My Community Matters

Guest Post: Get Out There and Hug a Tree Today!

2012-04-27T00:00:00-04:00

Guest post from Kate Luckert Schmid,Community Foundation Program Director

Arbor Day is the perfect time to stop and take notice of the tremendous value trees have on our community. While the beauty of a tree is evident, only recently has research begun to prove the lifetime benefits of a tree on our environment, our health, and our economy. In fact, recent estimates have suggested that the current 35% tree canopy in the City of Grand Rapids provides over $372,000,000 in benefits from reduced storm water runoff and increased air quality alone.

The Community Foundation is excited to support local effort to increase our urban tree canopy to 40% - requiring at least another 185,000 trees to be planted and cared for. In order to have a thriving urban forest we are going to need extensive community support and action. Since only about 5% of the available planting spots are on property owned by the City, the majority of trees will need to be planted on private property. This is where you and I come in!

We are starting with a two year grant to the Friends of Grand Rapids Parks which will afford them the opportunity to launch the Urban Forest Project – a multi-faceted effort to provide opportunities for people of all ages to get engaged in growing our urban canopy. The Urban Forest Project is developing a web resource center for all things tree-related, a crowd-sourced tree inventory, and multiple events to encourage tree planting and care. We encourage you to think about ways to involve others you are connected with – maybe your neighbors, classmates, church, or employer.

Tools and resources to help build the long term vitality of our urban forest are on the way. So, stay tuned for ways that you can help ensure an even greener Arbor Day in Grand Rapids’ future!

News at the ground level! The Rapidian is all about our community!

2012-04-16T15:00:00-04:00

My dad was an editor extraordinaire. He was a valued employee at The Detroit News for more than 45 years starting as a carrier and climbing the ladder to become the highly regarded Sports Editor retiring in 1979. His words of wisdom over the years still ring in my ears as he valued good writing and knew that the role of an editor was to make good stories even better! (He would say, "Win is NOT a noun! I wish headline writers would stop using that word as if it was!")

With this as my personal backdrop, I listened to Roberta King, this Community Foundation's Vice-President for PR and Marketing, as she made the case for submitting a proposal to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of an initiative involving community foundations across the country entitled the Community Information Challenge a few years back providing an incentive for local level communications.

My initial reaction was - "so what impact will this really make and don't we have enough on our plates already?" If anyone knows Roberta, you know that this is more of an invitation to create the best and not be deterred by a boss that may not quite "get it" thank heavens!

Enter Laurie Cirivello the president of Grand Rapids Community Media Center. She has been a tremendous asset to the greater Grand Rapids area continuing to implement the broad vision of the late Dirk Koning. Roberta knew that if anyone could help design an effort, that Laurie was the just the person to do so. Many design meetings were held in our conference room, ideas galore were generated landing on the plan that ultimately birthed The Rapidian. The Knight Foundation agreed that this idea had legs and gave us a grant!

From the beginning, the community participated in growing the idea into reality. As Holly Bechiri, The Rapidian's Managing Editor notes: "Beginning April 16th, an Education Week will kick off [a] fund drive as we learn more about why we as a community need to embrace and support the news coming from our own citizens. Partnering rather than competing with local media outlets, The Rapidian instead gives citizens the opportunity to be involved with the changing landscape of media."

Encouraging people at the neighborhood level to provide their take on issues facing our community and new opportunities for growth, The Rapidian has grown in importance in the past two and a half years. The Grand Rapids Community Foundation also proudly provided seed funding to bring this idea to fruition.

Now it's time to provide the opportunity for our community to financially support this on the ground, hyperlocal news source! A great development actually - a move for sustainability. While this blog isn't usually a place that reaches out to ask for financial support for the many worthwhile causes in our area, I am making an exception and asking for your consideration to support The Rapidian powered by the Community Media Center. "Join me in supporting The Rapidian: the hyperlocal news source powered by the people of Grand Rapids!" Visit The Rapidian website to learn more about this fund drive and the great services being provided! http://therapidian.org

The Social/Nonprofit Sector - what will it look like decades from now?

2012-02-15T18:05:00-05:00

Provocateur: a person who provokes trouble, causes dissension, or the like; agitator. OR, according to the Sieger definition, is it a person who causes one to step out of their zone and look at the world in another way!?

