Warner Bequest Empowers Volunteers With Training

SALISBURY — Claudia Warner left behind a very personal legacy when she died last July.

Her friends remember her as having a great sense of humor. She was a "terrific person who was interested in people, generous in thought and spirit," recalled Doris Walker of Salisbury, who worked side by side with her friend for decades while creating or supporting many of the nonprofit organizations that enrich the Northwest Corner today.

"We were somewhat pioneers, but not entirely," she said. "Claudia was involved in an awful lot of things, from the Connecticut Junior Republic to the Housatonic Valley Association to the day care. She started Hospice in the Northwest Corner after her son died.

"But she was always quiet about it, not flashy. She was very friendly and hospitable, never turned anyone away. I never ran into anyone who didn’t like her, she was that kind of person. We feel as if she’s still with us, as if she’s still around."Seeking a Target

Her influence as an involved and committed volunteer is still felt. And in a very tangible way, Claudia Warner is still around. Her estate has given $50,000 to the Northwest Corner Fund, an endowment of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (BTCF) in Great Barrington, Mass.

Founded in 1987, BTCF is a community foundation that covers the Northwest Corner of Connecticut, northeast Dutchess and Columbia counties in New York, and Berkshire County in Massachusetts.

Warner started the Northwest Corner Fund six years ago, according to BTCF President Jennifer Dowley. The fund was brought up to almost $302,000 with Warner’s bequest.

The Northwest Corner Fund has sponsored a program for nonprofit boards, the Nonprofit Learning Center, which has provided training to organizations such as the 21st Century Fund for Housatonic Valley Regional High School, Prime Time House, the Housatonic Youth Service Bureau, the Canaan and Cornwall child care centers, Habitat for Humanity of Northwest Connecticut and more.

Six more organizations are now being evaluated for next year’s training sessions.

The sessions consist of six three-hour meetings of board members conducted by consultant Simone P. Joyaux, the founder and chair of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island.

Joyaux specializes in fund development, board and organizational development, and strategic planning. She is the author of the book, "Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last."

After the six meetings, Joyaux visits the site of the organization. Once the board has completed the program, the fund gives $2,000 to address an issue that has been targeted during the sessions as a specific problem for the organization.

Janet Andre Block, a committee member of the fund who lives in Salisbury, said, "The success of the program is in the effect it has on a board. It brings everything out in the open. And it’s gratifying to see the success. It lifts burdens from people who are volunteers."The Future, and BTCF

"Claudia always had a way of defining problems and implementing solutions," Block said. "She could see the big picture, look into the future. She saw the Northwest Corner Fund as something that needed her support, and she put her force behind it to get it going. Every organization she was a part of felt she belonged to them."

Long-term, she said, the Nonprofit Learning Center will not be the only effort the Northwest Corner Fund supports in the region. Rather, the fund will use Warner as an inspiration and support those causes to which she was so committed.

Warner lived in Sharon and was married to lawyer Donald Warner, with whom she raised five children. Her husband was one of the four founding members of BTCF, along with Robert Blum and Bill Olsen of Salisbury, and Dana Creel of Sharon.

"Don and Claudia were so influential in forming BTCF," said Block. "They believed that a fund should be shaped according to the needs of a community, not the other way around."

The Rev. John Carter, of Salisbury’s St. John’s Episcopal Church, where she was active for years and junior warden for a time, remembers Claudia Warner as someone who "was deeply concerned and had a lot of passion for her community. And she was funny. She was someone who could give constructive criticism with a light touch."

He said he misses her very much, that there was just something about her that stuck with you.

"Most of what she did was personal," Carter said. "She had beautiful, bright colors in her house, which were indicative of her vivacity."

She thought her own way, he said, and while she was very aware of and sensitive to convention, she was also appreciative of breaches of convention.

"She was willing to color outside the lines," he said. A Legacy of Her Own

Warner came from a family that left her a legacy of community involvement.

The Public Welfare Foundation of Washington, D.C, which administered the $50,000 donation to the Northwest Corner Fund, was established by her stepfather (newspaper publisher Charles Edward Marsh) and her mother in 1947.

According to the foundation’s Web site, publicwelfare.org, its mission since its inception has remained "broad and flexible, to address changing needs. Inherent in all of our work, however, is a continued commitment to the Marshs’ belief that the people who are most affected by a problem should be involved in creating and implementing solutions to address it."

Warner continued that legacy as a role model for volunteers in the Northwest Corner.

For more information on the Nonprofit Learning Center or the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, go to berkshiretaconic.org, or call 800-969-2823.

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