The Jean Moon Legacy Builder Award promotes and celebrates efforts to strategically grow an endowed fund at the Community Foundation of Howard County. The award is named after Jean F. Moon, former chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and co-founder of the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County. A champion for endowments and building self-sustainability through philanthropy, Jean built a legacy of unwavering commitment and support to her community. The award includes a $5,000 grant from the Foundation to the endowed fund recipient.
The Howard County Poetry and Literary Society (HoCoPoLitSo), established in 1974, is the inaugural recipient of the Jean Moon Legacy Builder Award. HoCoPoLitSo was the brainchild of Ellen Conroy Kennedy who had moved to Columbia with her husband, Pat Kennedy, the first president of the Columbia Association. Building on Ellen’s idea for a local literary group, she recruited two like-minded neighbors to help establish the organization: playwright and poet Prudence Barry and publicist Jean Moon, then a journalist.
During the past half century, the organization has hosted several dozen Nobel, Pulitzer and National Book Award winners and expanded the understanding and appreciation of contemporary literature. Tens of thousands, including five decades of students, have been enriched through several hundred carefully curated programs.
The Foundation salutes HoCoPoLitSo not only for its rich history as a cherished arts nonprofit, but also for its endowment fundraising campaign built around this significant anniversary. HoCoPoLitSo is one of about 30 local nonprofits that keep an endowment fund through the Community Foundation. These endowments invest a pool of assets for long-term sustainability and help an organization support its mission in perpetuity. In the lead up to its 50th Anniversary, HoCoPoLitSo set an ambitious goal to raise $100,000 for its endowment. That goal was met and exceeded, and HoCoPoLitSo will now begin its next half century with its endowment doubled.
About Jean Moon
Jean F. Moon and her husband Bob Moon came to Columbia to work and raise a family in Jim Rouse’s new city. Bob was an architect for the Rouse Company. Jean was a reporter for the Columbia Flier. She rose to editor of the paper, and soon was a partner and general manager of all of the Flier’s parent company, Patuxent Publishing.
In the mid-1990s Jean went off on her own. As a consultant, lobbyist and behind-the-scenes strategist, she began a second career that includes working for more than 75 Howard County businesses, organizations and nonprofits. As a nonprofit consultant, she has helped raise vital funds that provide critical services to Howard County residents.
In addition to raising a family and taking care of her business, she always found time for her other passions – mostly the arts and giving back to her community. She co-founded HoCoPoLitSo in 1974 with two friends, Ellen Kennedy and Prudence Barry. She was a co-creator of the Columbia Festival of the Arts. Jean thought that if there was something worth doing this community would allow for it, and that Howard County fostered a culture that allowed for these opportunities to create life-enriching experiences.
She joined the board of the Community Foundation, and she served as chair of the Board of Trustees from 1989-90. As Board chair, she championed endowed funds and began the Foundation’s planned giving program. In 2002, she was one of the pioneering women who created the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County under the umbrella of the Community Foundation. The giving circle utilizes shared values and collective giving to maximize philanthropic impact. Now nationally-recognized and one the Foundation’s largest and most active funds, the Women’s Giving Circle has made a consequential difference in the lives of women and girls in Howard County for more than 22 years. Now that’s a legacy.
Jean has also walked the walk with her own personal philanthropy. She and Bob created the Robert & Jean Moon Fund decades ago. It’s an unrestricted, endowed fund that will provide funds for the Foundation, and in turn for the community, in perpetuity. As a promoter and staunch believer of planned giving programs, she structured a gift that will provide long-term resources for both the Women’s Giving Circle endowment and the Robert & Jean Moon Fund endowment, further investing in our community for the long haul.
A true legacy.