91-year-old trust-fund case heads to resolution

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County’s longest-running court case will conclude soon if the probate court approves changes designed to streamline and modernize the administration of a 91-year-old charitable fund.

That case pertains to the William Swanston Charitable Fund, which was created with $100,000 from the will of William H. Swanston, a Canfield Township farmer who died in 1919.

Swanston intended that the money be used to establish an orphanage.

With that goal no longer being practical, the fund now leases a Broadway Avenue group home it bought and renovated to the Mahoning County Children Services Board and allocates money to various local organizations serving abused, neglected and dependent children. Today, the fund’s assets total nearly $7 million.

To date, the county’s probate court has appointed fund trustees, and the court has decided how best to manage the fund under the legal principle of cy pres, which means managing it in a practical manner that most closely approximates the donor’s intent.

The fund’s trustees have filed a motion seeking Probate Judge Mark A. Belinky’s approval to make four major changes in the fund’s operation:

To switch its beneficiary from The Youngstown Foundation to the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley.

To broaden the fund’s service area from only Mahoning County to the Mahoning Valley, which would include both Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

To switch the appointing authority for fund trustees from the probate court to The Community Foundation.

To dismiss the court case because court oversight will no longer be necessary once the above changes are made.

“A key goal of the William Swanston Charitable Fund is to stay local,” wrote Atty. Shawna L. L’Italien, in her motion on behalf of the fund.

That goal can’t be achieved by continuing to be affiliated with the Youngstown Foundation, which is now controlled by PNC Bank of Pittsburgh, she explained.

The fund wants to expand to serving the Mahoning Valley because most of the social-service agencies the fund would support serve both Mahoning and Trumbull counties, she added.

On June 7, 2010, The Community Foundation’s board of directors voted to accept the support of the Swanston Fund, but upon the condition that the foundation would appoint new Swanston Fund trustees.

However, the foundation said it would initially reappoint the five existing Swanston Fund trustees, Patricia Sweeney, Delores Crawford, Paul Dutton, Gilbert James and Frank Watson, to terms of varying lengths to stagger their expiration dates.

With a probate court hearing in this case set for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Judge Belinky has ruled that the Ohio Attorney General’s charitable organization section, which oversees charitable funds in Ohio, must be included as a party to the case.

The Swanston Fund also intends to switch from filling gaps in agency budgets to a “more proactive” approach, said Dutton, who is fund trustee chairman.

The new approach involves seeking goal-oriented service proposals from potential recipients of funding, together with methods of measuring the outcomes of service, Dutton said.

Acting as a consultant, the Raymond John Wean Foundation of Warren will guide the fund in that effort, Dutton said.

Joel Ratner, Wean Foundation president, said Wean is “committed to the idea of reinvigorating the Swanston Fund and helping them to become more strategic.”