Donna Hathaway: Committed to Community and County

When it came time to plan her estate, this Dover-Foxcroft accountant and former Piscataquis County Fund advisor turned to the Maine Community Foundation.

Donna Hathaway is a seasoned nonprofit volunteer. In her many years advising boards and committees, she has learned a lot about how nonprofit organizations work – and don’t. One thing Hathaway noticed: Few nonprofit advisors have investing experience and financial circumstances sometimes lead to poor decisions. “In trying to juggle program budgets with limited funds,” she says, “even those organizations with endowments are sometimes tempted, in financially hard times, to withdraw money when it is irresponsible to do so from an investment point of view.”

So, when it came time to create her will, Hathaway, a certified public accountant, called on the Maine Community Foundation because she trusts its professional money management. Her bequest to MaineCF will support in perpetuity some of the many organizations she has worked with in Piscataquis County. “Dealing with one organization for my planned giving simplified and streamlined my estate planning while still meeting my objectives,” she says.

Hathaway and MaineCF go back a ways. She joined the Piscataquis County Committee in 2007 and helped advise grantmaking and build philanthropic resources, including the Piscataquis County Fund, for the next nine years. In that role, she saw firsthand the financial challenges small nonprofit organizations faced. “Working with other members of the county committee, many of whom I hadn’t met before becoming an advisor, to learn about new projects and prioritize the limited funding available across the county was truly eye-opening.”

But Hathaway best remembers the satisfaction of helping small nonprofit organizations build capacity. “Piscataquis County Fund grants make a significant difference in the programs nonprofit organizations are able to bring to communities,” she says, including helping to build more productive boards with the assistance of capacity-building support. “The county fund is an important resource,” she believes. “It will continue to grow and support a variety of nonprofit organizations working to build community and help meet the unmet needs of the region.”

Born in Dover-Foxcroft, Hathaway graduated from Foxcroft Academy in 1966 and went on to earn a BA in mathematics with highest distinction from the University of Maine. She married attorney Arthur Hathaway in 1968 and worked for more than two decades as a legal assistant/ paralegal in his Dover-Foxcroft law firm. They raised a family of four (she now has six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren).

As her children got older, Hathaway returned to school and attended Husson College for courses in public accounting. She became a licensed CPA in 1988 and was self-employed in that profession for nearly 20 years until she retired in 2006. “I was raised by generous parents who believed in giving back,” says Hathaway, explaining how she learned about philanthropy in her youth. Her husband, who passed away in 1992, also influenced her giving. “He believed in the importance of supporting your community and was adamant that even small nonprofits should have endowments.”

For much of her life Hathaway has given back to her community and county, be it serving on the finance committee for the Congregational Church in Dover-Foxcroft, her 23-year tenure as trustee treasurer of Foxcroft Academy or being on the board of the Piscataquis YMCA. And there’s no letting up: She currently is a member of the Pine Tree Hospice Finance Committee, a director of the University of Maine Foundation, and a corporator of Bangor Savings Bank. She also supervises accounting for the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council.

Despite her extensive volunteer responsibilities, Hathaway manages to get away. She spends summers at her cottage on Sebec Lake and has traveled across the U.S. and Europe. “I have a long bucket list and I hope to travel more once COVID-19 is under control,” she says. She has also enjoyed singing with the University of Maine Oratorio Society and the Dexter Community Chorus for several years.

Whether sheet music or spreadsheets, Hathaway gives it her all.

To learn more about planned giving at the Maine Community Foundation, visit www.mainecf.org. For a private consultation, please call (207) 761-2440 or email info@mainecf.org. If you have already named the foundation in your will, please let us know. We’d be honored to have you become a Friend of Maine.

Photo: Donna Hathaway in her garden in Dover-Foxcroft. Photo Gabe Souza