Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Martineau.
Hi Julie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Let me begin by acknowledging the board members and volunteers across my career who helped shape the organizational visions that drove greater impact and the great staff members who ran with those visions to make such a difference in our community. All these people made the organizations with whom I have worked successful. It takes a team – and a village of people to affect change. I have been privileged to be a small part of everything that was accomplished.
My professional career started with the United Way as an intern helping to raise money and staff committees of volunteers to distribute the funds to local nonprofit organizations. This is a side of social work that people do not see but is vital to providing programs that work on meeting the mission of any organization.
After working for United Way, I was hired by Tri-County Behavioral Healthcare which was just starting out in 1983. I was responsible for government relations, fund raising, public relations, and volunteer services. While at Tri-County, the state was moving treatment and care from state hospitals and schools to local communities. I worked with communities to build 6 small group homes in local communities for adults who were wheelchair bound with severe intellectual disabilities who were coming back to their community after living in an institution for years. The people and communities of Montgomery and Liberty County were great about this small group homes of 6 people and a staff member being their neighbors! It was very exciting to be on the vanguard of that in more rural communities.
I was hired by the board of The Friendship Center, now Meals on Wheels of Montgomery County to run their programs and expanded transportation, meals on wheel, congregate meals and respite care to be accessible in all Montgomery County. The Montgomery County United Way board hired me as their executive director in 1997 where i worked for 19 years, repositioning the organization to focus on areas of opportunity for improvement for Montgomery County: obesity, post high school education, and sustainable jobs for people living on the edge of poverty. When Montgomery County United Way merged with the United Way of Greater Houston, I assisted Montgomery County Hosptial District with some marketing and was recruited to take over Montgomery County Community Foundation. Over the past 8 years, the Community Foundation has doubled in asset size and has awarded over $3.6 Million in grants and scholarships since 1999.
My civic career has enhanced the visibility and engagement of my work at these organizations. I have held a variety of volunteer leadership positions at The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club of The Woodlands, League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, and represented Montgomery County at H-GAC and other state and federal task forces.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
it is never a smooth road. A wise friend told me that new things happen in the time they are supposed to happen. The largest challenge is that people have convictions about groups of people that are based on fears, not on reality.
A group of us worked on creating a public transportation system in the mid 1990s. Rather than seeing the need of neighbors without cars, residents were convinced criminals from Houston would ride the buses to rob their homes and get back on the buses with their stolen goods to ride back to Houston. The outcry was county-wide and the project was scrapped at the time. However, it did spotlight the need and when Conroe and The Woodlands was able to get dedicated transportation money for public transportation, some groundwork had been laid.
In this world of immediate gratification, the challenge is to be patient and keep the spotlight shining so people can begin to see it when they are ready. I also learned that it is OK to start small with those people who want to make it happen and grow it slowly with the right people.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My career path has been to take small nonprofits and grow them to have greater reach and visibility. That takes a great board to help with the plan and funding to enact the plan.
Montgomery County Community Foundation is the endowment organization for Montgomery County. Generous donors set up funds that focus on an area, organization or community they are passionate about impacting. The Community
foundation invests those funds and award grants and scholarships based on the fund that donor has established, Community volunteers vet the organizations and determine funding as well as awards scholarships. Along with Deane Perry who is our part time admirative assistant, we meet with individuals and families to establish endowments and legacies, raise funds to underwrite our administrative services, work with the board and volunteers to increase the endowed funds that are invested, and handle all the paperwork, documentation, and forms needed or maximum integrity and transparency. The result is that we are able to award grants and scholarships in perpetuity since we do not spend the funds donated to establish and grown the funds. Our endowment funds support the arts, culture and heritage, healthcare, mental healthcare, human services, animal rescue and welfare, education, low income families, and much more.
What I am most proud of is that this community has allowed me to be a part of creating new initiatives. I was the co-chair of the group that created Leadership Montgomery County. This group has impressively expanded to provide leadership training and conferences for all people who would like to be leaders in Montgomery County.
Thanks to the membership of The Rotary Club of The Woodlands, I helped shape and was the first president of Rotary House, which provides free long-term housing for low-income patients who lived outside the area and receiving treatment or care at Montgomery County hospitals. Cancer patients, parents with premature babies in NICU’s, trauma patients come here and can stay up to 90 days although our length of stay averages around 35 days. Image having pre-mature twins who need intensive care in a specialized NICU and having to live here – while maintaining your home where you live – for 30 days. That is a financial hardship they do not need. Kudos to The Rotary Club of The Woodlands for taking this on as their signature project.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
It is a privilege to live and work in Montgomery County. This is an incredibly generous and active community. We are big enough to have great capacity to tackle anything we set our minds to, and yet small enough that you know the people with whom you need to work to get it done.
Parents need to role model volunteering to make a difference in our community. Everyone doing just a little bit makes a huge impact.
Pricing:
- $15,000 over 5 years to establish a fund
- $15,000 over 5 years to create a scholarship
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mccfoundation.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MCCFoundationTX
