Julianne Buck

Julianne Buck has spent her adult career in the nonprofit and government arenas. For the past 15 years she has been the first and only Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Grundy County. She has taken the Foundation’s assets from $0 to $8 million and has ingrained the Foundation as a partner throughout the region.The Community Foundation of Grundy County improves the quality of life in Grundy County through leadership and philanthropy. Julianne works with donors to achieve their charitable goals plus leads the charge to convene a number of networks to assure others are collaborating around issues of concern. She also serves on the Grundy County Drug Court team.Prior to the Foundation, Ms. Buck was deeply involved in the disability rights community for a number of years, especially as an enforcer of the Illinois Accessibility Code while working in the Office of Illinois Attorney General. Julianne’s greatest strength is “Servant Leadership” – helping other nonprofits realize their full capacity. Outside of work she puts these skills to work by being a Scout leader, band booster mom, musician, and amateur thespian. Julianne is married to Ken Buck, Superintendent of the Grundy County Veterans Assistance Commission. Their sons are Ken and Landon, both of whom were involved in Scouts and band and are now college students.

New Year, New Funds

December was a busy month for the Morris Community Foundation because of all of the year-end activity.  Many members of our community remember our organization in their year-end charitable giving and we’d like to publicly thank all of them for their support.   Last month was also a milestone for the Foundation for two reasons.  …

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Leverage

The word “leverage” is quite the buzz word in most business and not-for-profit sectors.  I looked it up and one definition of “leverage” is “the use of a small initial investment…to gain a very high return in relation to one’s investment…”   One reason “leverage” is such a buzz word in the community foundation field …

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Leadership in Transition

Last week a group of us attended the “Dynamic Leadership Conference for Enterprising Nonprofits,” which was hosted by the Grand Victoria Foundation and held at Elgin Community College.   The workshops for the day reviewed different aspects of leadership, including staff leadership, board leadership, the leadership of organizations in the community, and the leadership of …

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Making a Difference

Sometime in our life, each of us has thought, “have I done anything worthwhile?”  As we get older, we think about this more and more.   Most of us have dreamed about being an explorer, medical researcher, or astronaut – or perhaps dreamed of inventing something that will make millions of dollars.  However, it is …

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