A message from the president and the executive director of The Lumpkin Family Foundation
The Lumpkin Family Foundation (LFF) issues a detailed report to the community approximately every second year. We aim for as much openness as possible and we believe the report, among other practices, contributes to better relationships with prospective grantees and program partners who fully understand our vision (http://www.lumpkinfoundation.org/mission.php) and strategies.
As we began preparing our 2008/09 report in the last part of 2008 and the beginning of this year, global markets entered their largest single decline since the great Depression. The endowment on which all our programs depend declined by about a third.
In response to reductions of our financial capacity, as well as the economic challenges we know organizations in our communities are facing, the LFF Board of Trustees began a thoughtful discussion about how to make the best, most effective distribution of available funds.
Coincidentally, these financial challenges arrive at the end of our current strategic plan. Thus, we have simultaneously initiated a process to consider our long term strategic directions beyond this year. We expect to complete the process with a plan by the end of December 2009.
These significant events will no doubt change our path in ways we cannot now predict. Amid such uncertainty it felt odd to provide our normal report, heavy on past accomplishments. Instead, we have elected to publish this simple message outlining – to the best of our ability – where we are today and where we think we are heading beyond this year.
Some General Themes for the Future…
For many years, The Lumpkin Family Foundation’s mission has read: to support education, preserve and protect the environment and foster opportunities for leadership, with special consideration for our heritage in East Central Illinois.
As a foundation that relies on the support of an engaged, extended family with varied interests, the broad areas of this mission have provided a great deal of flexibility. We have made grants in each of the areas described in the Foundation’s mission, for everything from capital to operating support, from bridge finance, to seed money, matching or straight grants.
In recent years, our approach has evolved with the family’s appreciation for the role foundations can play as conveners and connectors of people and organizations. We have expressed this through financial support to a variety of programs, but also through the creation of our own programs and participation in cross-organization collaborations.
The Foundation’s interest is increasingly in systems change. What does that mean? More and more, we aim to help organizations become stronger or work across boundaries in collaborations to address underlying problems facing a field or a group of people. (Some examples of recent work are noted below.) It also means investing more to help people learn and understand their work differently. Fostering leadership, we have come to understand, is accomplished in these terms.
We are likely to continue moving in this direction, favoring opportunities to help systems or build movements over straight-up program or operating grants. And we most certainly will maintain our commitment to East Central Illinois (http://www.lumpkinfoundation.org/ecimap.php), despite the scattering of Lumpkin family members across the country. However, like other organizations, we will face greater financial challenges and difficult choices.
Most of The Foundation’s grant budgets for new grants are reduced substantially in 2009 and likely will be reduced again in 2010. It’s a fact of life, even though we have increased our pay-out for 2009 from the IRS mandatory 5% to 6%.
The effect of this reduction will likely be that more of our grants will occur closer to our traditional home of Coles County, and they will be more closely aligned to the mission of each of our programs. Although we will not stop capital grants altogether, they will be a lower priority, and new ones will be much smaller commitments than what might have been expected in the past.
A Few Commitments Made Already…
Last year we made three significant pledges in the region – to the Doudna Center for the Performing Arts (http://www.eiu.edu/doudna/) ($2m) at Eastern Illinois University, the FutureGen project (http://www.futuregenalliance.org/) ($1m) in Mattoon, and the Mattoon Area Family YMCA (http://www.mattoonymca.org/) ($.5m). These commitments will limit our grant-making capacity somewhat over the next few years. However, we believe strongly in the potential of these opportunities to have meaningful impact on the lives of people in Coles and surrounding counties.
Five years ago, we launched a program we call the Nonprofit Excellence Program (http://www.lumpkinfoundation.org/nep.php). It combines grants for professional and organizational development with our own educational offerings. We are committed for at least the next two years to supporting the development of significant new resources for ensuring nonprofits have the technical assistance and organizational supports to effectively serve the people of East Central Illinois. A leadership team representing universities, United Ways, community foundations and others have begun work fostering a formal nonprofit network in the region. This team will launch a virtual nonprofit center in August at our third bi-annual nonprofit conference in Champaign.
In response to a Summit on young people in 2006, we supported the creation of another network, the Regional Alliance for Youth (RAY) (http://regionalalliance4youth.org/). RAY’s purpose is to support increased effectiveness in the youth services sector. The Foundation provided a team of community leaders with a grant-making budget and part time staff to help the RAY team make connections across organizations working to make life better for young people in East Central Illinois. A list of their grants is available here (http://regionalalliance4youth.org/GRANTsummaryfundedprojects.doc).
RAY held a second Youth Summit in March 2009 and created a networking website (http://rayofhope.ning.com/) that is facilitating communication and stimulating partnerships. Although LFF is in the final year of a three year financial commitment, and we are uncertain as to future support, we will do our best to help them play a continuing role in the sector.
Over the past few years, we started to make a few small grants to support the local food economy. We believe our region, surrounded by large, growing markets for fresh, healthy food, is uniquely positioned to prosper from increasing demand and favorable new policies. Although we planned to ramp up the program in budget and staff, we will continue to work on a small scale, without designated staff, for the foreseeable future. It’s a great disappointment but preferable to slashing support to mature, well-developed programs.
The Regional Grants Program (http://www.lumpkinfoundation.org/reg.php) makes grants to youth-based arts and mentoring programs at nonprofits based in Lumpkin member communities. The Foundation evaluated this program in 2008 and revised it for 2009. The program still includes modest grants in each committee member’s community. It now includes a single large grant (one half of the program budget) directed at a single community. This will allow the Committee members to learn more about the specific community as well as hopefully making a more significant difference for an organization. A list of 2008 grantees is available here (http://lumpkinfoundation.org/reg-grantmaking.php).
Like other nonprofit organizations, we are reducing administrative costs wherever we can. This includes eliminating non-essential memberships and limiting travel and other discretionary expenses to essential items or those where we have previously committed.
The Lumpkin Family Foundation has a long history of careful stewardship of its financial assets. It’s only over the past few years that we have come to fully appreciate the importance of relationships to ensuring the impact of our philanthropy.
We are confident that the Board’s immediate decisions as well as its long term strategies will ensure The Foundation has impact in East Central Illinois for many years to come. However, this will not happen without the understanding, participation and support of people like you. If you have any questions, please contact Bruce at (217) 235-3361 or bruce.karmazin@consolidated.com.
Sincerely,
Barbara Federico
President
Bruce Karmazin
Executive Director