Foundations have generously stepped up to fulfill community needs.

Foundations have generously stepped up to fulfill community needs.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Locally based foundations have been shining stars on the Mahoning Valley's philanthropic scene as shown by the dramatic growth of their assets and grantmaking in recent years.
"The donors in the community are much more aware of local needs now," said James Sisek, president and chief executive of the Butler-Wick Trust Co., which manages more than 100 million in local foundation assets and distributes more than 5 million from them annually to Mahoning Valley agencies and charities.
"They're interested in seeing where their money goes on a first-hand basis. ...They don't want the money going out of town or someone else out of town deciding who gets it," Sisek said. Donors also can achieve tax advantages when they set up a donor-advised fund and name its beneficiary, said Sisek, whose company is Ohio's largest privately managed trust company.
Manages assets
Butler-Wick manages assets and makes grants for many major local foundations, including the Anne Kilcawley Christman, Marion G. Resch, Robert Sweeney, Margaret Walker, Frank and Norma Watson and Home Savings Charitable foundations and the Angela Kikel Charitable Trust.
"Our community continues to step up in a number of ways to help local nonprofits, and I think the foundation is just another great way to help supplement that," said Garry Mrozek, Mahoning Valley area president of National City Bank, which also has more than 100 million in local foundation money under its management. "More and more people are looking to get engaged [in philanthropy] and leave a legacy," he added.
"The existence of foundations today is becoming more commonplace. You could start a family foundation today for as little as 10,000," observed Donald Cagigas, former Mahoning Valley area president of Bank One (now Chase Bank), who is now president of the Youngstown-Mahoning Valley United Way. "The fact that these foundations exist has been a help to us [at United Way] and hopefully, that will continue," he added.
Performance noted
The stellar performance of local foundations is documented in a recently released report titled "Ohio: State of Philanthropy 2006," which was compiled by the Foundation Center of New York, whose mission is to strengthen the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge of philanthropy, and by the Ohio Grantmakers Forum of Columbus, whose mission is to provide leadership to organized philanthropy.
In 2004, the last year for which the report provides regional information, there were 142 foundations in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, with assets up 8 percent that year to 399.25 million and grantmaking up 15 percent to 27.86 million. This followed an increase of less than 1 percent in assets and grantmaking in 2003, the report says.
Sisek, Mrozek and other local experts say the growth in the stock market, where a large share of foundation assets is invested, played a significant role in boosting foundation assets in 2004 and since then. The lack of growth in 2003 is attributable to poorer stock market performance that year, the local experts said.
"Assets are up, and many of the private foundations distribute 5 percent of the market value, so as the size of the account increases, the size of the distribution increases," Sisek explained.
Hand in hand
Assets and grantmaking "go somewhat hand in hand," said Patricia Brozik, executive director of the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley.
"The assets need to be there before the grants are made," but asset growth isn't the only factor in grantmaking, she said. "Donors react to needs in the community," she observed.
Brozik's foundation, which has grown rapidly in assets and grantmaking in recent years, consists mostly of donor-advised funds.
"The needs have increased dramatically in the region. ... We've had some losses in corporations and losses of decision-making locally. Foundations have become more visible and a more integral part of where charities have gone for funding. The bottom line is the needs have increased, so the requests [for foundation grants] have increased," Cagigas said.
Foundations have been collaborating to meet community needs as illustrated by a recent meeting of local foundation representatives at the Second Harvest Foodbank, where they evaluated the food bank's needs, Brozik noted.
Community Foundations, such as Brozik's and the Youngstown Foundation, which make grants within a specific geographic area, experienced the strongest growth in the Youngstown-Warren area, with assets up 9 percent and grantmaking up 64 percent in 2004, the Foundation Center report says. "Community foundations belong to communities. They're exactly as successful as the community makes them," Brozik said.
Estate planning
"I would encourage people to consider things like the Youngstown Foundation in their estate planning, so that the monies that they leave to charitable entities can continue to do good over a long period of time," said that foundation's executive director, Thomas Hollern. With more than 77 million in assets, the Youngstown Foundation, which was established in 1918, is the area's oldest major foundation.
"As contributions to organizations like the United Way decline for one reason or another, organizations like the Youngstown Foundation can step up and supplement giving," Hollern said.
In recent years, local foundations have been compensating in part for the Youngstown-Mahoning Valley United Way's losses in corporate and employee gifts, which have been linked to local job losses. "We're starting to see a lot of our major gifts come from family foundations," said JoAnn Stock, United Way's director of marketing and resource development.
In the past five years, gifts from local foundations have constituted 14 to 17 percent of the local United Way's campaign total. Previously, the figure was 12 to 13 percent, she said. In 2005, the United Way raised 2,850,000, of which foundation gifts were 463,000 or 16 percent. United Way's largest foundation gift that year was 130,750 from the Youngstown Foundation.
"Several of the foundations have made generous contributions," to the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, said Janet Loew, library communications and public relations director.
For example, the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley has co-sponsored the library's summer reading program for the past several years, she said.
The library system has been seeking a variety of alternative funding sources in recent years to compensate for reductions in state support, she said.
Growth rates
The Foundation Center report also examines asset and grantmaking growth rates by region between 2000 and 2004.
Within Northeast Ohio, the Youngstown-Warren area had the second largest increase in assets -- 14 percent -- and the largest growth in grantmaking -- 48 percent -- in that five-year period.
Hollern said good local investment advisers and new money contributed to the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, which made its first grant in 2001, could be the explanations.
The John and Doris Andrews Memorial Fund, which emerged from an estate in 2001 and had given away much of its 13 million in assets by the end of 2004, is part of the explanation, Cagigas said.
Another contributor was the liquidation and distribution to recipients of all 1.3 million in assets from the Commercial Intertech Foundation shortly after Parker-Hannifin acquired Commercial, he observed.