Moving Further Forward: A Pivotal Transition for the Couch Family Foundation

Since 2002, the Couch Family Foundation, headquartered in Hanover, NH, has invested in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont, partnering to provide innovative community grants to help families and children thrive.

As the Foundation was launching into a new phase with a full family board—composed of founders Barbara and Richard Couch and their three daughters, Brooke, Alexa and Chloe—the Foundation needed technical and administrative support to build out its mission. To that end it developed a long-standing and effective partnership with Mott Philanthropic starting in 2015.

In 2022, following a thoughtful strategic planning exercise, the Foundation’s Trustees committed to build upon what they had learned from their work with the Mott Philanthropic team in the Upper Valley to further expand the Couch Family Foundation’s Early Care and Education strategy statewide in New Hampshire.

In tandem, the Trustees sought to grow the Foundation’s own internal capacity to support its initiatives and to carefully transition from the assistance and guidance that the Mott team has so reliably provided for nearly 10 years. They hired their first executive director, Sara Vecchiotti, and later added two additional staff members, Kim Cooper and Sarah Robinson, to their team in August of this year, with plans to hire new full-time staff to expand the Foundation’s Upper Valley and state-wide work in New Hampshire.

“We are so grateful to the Mott Philanthropic team for the relationships they’ve built with us and our many grantee partners over the years,” says Foundation Board Advisor and Managing Director Brooke Couch Freeland, “They have been instrumental in shaping and executing our grantmaking strategy to focus on early childhood in the Upper Valley and more recently statewide.”

Freeland emphasizes that the Mott partnership has been instrumental to the development of the Foundation—and the Trustees are deeply appreciative for the quality and success of their work leading to this important stage in the Couch Family Foundation’s evolution.

“It has been both exciting and professionally rewarding to support the Foundation’s mission and help position it to stand on its own, especially as the effort to improve early care and education policy and practice in the Granite State expands and builds,” says Mott Program Officer Michael Bennett.

“It has been a pleasure to support the Couch Family Foundation these many years and to help shape its grantmaking strategy,” Mott Program Officer Jessie Ratey adds. “We have so valued the collaboration with our grantee partners and stakeholder colleagues on the shared goal of positive change for children and families.”

“We are grateful to Program Officers, Michael Bennett and Jessie Ratey, and Grants Manager Paula Lentoni of Mott Philanthropic for representing the Couch Family Foundation with compassion, integrity, partnership, and trust,” says Brooke Couch Freeland. “They have been excellent stewards of the Foundation, and we are grateful for the manner in which they represented us across many diverse networks.”

The transition plan includes a period from January through March of next year for new Foundation staff and Mott staff to work together with grantees and stakeholder partners to ensure a smooth transition.

“We embark on our next steps with gratitude to the Mott team and excitement for the continued growth of the Foundation to further fulfill our mission and achieve our strategic goals,” Freeland said.