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2007 Annual Report President's Message: Stronger communities through diverse grantmaking
Since we were established in 1926, and for many years thereafter, the Foundation focused on funding issues that our founder, Charles Stewart Mott, cared deeply about in his adopted hometown of Flint, Michigan. These included community education, the well-being of children and the quality of life.
Today, eight decades later, we remain based in this mid-size, often-struggling Midwest community. Over the years we have found additional ways to express our concern for children, families and communities, starting first in Flint and then expanding throughout Michigan and the U.S.
We also have been able to be responsive to opportunities arising from world events.
Our historic interest and practical expertise in fostering citizen participation and community engagement led us to fund projects in South Africa, Central/Eastern Europe and Russia in the late 1980s.
There are common conceptual threads and core values that run through our grantmaking. When joined together, they create a whole cloth.
The most basic of these is our belief in the importance of individuals. We always have placed our grantmaking investments on the passionate and experienced people who guide the day-to-day work of organizations that we support.
At the same time, people create communities of all sorts — geographic, intellectual and spiritual, to name three — and each of those has the potential to improve lives, to address an issue and to engage citizens from different walks of life in a shared cause across a community or even the globe.
Whether we are discussing our grantmaking efforts to promote community philanthropy in Poland, protect endangered watersheds in the Great Lakes, encourage sustainable development in Latin America, or help create jobs and economic opportunity in our hometown and home state, you will find investments in individuals and their communities.
There are also clear, evolutionary lines that bind our contemporary grantmaking to previous eras and generations of the Foundation’s work. For example, you still can find elements of community education and community schools in many of today’s programs, not only in our home community but also across the nation and even internationally.
And we have been willing to stay the course with a program or idea for a lengthy period, which could be either years or decades, and we don’t apologize for this approach.
Scattered throughout this annual report is a collection of brief features that reflect this commitment to staying with a program or idea for the long term.
One of the strongest links can be found in our current support of afterschool programs in Genesee County (where Flint is located) and the U.S., and community schools in Central/Eastern Europe. Both echo our earliest efforts to create community schools in the 1930s in Flint, and then to spread this concept throughout Michigan, the U.S. and selected parts of the world.
Our interest in protecting and sustaining the health of the Great Lakes follows naturally from our location in Michigan and our recognition of the important roles the Lakes play as a vital economic, natural and recreational resource. Grantmaking in support of water-quality issues was inaugurated in 1976, with a special focus on supporting U.S.-Canadian initiatives to improve and protect the Lakes. In addition, we have supported projects designed to manage and preserve fragile land areas, including shorelines and wetlands; and to strengthen citizen awareness and involvement in Great Lakes environmental issues. Since January 1998, we have made grants totaling $82.7 million to benefit the Lakes.
Helping families — including those from low-income, low-skilled households — succeed in the labor market is rooted in our early grantmaking, including support in the early 1940s for job-training programs in our home community. Today, we are funding efforts to retrain Michigan workers displaced by the continuing decline in the state’s manufacturing-based economy.
Workforce development was adopted as a formal grantmaking strategy in 1978, and more than $171 million in related grants have been made since. The strategy remains one cornerstone of our anti-poverty grantmaking.
Our support for community engagement has totaled $117 million since the 1970s, when we first provided a grant to the University of Missouri-St. Louis to create the Independence Plan for Neighborhood Councils in Independence, Missouri. This program was the forerunner to two Flint-based programs, Project USE and Project SNAP, which were both community school-based efforts to engage citizens.
These projects were the predecessors to the Intermediary Support Organization (ISO) program, which started in 1980. Through small grants and technical support, this program helps build and strengthen emerging community-organizing initiatives around the country. Overall, this grantmaking has sought to develop leadership and engage residents — particularly those in low-income and underserved neighborhoods — in the public decisionmaking processes that shape their lives.
As you continue through this report covering our 2007 activities, you will find information on our grantmaking programs beginning on page 7. Within each program are features and links to additional Web-based material, organized around 12 cross-cutting issues: afterschool, civic participation, community organizing, freshwater ecosystems, income security, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, race and reconciliation, sustainable development, transitional justice, vulnerable youth, and workforce development.
We hope you can take the time to explore this content and to visit us online at Mott.org for richer detail.
In addition to program information, you will find data on the Foundation's finances and investments, both online and in the section beginning on page 41. In 2007, our assets experienced modest growth, reaching $2.71 billion on December 31, 2007, compared with $2.63 billion a year earlier. The above chart, "Total Assets at Market Value & Total Assets in 2007 Dollars," tracks our asset performance since 1963.
Governance
On January 1, 2008, we expanded both our Board of Trustees and the Foundation's Investment Committee.
Charlie Nelms, chancellor of North Carolina Central University in Durham and former chancellor of the University of Michigan-Flint, was elected to the Board of Trustees. His expertise in higher education, his familiarity with our hometown, and his deep interest in children and youth are much appreciated.
Elizabeth T. Frank, who has almost four decades of experience in investment management and finance, was appointed to the Investment Committee. She also serves on the investment committees of several nonprofits, educational institutions, foundations and retirement funds on the East Coast. Her extensive expertise has been, and will continue to be, invaluable in helping advise the Foundation's investment operations.
Also this year, two veteran, mid-level managers left for exciting new opportunities.
Kevin F. Walker, Associate Vice President for Programs (Flint Area and Pathways Out of Poverty), was appointed president and chief executive officer of the Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Lois R. DeBacker, Associate Vice President for Programs (Civil Society and Environment), joined the Kresge Foundation in Troy, Michigan, as program director where she is guiding the development and implementation of Kresge's new environment program.
We wish them every success in these new ventures.
Since late 2007 three key employees, one in communications and two in the investment office, have retired.
In September 2007, Margaret (Marge) H. Hubble, Senior Administrative Assistant and a 32-year veteran of the investment office, retired at the ripe young age of 89. Marge helped set up the Foundation’s first investment office in 1975, and only reluctantly decided to retire. We miss her impeccable skills, dependability and good humor.
Donald F. Dahlstrom, Senior Communications Officer, left the staff in late May after 17 years with Mott. During this time, he was responsible for the creation of a long list of award-winning publications and reports.
Investment Manager Paul H. McVey retired in late July. During his 26 years of service, Paul was responsible for public equities, and was instrumental in diversification into international equities markets. He also managed equities in various industries as well as the Foundation’s proxy voting.
We thank Marge, Don and Paul for their contributions, and wish them many fulfilling and enjoyable years of retirement.
William S. White
President
View entire 2007 Annual Report