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Princeton Community Foundation Channels the Philanthropic Impulse
Wednesday, September 6, 2006 Linda Arntzenius
There is no shortage of worthy causes and there are plenty of nonprofit groups and individuals in the Princeton community ready to offer their time, energy, and money to them. What is often needed, however, is the financial know-how that connects the two in the most beneficial way. That's where the Princeton Area Community Foundation (PACF) comes in.
In promoting philanthropic giving, PACF aims to strengthen community links across Mercer County and central New Jersey. In addition to providing expertise to individuals, nonprofits, and foundations, PACF also makes grants. Since its founding, 15 years ago, PACF donors have invested over $18 million back into their communities.
"We connect people who care with causes that matter," said PACF President and Executive Director Nancy Kieling, a West Windsor resident who grew up in Princeton Borough. "A community foundation is first and foremost about building community," she said.
"PACF serves three primary constituents: donors; non-profits with which it partners and to whom it grants funding; and professional advisors such as trustees and attorneys.
Take, for instance, the Princeton community's support of New Orleans after last year's hurricane.
"We wanted to do something for New Orleans and formed the Princeton for New Orleans Fund last September. We raised funds throughout the fall and holiday season, but as a group of individuals we needed the help of a non-profit to distribute the money we raised," said Anne Reeves, founding Director of the Arts Council of Princeton. "PACF was extremely useful."
The foundation sent a grant of $9,000 on behalf of the Princeton for New Orleans Fund to the New Orleans Public Library to support the rebuilding of the children's and teen collections.
Greater Mercer Grants
In addition to helping channel funding, PACF has just awarded over $325,000 to nonprofit organizations in the Greater Mercer County area.
Twenty-four nonprofits receive funding in support of a variety of diverse programs involving children and families, education, housing, health and human services and community engagement.
Five grants went to new initiatives and 19 to provide continued backing for previously-funded programs. The awards bring the year-to-date total of grants distributed through PACF's 160 Charitable Funds to $2,454,646.
Among the recipients were Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer County, which received $15,000 to support child-mentor matching. Corner House Foundation was given $15,000 to reduce juvenile delinquency, gang involvement and youth violence. Princeton Senior Resource Center benefited from an award of $5,000 and Trinity Counseling Service received $10,000.
Princeton Community Housing (PCH) was granted $10,000 for its Congregate Services Program serving residents at Elm Court. "The program provides a daily hot meal and some housekeeping that helps to allow our residents to live independently," said PCH Executive Director Sandra Persichetti Rothe. "Without this support, PCH have to draw upon its already very tight operating budget."
"Greater Mercer Grants is a vital part of our ability to provide funding that improves the quality of life for all residents across central New Jersey," said Joan Hollendonner, vice president of programs.
"Donor gifts in support of Greater Mercer Grants over the last 15 years have allowed us to direct millions of dollars into community programs," she said.
"Greater Mercer Grants focus support on current priorities with the greatest impact within Mercer County," said Ms. Kieling. "The common thread is bringing people together, softening the barriers of municipalities, race and religion."
Crossing Borders
Typical of such programs is the Crossing Borders with Literature program run by a group, People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos, founded by Princeton resident Sarah Hirschman.
"The Princeton Area Community Foundation has been investing in the wellbeing of those in Mercer County communities and the nonprofits that serve them for as long as I can remember," said Executive Director Pat Andres.
"With their community-building grants, PACF is addressing factors that prevent people from connecting with each other. By supporting Crossing Borders with Literature, a program across municipal boundaries, PACF is helping connect people from different townships at the deepest level — sharing the stories of their lives. We are extremely grateful to them for the work they enable us to do." she said.
"This is philanthropy that matters for all of us," said Ms. Kieling. "Not a case of the haves giving to the have-nots but an instance of building genuine community across boundaries of municipality, race, social barriers."
"Crossing Borders has allowed suburbanites to find common ground with those in the Bo Robinson correctional facility in Trenton, " she said.
It is just this sort of program, among many other examples, that Ms. Kieling cites as crucial to the community. Philanthropy matters, she said "because it provides a critical safety net for vulnerable people, and builds important community institutions (the library, the hospital and the Arts Council) and resources (the Community Foundation), all of which bring people together. Philanthropy is the best way people can direct their resources of time, talent and dollars to accomplish what matters to them. And in so doing they build and support their neighborhoods and towns."
Ms. Kieling spends a lot of her time talking with individuals and organizations looking for help in identifying those nonprofits addressing the issues that are important to them. Conversations with donors sometimes begin with identifying their priorities. Other donors know which issue and which practitioner they want to support and are looking for advice for a strategy that will benefit them.
Building Community
Community foundations are designed so that communities can pool donations into a coordinated investment and grant-making facility dedicated primarily to the social improvement of a geographic area. Unlike the United Way, which raises operating funds annually, they are usually structured as endowments.
According to Ms. Kieling the United Way is like the community's checking account, and PACF is the community's savings account. "Just as a household is healthy when its checking and saving accounts are in good shape," she said, "so a community benefits from having both United Way and a Community Foundation such as PACF."
One difference, however, is that United Way organizes workplace campaigns. PACF doesn't. Another difference is that PACF has a very broad philanthropic landscape that is not limited to health and human services.
Unlike other agencies set up to do good for society, community foundations have a geographic rather than an ethnic or religious focus. They are public charities governed by a volunteer board.
For an individual who wants to leave a legacy for good, PACF can be a good place to go, for advice and as a vehicle. "People give through us as opposed to us," said Ms. Kieling who spends a great deal of her time speaking with potential individual philanthropists and nonprofits and thinks of the organization as a hub that offers "a unique perspective."
The organization, which is overseen by a board of trustees and run by a staff of seven, two of whom are part-time, takes a one percent administrative fee for its services.
A former corporate lending officer for the Bank of New York and former regional director of admissions for Princeton University, Ms. Kieling describes PACF as a three-legged stool with funds in from donors, funds out to grantees, and investment management as the "legs." In some sense PACF provides the same sort of services as a mutual fund company would. An investment committee is charged with overseeing all investments. "But the management of a non-profit endowment with the intention of perpetuity is different from, say, the management of a savings account," said Ms. Kieling.
History
Ms. Kieling came to PACF in 1994, when the foundation had just $300,000 in the bank. One of only four community foundations in the State, and one of 700 nationwide, PACF was founded by Stuart Carothers after his retirement as president of Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic.
"As most successful CFs do, it grew out of the local community," reported Ms. Kieling. "Mr. Carothers gathered around him a group of generous-spirited people who organized themselves into a volunteer board."
Community foundations have a 90-year history that dates to 1914, when Cleveland banker Frederick Goff founded The Cleveland Foundation in response to difficulties in managing small endowed charitable trusts and identifying the most worthy recipients for their income. Mr. Goff divided the work by forming a separate grant-making body so that the bank could continue to make investments while the foundation would efficiently identify grant recipients.
His idea has been emulated by other large cities, and the last twenty years have seen enormous growth in community foundations and in philanthropy across the nation.
PACF, which holds $42 million in assets, collaborates with local donors including the Harbourton Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Fund, Barbara B. Smoyer Memorial Fund, Marjorie R. Smoyer Fund, Stanley C. Smoyer Fund, Frank E. Taplin, Jr. Fund, Trenton Fund, Whitehead Fund, and the Willy N. Fund, among others. Its Founders Fund, from which it makes grants, can also accept gifts from the public and does receive checks ranging from $5 to $8.1 million.
"Having PACF in our community is something to celebrate," says Ms. Kieling.
For more information, call (609) 219-1800, or visit www.pacf.org.
link to information on the Crossing Borders Project