I am constantly thinking about the future and the role that Grand Rapids Community Foundation is playing and can be playing in that future. For me, it is no longer just a question of our relevancy but something much more than that. Are we really ready for what is just over the horizon?

At the annual Council on Foundations’ Conference for Community Foundations last September, a leader in our field challenged the audience to really look at ourselves and question whether the community foundation “model” was sustainable. I am used to this fine gentleman’s attempt to try to create a stir. And while I was listening to some degree, I thought he was asking the wrong question.

The question is whether the social sector – the nonprofit field if you will - actually be the same in 10 – 20 – even 50 years from now. And community foundations aren’t the only nonprofit corporations that need to really think about this.

More specifically, will fund raising really sustain the sector in terms of revenue generation to build capacity and continue to make an impact? It could be argued that partnerships with governmental sources, creating subsidiary businesses to provide income, and other ideas will help bolster the sector. But what I’m looking into - - - - what will the sector look like and how will the sector grow in terms of resources beyond asking for money? Hmmmm. Ponder that one. More to follow.

What was your first job? What summer jobs did you have? How did this impact your life?

2012-01-10T18:17:00-05:00

Shelley Irwin, host of WGVU Radio Morning Show as well as WGVU-TV programs, has had me on every month on her radio show in a segment known as “Perspectives in Philanthropy” for a number of years. It is a great way to delve into topics of interest in our community as well as highlight key aspects of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.

This past Monday on Shelley’s show, I talked about the key accomplishments of the Community Foundation in 2011 and provided a glimpse into what I thought would be happening in 2012 overall in terms of charitable giving and the local economy. We got to talking about an important effort that was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation last May focusing on summer youth employment opportunities focusing particularly on youth of color. That sparked a quick conversation on air about our summer jobs back in the day!

Shelley is younger than I am and frankly these days it seems like everyone is younger than me! A testament to my age is that my first job was that as a want-ad checker at The Detroit News. The ad copy would be on sheets of paper that looked like Western Union telegrams that would be filed alphabetically by classification of the ads by a group of high school students, mostly children of News employees. This was so long ago that there were separate categories for jobs for women and jobs for men! Frankly when you think about it – it wasn’t THAT long ago. No wonder women still are trying to climb the ladder of equality! But that’s a blog entry for another time.

The radio program conversation made me curious so I went on Facebook and posed the question - what were the first jobs or summer jobs of the friends I follow on that social media site. Very interesting results! Is there a correlation between those first employment forays and the careers or jobs that people hold today? AND most importantly, how this does relates to young people who are eager to enter the job market and their future success? Here’s a wonderful journal written by our Public Relations Intern Molly Murray last summer who interviewed some young people who participated in the summer program. This is well worth reading!

In case you are curious, here are only some of the results of my Facebook inquiry regarding first jobs or summer jobs:

Worked in food service in a nursing home. I was an expert in pureed veggies!
Ice cream scooper at a small joint on Grand Rapids’ NE side
Gas attendant at a gas station at Breton Village.
Babysitting was my first paying job. I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts and Sally’s Beauty Supply. I also started my own cupcake business with a good friend.
Mowed lawns for $1 a yard. Started when I was 14 in the neighborhood. Had a nice little business and made $12 a week!
Pruned trees and worked on watersheds for the Youth Conservation Corps.
“Tool Crib Girl” at Lear Siegler!
Salad Girl at the Pen Club
And many more!

The point of all this is that we all had opportunities to develop our skills, learned how to “go to work”, and developed an appreciation for what it takes to be employed! I know from reading the journal compiled by Molly Murray that the young people employed last summer through the efforts of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and many wonderful nonprofit partners in our community that they also had the good experiences to help catapult them into future occupations and careers - and key to this was that they were given the opportunity !

Kind of makes you wonder . . . how did a want-ad checker become a Foundation President? Hard work, perseverance and knowing how to relate to many different people in many different situations! Onward we go!

You Poor Souls! ;-)

2011-12-02T15:00:00-05:00

It's time for Diana's Soapbox!

For years, I have been on a mission to help people understand that the nonprofit sector is not second class! While the sector has been hit hard by the recession, what sector hasn't? Well, MiBiz is featuring a section of their publication now focusing on the nonprofit sector and frankly I couldn't be more pleased. I am not trying to promote this publication over any other but I am just making a point that with all the focus on how the nonprofit sector should be more businesslike and other uninformed comments like that I've heard over the years, frankly this is refreshing.

