‘It’s life-changing’

It is suppertime at the Buteau home, a compact 1900s New Englander in a welcoming neighborhood at the base of a wooded hill in Berlin. The five Buteau kids — ranging in age from 8 to 15 — take their plates and gather at the table.

This home is why this family is a family. Adoptions had been pending for the two of the Buteau kids, Asherah and Gavin, but the family’s previous rental home (a 900-square-foot mobile home) did not provide requisite space for their adoptions to be approved.

Shannon Buteau is the director of the Gorham Public Library; her husband, Jake Buteau, is a college and career counselor. In a tight and expensive housing market — and with rising costs on everything from groceries to utilities — they could not afford to save for a home.

In a desperation move, Shannon emailed Affordable Housing Education and Development and learned about a program funded by the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation for families just like theirs.

Through the Pathways to Homeownership program, the Buteaus got help with all the details of their FHA loan, home ownership education — and, critically, funds to cover their closing costs.

“Our family as we know it depended on this opportunity,” Shannon said.

Ripple effects

Neil Tillotson of Dixville Notch did not set out to make sure the Buteaus could buy their home and stay living and working in the region.

He did not foresee new vibrancy on Main Street in Lancaster, or nurses and police officers in Gorham able to go to work because child care was available for their kids. He did not envision people from across the region working together to address shared community problems. He did not picture a beloved skating rink brought back to rollicking life in Whitefield, solar panels making energy more affordable for towns from Stratford to Pittsburg, world-class performing arts acts coming to Colebrook, a mobile STEM lab delivering lessons for local children or North Country kids trekking out on snowshoes into the same landscape that he dearly loved. He just wanted the North Country to be a great place for people to live.

Neil Tillotson, a businessman and entrepreneur fondly known as “The Mayor of Dixville Notch,” left his assets simply “to charity” when he died at 102 in 2001. His wife, Louise Tillotson, entered into a partnership with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation 20 years ago that helped make all of those things — and many more — happen.

“He was so brilliant and so creative, and that creativity and entrepreneurial spark is something I see in the Tillotson Fund,” said Chuck Henderson, a lifelong North Country resident who works on projects and policy in the region for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Without the Fund, he said, Coös County would be worse off today “in almost any way imaginable. But with it, there is all this hope.”

Since 2006, the Tillotson Fund has distributed more than $68 million in grants and scholarships in Coös County and surrounding communities — and it is positioned to continue in perpetuity. The Fund distributes about $5 million in grants annually.

Benoit Lamontagne works in the North Country for the state’s Department of Business and Economic Affairs. He said that the Fund is especially critical for a region that relies on local innovation and commitment to surmount challenges brought about by decline of the pulp and paper and furniture industries.

“I applaud the fact that the Tillotson Fund continues to be steadily involved in good projects and to help the good people that Mr. Tillotson loved so much,” he said.

Rooted in community

In 2026, the Tillotson Fund is focused on supporting well-being for people and families, a thriving workforce, healthy environment and resilient communities. All of the work is informed by a wide cross-section of people from the region. “Moving,” as Tillotson Fund Director Sonya Salanti often says, “at the speed of trust.” (Salanti manages the fund with colleagues Phoebe Backler and Christa Hollingsworth — all of whom live and work in the region).

The Fund’s Homes NorthNH initiative grew from years of engagement with people, municipalities, nonprofits and businesses. The current housing crisis combined with local economic realities mean that many people are unable to buy homes because they cannot save for a down payment or closing costs. One solution: remove that barrier by covering those costs.

Homes NorthNH includes funding for the Pathways to Homeownership program administered by AHEAD — which helped the Buteaus — as well as funding for housing development and other housing solutions.

In just two years, the Pathways program has helped teachers, electricians, nurses, firefighters, mechanics and more into their own homes — 55 households in all across Cöos County. That success has prompted additional funders to help the program expand to Grafton County.

The downpayment assistance is given free and clear — people simply need to qualify economically and agree to keep the homes as a primary residence for five years.

“This is how you reignite people to be part of a community — you give them ownership in the community,” said Harrison Kanzler of AHEAD. “These are future selectmen and planning board members and school board members.”

Other areas of the Fund’s work are similarly community focused: A long-term initiative to improve early care and education for children has supported coordination and professional development for early childhood providers, and strengthened early childhood care and interventions and supports for families.

“This work has helped align and prioritize our goals across families, health care providers, early learning professionals and schools,” said Kelly Dussault, executive director of the Coös Coalition for Young Children and Families. “We are no longer working in parallel, we are working together with a shared purpose. The result is stronger collaboration and a healthier start for young children in Coös.”

Long-term work focused on teens and young people has created opportunity for deeper community involvement, leadership development, outdoor experience, positive school environments and more.

The Fund helped to launch the Community Builders Hub, which has three “community stewards” working with their neighbors on a slew of homegrown ways to bring joy, connection and opportunity to their communities.

Tillotson Fund grants helped provide for emergency needs during the pandemic, have helped the New Hampshire Food Bank improve food availability in the region, supported community health centers and mental health centers, economic development efforts, nonprofit news coverage — and much, much more.

Chuck Henderson’s work brings him to many tables where addressing North Country needs is foremost on the agenda.

“When we are thinking about some need in Coös, we often say ‘Let’s see if Tillotson has some ability to address this.’ And there are very few times when the first word is, ‘No, we can’t do that.’ It’s, ‘Let’s think of a way to address that.’”

Not foreordained

Neil Tillotson’s directive was simple. Implementing it was not.

He had named more than a dozen trustees from around the country — family, business associates and longtime advisors — to determine what would happen with the money. Louise Tillotson was foremost among them.

Everyone had an opinion, said Ben Gayman, who was Mrs. Tillotson’s attorney. “But they were sort of paddling in different directions.” The discussions, at times, seemed endless. At one meeting, Mrs. Tillotson leaned over and whispered to her attorney: “Mr. Gayman, will you tell them to stop?”

Gayman suggested that the group consider the Charitable Foundation.

The Foundation “provided the organization, the expertise, the resources and the infrastructure needed to operate,” Gayman said. “They stepped in and filled the void perfectly.” Over time, the advisors would agree to move all of the assets that Neil Tillotson had designated “for charity” to the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund and smaller affiliated funds at the Foundation, including one that benefits Coaticook, Quebec.

Tom Deans of Conway was a vice president at the Foundation who was instrumental in the Fund’s establishment, and became a Fund advisor after he retired.

“With the wonderful leadership of Racheal Stuart and Kirsten Scobie and now Sonya, we have been blessed with outstanding leaders who have been very committed to this notion of a community based and driven charitable fund,” he said, “it has been really wonderful to watch that evolution.”

“If Mrs. Tillotson were here now, she would be so impressed,” Gayman said.
“I can imagine her sitting at the table and appreciating the evolution, the thought and the impact of the philanthropy.”

A family Thanksgiving

On the family’s first Thanksgiving in their new home, the Buteaus welcomed their entire extended families. Shannon’s side came first — 21 people for dinner, featuring a turkey that Jake smoked out back. There were folding tables, serving stations, people sitting out on the front porch. Then Jake’s side came, 18 strong, and enjoyed a buffet of pies (made by the five Buteau kids) for dessert.

It was the first time Shannon and Jake had ever been able to host their families for a holiday.

“We love Cöos County,” said Shannon, sitting in her family living room surrounded by children’s artwork, school portraits and family photos. “Being able to offer all of the kids stability and being able to stay in our community…it’s life-changing.”