The SWIFT board will continue to manage two endowments worth about $330,000, said Todd Mitchell, president. But after giving out the already-pledged grants from 2007, the Clark County-focused organization will cease to exist as it has since 1975.

“I am in shock. It will be a tremendous loss to our community,” said Diane Christie, executive director of Share, which operates Clark County homeless shelters and food programs for the poor.

“I’ve been at Share for 18 years, and SWIFT has given to us for 13 or 14 of those years,” she said.

SWIFT, which stands for Southwest Washington Independent Forward Thrust, was instrumental in establishing a Share program that helps feed 250 schoolchildren every week.  

“They’ve done everything from putting new blinds on windows to much bigger projects,” Christie said.

Income from SWIFT’s yearly gala has steadily declined since 1997, which led the 25-member board to decide that the event’s fundraising potential didn’t justify its expense this year, Mitchell said. Participants will be notified this week about how they’ll be affected by the cancellation of the April 12 event, which was to take place at the Hilton Vancouver Washington. As a result, SWIFT won’t be able to hand out a new round of grants.

In 1997, SWIFT awarded $278,091 in grants, but by 2005 the grant total had declined to $124,164 and last year to $105,000, according to federal tax documents and a Columbian story from 2007. The number of agencies benefiting from SWIFT money had declined from 54 in 2003 to 37 last year.

The organization’s two-person staff will work through the end of the month.

When SWIFT was founded 33 years ago, few nonprofit groups were filling Clark County’s charitable needs. Since then, the number of community groups has proliferated, Mitchell said.

“The void SWIFT was filling doesn’t exist anymore the way it did.”