientific Planning in the Texas Panhandle
Ducks Unlimited is honored to receive its second grant from Houston Endowment Inc. The $75,000 grant is to be used toward a strategic plan for conservation work in the Playa Lakes Region of the Texas Panhandle, to protect this crucial area that each year winters millions of ducks, geese, sandhill cranes, and shorebirds.
Created in 1937, Houston Endowment Inc. is the largest private philanthropic foundation in Texas and ranks among the largest in the nation. The foundation first supported DU’s restoration of the Oyster Bayou wetland on the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.
The Playa Lakes Region of the Southern Great Plains can winter up to 30 percent of Central Flyway waterfowl, making the region second in importance only to the Gulf Coast. Even though playa wetlands support millions of migratory birds, this habitat is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Recognizing the immediate need to act, Ducks Unlimited initiated a strategic plan to guide our waterfowl conservation programs in the Playa Lakes Region of Texas. The Texas Panhandle was chosen as the pilot project because it contains the majority of the Southern Great Plains’ playa lakes.
To prioritize our conservation work, Ducks Unlimited and its conservation partners, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Texas Parks and Wildlife, began construction of a geographic information systems (GIS) conservation-planning model. Using state-of-the-art computer technology, along with remote-sensing capabilities provided by satellite imagery and aerial photography, Ducks Unlimited biologists can identify the spatial distribution of wetlands and grasslands in relation to waterfowl populations. However, to understand how playa wetland distribution and abundance relate to waterfowl and to target priority habitat for restoration, more information needed to be included that showed the density and distribution of wintering waterfowl, land use and land cover, and the locations of existing conservation projects.
Support from the foundation makes it possible for DU to complete the two remaining components: developing a grassland-easements-coverage dataset and completing the conservation-priority model, and using this state-of-the-art planning to implement top-priority habitat programs.
Frey Foundation Challenge Grant Helps Launch DU’s Grand River Watershed Program in Michigan
The Frey Foundation of Grand Rapids, Michigan, awarded Ducks Unlimited a challenge grant of $100,000 to launch the private-support component of the Grand River Watershed Program. To receive the full grant, DU must secure $300,000 in private gifts over the next three years.
The Frey Foundation is one of the largest family foundations operating in Michigan. The foundation provides grants primarily to nonprofit organizations to protect natural resources, enhance children’s development, promote the arts, and expand philanthropic and civic action in southwestern Michigan.
The 11-county Grand River watershed supports some of the highest breeding densities of mallards in Michigan. Establishing high-quality nesting cover in this area will increase the production of mallards, other upland-nesting ducks, and many grassland-dependent birds such as the Henslow’s sparrow, bobolink, sedge wren, and eastern meadowlark.
DU is deeply grateful to the Frey Foundation for this great opportunity. We now turn to the many people, foundations, and corporations who share our vision for the conservation of the Grand River watershed for help in meeting this challenge.
Fifty-three Delaware Major Sponsors Honored
On April 23, 2004, Ducks Unlimited recognized 53 Delaware Major Sponsors with a cairn at the St. Jones Estuarine Research Reserve in Dover for their support of the Delaware Bay Initiative. These dedicated individuals and organizations made either a new Major Sponsor pledge or upgraded their existing pledge support between the years 2000 and 2004. They will complete their pledges within four years. The money from these pledges is being used to fund DU’s important Delaware Bay Initiative, a partnership between DU and the states of Delaware and New Jersey to restore more than 15,000 acres of wetlands and associated uplands in the Delaware Bay watershed. More than half of the continent’s migratory shorebirds visit Delaware Bay to rest and feed every year. The bay also provides critical wintering habitat for waterfowl that migrate along the Atlantic Flyway.
DU Major Sponsors who contributed to the Delaware Bay Initiative:
Raymond F. Akey
James C. Baker Jr.
Clif and Sue Bakhsh
Kirk Beebe
Richard C. Bennett
F. Kevin and Chastity Berry
Richard and Linda Berry
Raymond and Roberta Burris
R.R.M. Carpenter III
Joseph A. Chas
Gus Croll
Tom Cuccia
William F. D’Alonzo
Eugene DePrinzio
Walter B. Donaldson II
John and Louise Dukes
E. Bradford DuPont
Fair Play Foundation/Blaine Phillips
Richard S. Fischer
Josh Freeman
Walter and Judy Graham
John Ross Harris Jr.
Chris Harrison
Holger H. Harvey
Alton Jones
David A. Jones
Jake Kabino
T. William and Jenkie Lingo
Peter and Linda MacGaffin
In Memory of Raymond W. and Edith W. Masten
Dr. Robert Masten
Darrow McLauchlin
Wes Medek
Dennard F. Quillen III and Judy Quillen
John E. Richter
David and Kathy Riddell
Joseph F. Rowan Jr.
Bob and Betty Ryan
John Sandy
Daniel and Nancy Shevock
Samuel Rodmond Smith III
Mark Stout
Fred and Doris Tana
Teal Construction Inc.
Townsend Brothers Chevrolet
Gary C. Van Lier
Harry M. Voshell
Howell and Margo Wallace
Philip and Adele Wemlinger
Jack Whitby
Howard C. Wilkins II
Harry D. and Karen S. Willis
Bill and Mary Jane Willis