Scott Macdonald from Modern Woodman

​Our guest speaker this week was Scott McDonald (a/k/a Mark McDonald if you ask Joe Moreshead or Fausto) from the fraternal organization known as "Modern Woodmen".  Modern Woodmen has been around since 1883 and is really a financial advising firm though it also has insurance components and apparently is also a bank.  It is a non-profit organization which was originally established to support widows and orphans, in other words the same membership as credit unions.  All of its customers are its owners similar to a mutual savings bank or a credit union, but Modern Woodmen is a very large multi-billion dollar nationwide organization which is one of largest financial service organizations in the country.  

​The interesting thing about its business model is that because it is a non-profit, it pays no taxes and with the funds that are saved from not paying taxes it donates that money back to the communities that it serves.  Scott McDonald indicated that last year Modern Woodman contributed $636,000.00 to different causes in the State of Maine.  Modern Woodmen's primary benevolent effort includes a matching fund program in which they will match different fundraising efforts up to $2,500.00. 

​Modern Woodmen sells the same investment products and provides the same services that most banks and other financial advising firms may provide but their emphasis is on promoting community.  They sponsor speech contests for third to sixth graders and they provide educational materials for a whole host of subjects from ecology awareness to financial literacy.  They also provide every day hero awards to individuals in the community who go above and beyond the call of duty and those individuals receive a plaque and $100 to donate to their favorite charity.  Modern Woodmen, like our Rotary Club, sponsors a number of college scholarships, and, like our Club, they also enjoy getting involved in hands-on projects.  

​The reason we invited Scott McDonald of Modern Woodmen to come and speak, is because his organization matched the funds raised at the Chamber of Commerce auction this year resulting in a significant contribution to our Red Ribbon Committee.  No one really knew what Modern Woodmen was about so this gave us a chance to learn about Modern Woodmen while also giving Scott an opportunity to let us know about all of the good things that his company is involved in.  It would certainly seem that our Club might be able to collaborate with Modern Woodmen in the future on other projects and, if you are involved in any other non-profits, you may want to reach out to Scott (who has fantastic chocolate business cards).