75 Year History

Fifty or more years ago, if you did not donate to the Concord Carlisle Foundation, formerly known as the Concord-Carlisle Community Chest, a neighbor would come knocking at your door.

For 10 days during October, citizens fanned out across town in search of funds to service those in need. It took such a spirited sense of community to create the Concord Community Chest in 1947.

Winthrop Lee, one of the four founding members, recalls it was Morgan Smith who had the idea to break away from the regional Red Feather Campaign, the predecessor to the United Way. Red Feather balked at Concord’s forming its own group, but the local leaders could not be dissuaded. Past Board president Mary Johnson, whose husband was a founder, said accountability was a key reason for the change. ‘When you gave locally you knew where your money was going,’ she says.

Once Concord was on its own, the fundraising campaign generated a groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm. With military-like precision canvassers were organized into neighborhood teams. Boy Scouts tacked up posters featuring the now familiar Concord Carlisle Foundation Minute Man on utility poles all around town.

The early campaigns were buoyed by the local newspapers. In 1948 The Concord Journal banner was turned into the group of people pulling the plowing Minute Man toward the fundraising goal. A column, ‘Chest Chatter’ announced events and happenings and each agency published its own description of its services in the K.Y.C.C. – Know Your Community Chest. Over the years needs have changes and agencies have come and gone. Carlisle joined with the Concord Community Chest in 1968, just about the same time that the regional high school was graduating its first class.

The design of the campaign brochures themselves has gone from the sedate 1950s, through the flashy ’70s (a bright green flyer with a line drawing doubled as a kitchen wall decoration), to the more graphically sophisticated ’90s. Through it all the Foundation has maintained it s primary mission as neighbors helping neighbors.

In recent years the Concord Carlisle Foundation has become a catalyst for community problem-solving. One example is the promotion of teen activities and parent education following a community-wide assessment that identified unmet needs in these areas.

Mary Johnson, reflecting on five decades of service says, “At the beginning the Foundation was real homespun. It’s come a long way, but there remains a vital community connection. It’s proactive, dynamic, it is right out there all the time.”

In 2022, the Concord-Carlisle Community Chest celebrated its 75th anniversary. To best position our organization for the next 75 years, and better respond to the needs in our community holistically in the future, the Board of Directors voted to change the name to the Concord Carlisle Foundation in 2024.