David Golbitz | The Daily Nonpareil
September 14, 2022

The Community Foundation for Western Iowa celebrated the launch of its new SHARE Iowa program Tuesday with a ribbon cutting ceremony at Iowa Western Community College.

SHARE Iowa is an initiative, modeled after SHARE Omaha, designed to connect Iowans to nonprofit organizations through charitable donations, in-kind gifts and volunteerism.

“We really feel that there’s kind of an unmet need to support the nonprofits and help them better connect with the folks that really want to help them do their work, and that is exactly why SHARE was created,” said Donna Dostal, CFWI president and CEO. “And so for us to be able to help facilitate that for folks in Pottawattamie County, for folks in Page County, for towns all the way from Fremont County up to Monona ... We could not be more excited and honored to be able to do that.”

SHARE Iowa hopes to expand Iowa’s footprint with increased engagement and nonprofit capacity-building, with services now available in nine western Iowa counties: Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Monona, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, and Shelby.

The foundation partnered with SHARE Omaha to help get SHARE Iowa off the ground.

“From day one, we knew that our service in southwest Iowa needed its own identity, needed its own brand, needed its own team,” said SHARE Omaha executive director Marjorie Maas. “This is so meaningful to have the team of the Community Foundation for Western Iowa really behind this, from a staffing perspective, but also from an ideological perspective of trying to generate more philanthropy and more goodness across the area that they serve.”

Council Bluffs Mayor Matt Walsh thanked SHARE Omaha, and now SHARE Iowa, for their ability to step in and assist people in need.

“My office, almost every day, we get a call from people in need in the community,” Walsh said. “It’s not always something that city government can help them with, so we rely heavily on our nonprofit organizations, and I want to thank all (of) them for what they do. We’re a community with great need, and without our nonprofits, those people would go unserved.”

The ribbon cutting also provided guests with an opportunity to meet with and learn about area nonprofits that will benefit from SHARE Iowa’s infrastructure, including American Midwest Ballet, Midlands Humane Society and the 712 Initiative.

Using the Share Good platform, Iowa nonprofits that have been partnering with SHARE Omaha will have their data migrated automatically to the new SHARE Iowa website, so there will be no need to create a new account.

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