Caring, Causes, & Connections

Over the past two weeks I’ve watched, with awe, the rapid progression of the trees outside my window from brown bare branches to a vibrant canopy of green.  Springtime never ceases to amaze me - it is the embodiment of the concept of critical mass.  At first everything is stark, then there are only a few small green buds, barely visible to the human eye, and before you know it, everything is lush and green.  Springtime isn’t a progression, its an explosion. 

Its like that sometime with grants and initiatives.  Nothing, nothing, nothing, then critical mass and an explosion of impact.  I wish we could bottle the correct balance of funding, information, expertise, connections and expectations necessary to artifically create critical mass for some of the daunting problems facing our community.  But like Springtime, sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate when it arrives. 

Marble or granite stones were periodically placed along a road during the Roman Empire both to reassure the traveler that the proper path is being followed and to indicate distance traveled.    The concept of a “milestone” is used equally today to mark an important stage of development or attainment of a critical goal.” 

Those words began my letter in our 25th Anniversary Book back in 2005 to commemorate a developmental milestone in the history of the Community Foundation of Lorain County.  In 2008 we will celebrate a milestone of a different nature as we will reach $50,000,000 of cumulative grants and scholarships awarded to better the community we call home.  I’ve been told that Jeptha Carrell, Eric and Evan Nord, and Bill Ginn told our founding Board that if done correctly and if enough people believe in the concept - one day the Community Foundation would make a significant impact in Lorain County.  

That thought was certainly proven correct!  And the beauty is that at 28 years young, the Community Foundation is still in our infancy and with $50 million of cumulative grants we are just beginning to make our impact.  Heres to the reaching the milestones of the future. 

We get a lot of traffic through our front door.  Our scholarship deadline is next Monday and we’ve had a steady stream of students (well actually its more often than not the parents) inquiring about necessary forms, financial documentation and the like.  Last week it was potential grantees making sure their application made the 5pm deadline.  Donors stop by to inquire about the fund they established or how best to make an additional gift.  Representatives from our School Endowment Fund Boards stop by to drop off a packet of gifts they’ve received from their donors.  Yes the People Who Care, that we work along side, visit us often.

But it is the other visitors that cause me to pause.  At least once a day the phone or the doorbell rings and we are asked whether we can help with heating bills, know where mental health counseling is provided, who might help with medical care or physical therapy. Sometimes it nothing more than directions are needed, but in any case, our staff refer to 211, look up addresses in the phone book, or refer from a list of community resources we have posted by the front door.  It isn’t our business, but we don’t want anyone leaving our office feeling like they haven’t been helped.

We try hard to provide the best philanthropic service possible to our donors.  We try equally hard to provide both funding and intellectual benefit to our grantees, and servant leadership to our community.  I hope that the reason that people contact us is that they believe that an organization called a “community foundation” is all about service.  I want the community foundation to be inviting and helpful.  I want people to know that when they call they’ll hear a warm, caring voice and sincere offer to serve.  I want people to know that our doors are open, even if its just for directions to the speech and hearing center.

Dr. Jeptha Carrell passed away last week.  Jep was instrumental in the creation of  Community Foundation of Lorain County when he was executive director of the Nordson Foundation and actually served as the chief executive of both organizations for ten years.  During his illustrious career, Jep was a college professor, Dean of Men, Director of a regional college consortium, city manager, researcher and of course philanthropist.  He authored more than 40 books and articles.  Jep served as school board president and led a major school district through desegregation and catalyzed untold agencies and initiatives into existence and success.  Jep is possibly best described as a quiet visionary, but he was not satisfied with just a vision - he did the hard work to make his visions a reality.  A master of collaboration, he was not afraid of the hard work.  And to all he met, he was a good listener, an empowerer, and a true friend. We know of example after example of the legacy Jep left here in Lorain County and elsewhere, but true to Jep’s nature, we will probably never know of the full extent of the impact of this gentle man.

Like many, I will miss Jep.  His wit, wisdom, and encouragement often sustained my spirit and he taught me that philanthropy is more than money and volunteerism is more than time.  He was a mentor to me and others in the truest sense of the word.   

Farewell my friend and job well done!

I had a real eye-opener the other day when I downloaded the Exempt Organization Master File from the Internal Revenue Service (and yes I’m sure many of you are starting to yawn at this point).  Actually, I’ve been looking for long time for a definitive answer to the question “Just how many nonprofit organizations are ther in Lorain County?“

The foundation uses Guidestar, IRS Publication 78, and the Ohio Secretary of State Business Database on a regular basis to verify the non-profit and tax exempt status of our grant seekers and I’ve been purplexed that there hasn’t been an easy way to aggregate the data.  The foundation has a pretty good mailing list, as do the other foundations, United Way, etc., but again there hasn’t been an easy way to determine the size of the sector is in Lorain County.  We’ve been forced to guess at the answer to this seemingly simple question.  Our guess was about 300.

Lo and behold, the solution was mentioned by a luncheon speaker at the Ohio Grantmakers Forum Annual Meeting and I immediately downloaded the file from the IRS website upon my return.  The data had to be massaged and typos adjusted, but finally I had a definitive source (at least in terms of who the IRS thinks is in existence and functioning).

Drum roll please…

As of 10/17/07 the IRS recognized 1,239 tax exempt organizations located in Lorain County.

Of those 786 have a 501(c)(3) status

Breaking down the numbers further:

171 are listed as churches, schools or hospitals
36 are supporting organizations
41 are private foundations
235 are charities that rely on fees and receipts for a majority of their income, and
303 are public charities that rely on public support.

I was struck by a couple of aspects of these findings.  First, there are a lot of people doing good work to improve the quality of life and quality of place in our community.  And second, in terms of public charities - our guessing was pretty much on target.