25-year milestones: New leader, new headquarters for Children’s Literacy Foundation
March 25, 2023 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
After leading the Children's Literacy Foundation since 1998, Duncan McDougall will step down as executive director at the end of this month. His successor is Laura Rice who has nonprofit experience and spent six years as a CLiF board member. Courtesy photo
The Children’s Literacy Foundation has some big transitions underway as it celebrates its 25th anniversary of promoting reading and writing for young children in Vermont and New Hampshire.
The Waterbury organization’s new headquarters is nearing the completion of construction along Vermont Route 100 in Waterbury Center near Cold Hollow Cider Mill. The building will allow the nonprofit – known as CLiF – to move out of the Loomis Hill Road home of founder Duncan McDougall, who plans to step down as executive director on April 1.
Ready to succeed McDougall is newly named Executive Director Laura Rice who was chosen from a search over the past several months that attracted nearly 50 applicants.
Rice emerged as the best choice having previously spent six years on CLiF’s board of directors, including a stint as board chair. She also has over 20 years of professional experience at “mission-driven organizations,” according to the announcement of her hire. She has spent the last 11 years in leadership roles at WISE, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit dedicated to ending gender-based violence in the Upper Valley.
“I have long admired CLiF's dynamic and inclusive ways of motivating children to read and write, and I strongly believe these inspired young people will lead themselves and our communities to bright futures,” Rice commented. “I am absolutely thrilled to join the amazing CLiF team as it carries the tremendous momentum of Duncan and the past 25 years forward.”
McDougall founded the nonprofit in 1998 and it’s operated out of his home ever since with the mission to provide children of low-income families new books and literacy activities. CLiF estimates that it has given away more than $10 million of new books to more than 375,000 children in some 430 communities in the region. Books have gone to children in shelters and low-income housing, children in foster care and in refugee and migrant families, children in rural communities with limited resources, and those who have a parent incarcerated.
The mission for CLiF under Rice will continue to be “inspiring children across Vermont and New Hampshire to fall in love with reading and writing,” McDougall said. “I could not be more pleased to hand over the reins to her.”
Rice will take over as CLiF moves into its new 3,000-square-foot headquarters on the west side of Route 100. The building is more than twice the size of the space at McDougall’s home and with more work space and storage space for books and materials to enable the staff to serve more children. CLiF currently has six staff members and roughly 15 regular volunteers.
The organization recently posted a video online with a walk-through of the new building as it nears completion. Find that on its Facebook page.
In recognition of McDougall’s role in founding and growing the nonprofit, the new offices will be named in his honor. A celebration marking the 25th anniversary will be held next month.
Also in April, the organization will go before the town Board of Civil Authority with a request to exempt the office property from property taxes. The Board of Listers in February received the request and forwarded it to the Board of Civil Authority for action, according to Municipal Manager Tom Leitz.
The Board of Civil Authority consists of the Select Board, the Town Clerk, and the town’s Justices of the Peace. It will convene at 6 p.m. on April 17 to hear the tax request. Town officials have granted such requests for two other nonprofit property owners – the Ice Center and Hunger Mountain Children’s Center.
Ahead of its permitting process, CLiF went to town officials with another request to change the town’s regulations regarding the project size threshold for development review. Previously, commercial projects proposed for building sites larger than 1 acre were subject to state land use review under Act 250. The CLiF project on 1.3 acres just triggered that requirement. McDougall suggested that the step would be unduly costly for the organization. Town officials agreed to the requested change and amended the town ordinance in November 2021. The new threshold for Act 250 review is 10 acres.