In the November 28th issue, the section on nonprofits was introduced and in that section was an article that featured my opinion on the nonprofit sector and its role in helping to revitalize our state of Michigan. As a sign used to proclaim in my office, "everyone is entitled to my opinion", please feel free to open this link and be greeted by my thoughts!

Lessons learned from a Generous Man

2011-11-26T09:27:00-05:00

Fred Meijer passed away on November 25th a few days shy of his 92nd birthday. He was a staunch and generous supporter of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. My memories of Fred are so wonderful and here is merely a glimpse:

Twenty some years ago, David LaClaire our board chair at the time, invited Fred Meijer to lunch along with me to discuss a gift to the Community Foundation. I remember a warm and real person who asked me a lot of questions about who I was and my family. He and his wife, Lena, had initiated a scholarship fund for the children of Meijer associates back in 1975 and it was understandable that he wanted to know more about the person who was running the Community Foundation now.

The lunch conversation was lively and fun! However rather subtly the discussion changed from the agenda that David and I had fashioned to Fred's philanthropic agenda. His dreams were expansive punctuated by the desire to have a community botanical garden that mirrored those he visited in Europe. It was fascinating. Then there was the time he invited me out to the Meijer Headquarters to see the statues and outside art he had commissioned to realize his vision of a community garden. A huge garage alongside the corporation's parking lot housed these treasures. He was beyond proud with a decided twinkle in his eyes as he looked to the future.

That was something I will always remember about Fred Meijer! Not only innovative, caring, philanthropic but reaching out to the future! He did believe in the positive strength of endowment and he and Lena demonstrated that by establishing Donor Advised Funds for their grandchildren passing the baton of giving back. What a visionary!

There are many stories that people will have about Fred Meijer that will be shared over the next few days and I have many more as well! Thank you Fred Meijer for shining the light of philanthropy for all! You will be missed tremendously! Thank you for a life well-lived! My sympathies to Fred's wife Lena and the entire Meijer family.

Joint Statement on the Charitable Tax Deduction

2011-11-17T16:12:22-05:00

Grand Rapids Community Foundation and Heart of West Michigan United Way have issued a joint statement regarding the possible threat and erosion of the charitable tax deduction. This is an important issue and could have negative implications for our community.

We have forwarded this to Rep. David Camp and Rep. Fred Upton who are on the SuperCommittee and represent districts in Michigan with the following message:

"Attached you will find a combined statement from Grand Rapids Community Foundation and the Heart of West Michigan United Way regarding the charitable tax deduction.
In your Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction deliberations please keep in mind the repercussions of any change in the charitable tax deductions. We believe that preservation of this incentive for giving is vital to the work of both the Community Foundation and the United Way. Our ability to make grants and provide programming depends on charitable gifts. The economic downturn has made our work more challenging, not only from a service provision standpoint but from a fundraising perspective as well."

Please read and take action!

Threat to the Charitable Tax Deduction

2011-10-17T13:42:00-04:00

Over the years, I have either participated in or witnessed the "great debate" around why people give to causes and various nonprofit organizations. Recently, I had a lively conversation on Facebook with a woman who was adamant that people would give to causes regardless of having a tax incentive or not. I acknowledged that while many do give because they believe so strongly in the cause, if we lost the ability to offer a charitable tax deduction frankly I do believe that would have a tremendous negative impact on the nonprofit/social sector.

Given the fact that both at state and federal governmental levels, there exists a serious deficit problem, it is no wonder that many proposals and legislation are being introduced to try to stem the tide of financial woes. For the 4th time, President Obama is proposing a change on the charitable tax deduction for households with income greater than $200,000 or net worth greater than $1 million. This is part of the President's formal recommendations to the supercommittee charged with developing a deficit reduction plan by November 23rd.

According to the Council on Foundations:

"The administration has proposed disallowing any charitable deduction to the extent such a deduction reduces the income tax liability of the donor by more than 28% of the donation. Individuals subject to the highest tax rates - currently 33 percent and 35 percent, and scheduled to increase to 36 percent and 39.6 percent in 2011 - would see the tax benefit of their charitable deductions reduced significantly."

