Mendocino County Museum receives $500,000 donation from the Trust of William L. Bittenbender

WILLITS CA., 5/19/22 – In the world of nonprofit donations, the rarest of all is the general operating donation. That’s a donation in which the receiving organization can use the monies for whatever it wishes: staffing, overhead, programming, capital or perhaps creating an endowment to further bolster its financial stability. This past week, one county organization was the recipient of such a generous type of donation: the Mendocino County Museum.

And it was a big donation – $500,000 – from the Trust of William L. Bittenbender. The museum received word in recent months from the trust that it would receive a dividend of the trust’s holdings, not knowing the exact amount. This month, the museum announced it would receive a gift of $500,000. “[This] overwhelmingly generous amount was not anticipated,” says Karen Mattson, museum administrator. “We are incredibly fortunate to receive the Bittenbender donation.”