New FVCC Foundation Director Hopes to Continue Sharing College’s Story with Valley Residents

At the heart of the Flathead Valley Community College Foundation’s work are human stories: real-life students impacted by the funding it offers through scholarships, capital projects and investments on campus. As Charlotte Housel takes over as the foundation’s new executive director ahead of a broader leadership transition on campus when longtime FVCC President Jane Karas departs at the year’s end, it’s those stories she hopes to preserve and build on.

“I hope to bring many more people into the fold,” Housel said. “We have a big base of support here, but there are still lots of people in the valley who don’t understand how many lives FVCC touches, and I want to share that story with them, and I want to bring them in.”

Housel started in her role as the executive director at the foundation in June, helming the organization that focuses on capital projects, student scholarships and giving innovation grants to faculty. But just because the role as the foundation’s director is new, doesn’t mean Housel is inexperienced at working in a development role.

The New Jersey native moved to Montana 11 years ago, finding her way to the Treasure State by way of her husband, who grew up in the area. On the East Coast, she built her career working in New York ad agencies.

When Housel moved to Montana, she started volunteering with the county library. She worked her way into a role as the executive director of the ImagineIF Library Foundation, where she remained for five years and helped lead a capital campaign for the new Bigfork library before ultimately departing the role amid burnout and a strained relationship with the library’s board of trustees. Still, for Housel, leading the library’s development arm and helping create tangible impact sparked a desire to continue in that line of work. As she got to know the Flathead Valley better in that role, she said FVCC caught her eye.

“So many of the people that I know have been impacted by the college, so many people that I know are alums, so many people I know have kids who are going here,” Housel said. “… And being a part of something that big really seemed like a fit for my skills, and also a fit for the vision I have of this valley, which is one where everybody has opportunities and are constantly changing and growing and adapting.”

At the FVCC Foundation, Housel described a long tradition of “excellent” stewardship of donor dollars and stability. Largely, she said, that has stemmed from the emphasis her predecessors have placed on building relationships, alongside the ubiquitous presence of Karas, who has served as the college’s president for 25 years — an unheard-of tenure in university leadership, which typically has a high turnover rate.  

In recent years, the foundation has helmed efforts to build a college center, library and learning commons and has raised and given out millions in student scholarships.

Paramount for Housel as she has assumed the role as the foundation’s executive director is maintaining and growing the relationships that have made those projects possible and kept students’ costs down.

Housel described the foundation’s role in providing student scholarships as an especially critical effort, as college costs soar and opinions of higher education sour across the country. Keeping FVCC’s programs affordable and accessible for Flathead Valley residents — and removing barriers for more students to attend — is a major opportunity for FVCC, she said.

“I think that this is an important moment for community colleges and the role that we play in higher education,” Housel said. “The more affordable we can make an already affordable education, the more students we can serve.”

And Housel’s work maintaining and building on relationships has been a particularly important venture as the college prepares for Karas to step down from her role as president at the year’s end and is in the throes of selecting someone to take over for her.

“I hope the new leader is as passionate about building the case for collective impact as Jane has been, because the course of her 25 years as president has been remarkable and transformational,” Housel said. “And that’s because she’s always understood how to connect people to the mission, and then how to connect those people to each other so that they feel like they’re part of something. She’s a great relationship builder, and she’s also indefatigable… I hope that new person shares that dedication.”

Beyond Karas’s imminent retirement, Housel has taken over a team with several new members. Alisha Shilling has begun a role as the foundation’s events and corporate relationships manager; Margie Malaga is the new foundation coordinator; and the foundation has promoted Kimberly Carr from a role as the coordinator to a job as the foundation’s assistant director.

But Housel said, regardless of the new president and new team members, the foundation’s job remains the same: telling the college’s stories.

“The valley has grown… There are a lot of new people in the valley to tell this story to,” Housel said. “And that’s really exciting. There’s a whole new untapped group of people who are gonna fall in love with this place and fall in love with the students who get their tuition covered or fall in love with the college through the performing arts at the Wachholz Center, or through sending their kids through kids’ college, and it’s really exciting.”  

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