With a first-ever paid director, the annual fund effort swings into gear.

Bob Linz and a crew of One Call for All volunteers spent Friday morning at the Filipino American Hall stuffing trademark red envelopes.

For Linz, the event was symbolic. He’s been on board a scant three weeks as One Call for All’s first executive director. And reaching out to donors – and to the non-profit organizations they’ll be giving to – is going to be a large part of his job.

“I get to meet lots of new people and ask them what they want to do for their community, and then encourage them to do it, and thank them when they do,” he said.

One Call for All, the conduit organization that collects and distributes donations to more than 80 non-profit groups on the island, had its genesis in 1958 when Ernest Biggs and a small band of community-minded cohorts sat down to conquer the demon of philanthropic inefficiency: volunteers making year-round house calls to collect money for multiple agencies.

For 47 years, One Call for All operated and grew as an all-volunteer outfit under the umbrella of the Bainbridge Foundation.

More non-profits “got in on the act,” as Biggs describes it, and at some point – he can’t remember when or by whom – the red envelopes became the harbinger of the One Call collection season.

“It was a very unique concept, and seemed to work beautifully,” he said.

What Biggs is having a slightly harder time adjusting to is the paradigm shift. In his mind, a large part of both the organization’s spirit, not to mention low overhead, lay in its all-volunteer staff.

One Call board President-Elect Kol Medina says leaders thought carefully about the type of structure that would best move the organization into the future, while staying true to its roots. But he also points out that while a purely volunteer staff was more than adequate to serve the perhaps 10 non-profits on its original roster, the playing field has changed, with yearly donations now nearing the $1 million mark.

“One Call for All has grown to a point here on the island where it’s extremely well known and has a lot of support – more support than we found a group of volunteers could make use of,” Medina said.

Medina also notes that while the dollar amount of funds collected and distributed through One Call has steadily risen over the years, the number of donors has remained “flat,” possibly because of lack of community awareness and the fact that “so many people are new, and they haven’t caught on to the culture yet.”

This, perhaps, gets at the core of Linz’s role, which he views as becoming the “face” of One Call.

A long-time islander, Linz has extensive community connections, having served on the boards of BPA, the Housing Resources Board, the Bainbridge Public Library and others, as well as being president-elect of the Rotary Club.

Linz describes his work in these early weeks as “doing deep homework to figure out who we are, and who we serve.” So he’s meeting with two to three heads of non-profit beneficiary organizations per day, as well as tackling day-to-day tasks like fielding office phone calls – “the face” is also “the voice” on One Call’s outgoing voicemail message.

“We want (Linz) to generally raise the presence of One Call for All in the community, so more people know about it and are willing to support it,” Medina said, “and to raise the number of people on the island who respond to that red envelope.”

For Biggs, even though change of this magnitude might not have been his first choice for One Call, his message to islanders now is the same as it was then.

“Dig deep,” Biggs said. “Because it supports so many island organizations now, and national organizations too, that I’m still 1,000 percent sold on it.

“I’m really pleased with the way things have gone.”

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Check the mail

Look for the red One Call for All envelope in your mailbox in early October. One Call for All collects and distributes funds for more than 80 non-profit agencies; with just one donation, islanders can support multiple organizations of their choice. See www.bainbridgefoundation.org.