This is a big issue for the philanthropic community! I believe that this proposal could be the beginning of a slippery slope; merely the start of undoing the charitable tax deduction which has been in existence for more than 100 years. I am wary that if the charitable tax deduction is reduced once, it will continue to be whittled away over time. Even if a small portion of donors take advantage of itemizing their charitable donations, we don't need a reason to take away giving particularly at this moment in time! We need to encourage people to give! I will write more on this issue - this could have the impact of billions of dollars to the philanthropic sector across the country.

I love our donors!

2011-09-15T16:24:50-04:00

This past Monday we hosted our annual Metz Legacy Society Luncheon at the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College. In a word, it was fabulous! Metz members are those generous donors who have indicated that the Grand Rapids Community Foundation is in their estate plans or who have created a life income gift.

The luncheon featured Micki Maynard the senior editor of Changing Gears heard on Michigan Radio. The program is one of my favorites and is a joint project of public radio stations in Chicago, Michigan and Northeast Ohio. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed her talk and how she weaved in comments about her mother who sounds absolutely delightful and quite a fan of the Detroit Tigers!

The thing of it though, is how I love our donors! The people who support the Foundation are so engaging and interested in what is going on in our community and around the globe. They care deeply and express their opinions freely. And for those of you who know me, I love those opinions! I have been thinking about how much I enjoyed the luncheon and having the opportunity to talk to all of our Metz Society members.

And then today I signed a stack of letters to donors who have given in the past asking them to once again consider a gift! Many of these fine people have been supporters for years. I found myself just smiling as I signed each and every letter remembering a special moment with each person to whom the letter was being sent or just the wonderful causes they care so deeply about. What a privilege!

As I celebrate my 24th year serving as president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, I cannot think of any other place to be than here in our Grand Rapids AND at the community foundation. Phenomenal community and phenomenal community foundation!

Penny Wise?

2011-08-10T14:09:44-04:00

I recently had a friendly debate with a woman on Facebook about whether tax incentives really matter when it comes to charitable giving. My summary of the discussion was "it doesn't hurt!" The headline for a strong case for giving to a nonprofit organization certainly includes transparency as well as what impact is being made because of the programming of the organization. As I have written in past blogs, the reality of really getting the message out to the community on the good works of organizations is tough given constraints on budgets but really necessary.

In early May, the Michigan Legislature passed the Governor's tax reform package in a close vote and this bill eliminates the three charitable tax credits for gift to community foundations; public institutions, such as universities, libraries and public radio; and food banks and homeless shelters. These changes to the charitable tax credits are effective on January 1, 2012. Gifts made before midnight on December 31, 2011 may be used for the tax credit. We will be promoting these credits until the end of 2011.

The tax credit pertaining to community foundations has been in existence since 1988 having been passed in 1987. It provides up to a $200 State tax credit for gifts of $400 to community foundations for married couples and a $100 tax credit for gifts of $200 for a single person. Businesses can take a tax credit up to $5,000 on gifts of $10,000. In order to qualify for the tax credit though, all gifts have to go to permanent endowment only and does not include any "pass through" donations.

Michigan was the first state to have such a tax credit for gifts to community foundations and frankly it has been instrumental in growing the endowment of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation as well as the agency funds that we hold. The entire cost to the state of Michigan for the tax credit since its inception in 1988 has been $50M. HOWEVER, the endowed assets of Michigan's community foundations have grown to exceed $2B due in part to the offering of the credit.

So when we are working in partnership with the public sector, our dollars have definitely made a difference in braiding funding and leveraging dollars for our communities! We have definitely added tremendous value!

Yes I know the opposing view to this could read: "What do you expect the state of Michigan to do when revenues are severely diminished and we are all struggling to keep our state moving forward?"

The Grand Rapids Community Foundation will continue to grow and provide needed financial support and strong leadership in our area. We will miss the opportunity to introduce people to the community foundation using the tax credit as an incentive to come to know us and gain an understanding of philanthropy. It did provide a terrific way for us to establish relationships with new donors. We do feel confident though that our current and future donors will continue to support the work we do and to support the strength of building our community's endowment!

The looming concern on the horizon is the preservation of the federal charitable tax deduction which if eliminated or somehow diminished could have a devastating impact on the entire nonprofit sector in our country. But that's a topic for another blog entry!