An organization dedicated to bettering the life of Yukoners has turned 25 this year.

The Yukon Foundation, which accepts donations and the proceeds of estates, is a fund dedicated to helping Yukoners help one another.

Founding member Rolf Hougen said the idea for the foundation was borrowed from a similar foundation in Vancouver, which started in 1950, and came into being 25 years ago after a conversation he had with friend and fellow Yukoner Howard Firth.

'It left the territory, there was no means of that money staying in the Yukon,' Hougen said in an interview last week.

The savings and estates of many Yukoners who had passed away without family ended up in a bank account of the federal government.

Hougen explained the fund, now in the millions, is used for a variety of purposes such as educational scholarships and the funding of various nonprofit groups in the territory.

'We got a group started for the purpose of allowing people to leave something in the Yukon,' Hougen said.

'The fund is a way of being remembered in perpetuity,' he said, explaining that individuals or groups who left money to the foundation could choose where their money goes.

Hougen said the fund is going strong and that the foundation has received some big donations in the past, including from founding member Roy Minter, who left the organization more than $200,000.

The founding members of the Yukon Foundation were: Ione Christensen, now the Yukon's Liberal senator, Laurent Cyr, Belle Desrosier, Bill Drury, Bob Erlam, the Star's owner from the 1960s until 2002, Tom Firth, Chuck Halliday, Hougen, Lorraine Joe, Minter, former Yukon MP Erik Nielsen, former Yukon government leader Willard Phelps, Gordon Ryder, former Yukon commissioner James Smith, Aubrey Tanner, Charlie Taylor and author Flo Whyard, a former Star editor, former Whitehorse mayor and ex-member of the Yukon Territorial Council.

According to the foundation, its objectives are 'to promote educational advancement and scientific or medical research for the enhancement of human knowledge ... (and to) contribute to the mental, cultural and physical well-being of the residents of the Yukon Territory.

'In order to attain these objectives, the Yukon Foundation is empowered: to receive bequests, devices and donations of every kind and description whatsoever, and hold, control, administer and deal with property of every kind and description, whether real or personal ...'

Foundation chair John Firth said for the sake of continuity, the foundation does not distribute the actual donations itself.

'We cannot distribute any of the principle, we can only distribute the interest,' Firth said last week.

Donations were conservatively managed by RBC Dominion Securities, with 90 per cent invested in bonds and the remaining 10 per cent invested in equities.

Firth, a local financial services advisor, said individuals or corporations in the Yukon could also donate money on an annual basis if they wanted to assist Yukoners.

'Individuals can donate $50 a year and groups can donate $100 a year,' he said.

He said he encouraged people who may need to access money for things such as education to visit the foundation's website, review the criteria and apply to the foundation for funding.

'Approximately one in seven people who apply are selected,' Firth said.

'People can apply through the website; check the criteria, download the form and send it in,' he said.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Yukon Foundation should visit www.yukonfoundation.com.

Meanwhile, Roche Firth Financial Services Inc. has invited the general public to an open house to celebrate the foundation's 25th anniversary.

The event is set for 5-7 p.m. Thursday at Zola's Cafe Dore in the Hougen Centre.