Paul Herdman is the President of the Rodel Foundation in Delaware, His recent blog – on the Rodel website – is just perfect. Saturday Night Live and Robert Putnam. And…Civics 101.
On the heels of the midterm elections, I was reminded of what divides us. In the 
subsequent weeks, I was reminded of what brings us together.
Read the rest of it here – it’s worth your time.
Thanks for saying it so well, Paul.
Focus. Strategy. Persistence.
These are the qualities of the Arsht-Cannon Fund, one of the DCF’s most exciting donor advised funds.
Under the leadership of Adrienne Arsht and Dr. Christine Cannon, the Arsht-Cannon Fund is making a powerful impact on Latino families and communities in Delaware.
As we approach this year’s Delaware Hispanic Commission Summit on October 30, it’s worth highlighting its strategies.
The Arsht-Cannon Fund was founded nearly 15 years ago out of the estate of the Honorable Roxana Cannon Arsht and S. Samuel Arsht.
As far back as 2006, the fund partnered with Governor Ruth Ann Minner to create the Governor’s Consortium on Hispanic Affairs to address the community’s needs, including managing funds provided by the Arsht-Cannon Fund.
Since that time, the Arsht-Cannon Fund has invested nearly $9 million in creating opportunity for Delaware’s Hispanic families:
Providing ongoing support for educational opportunities and attainment – through support of bilingual teachers, staff and tutors, at programs including TeenSHARP, Reading Assist, Tyler’s Camp, and Leading Youth Through Empowerment (LYTE).Perhaps most exciting, the fund has recently helped underwrite and establish a new initiative called La Colectiva. This new collaborative of Hispanic-serving nonprofits is developing new approaches to addressing the key issues, needs and opportunities of Sussex County’s Latino families. It’s a powerful collective-impact approach that wouldn’t have come together without the Arsht-Cannon Fund.
At a time when, in other parts of the country, donor advised funds are being criticized for their lack of connection to communities, the Arsht-Cannon Fund continues to prove itself to be entirely the opposite.
Its focus and strategy, their willingness to explore new approaches, its ability to listen to the communities they serve, its passion for partnership with nonprofits and other funds…. It’s the epitome of good philanthropy.
Congratulations to the Arsht-Cannon Fund. We look forward to continue learning from you and working with you.
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Arsht-Canon Fund: El Resumen de la Buena Filantropía
Foco. Estrategia. Perseverancia.
Estas son las cualidades del Arsht-Cannon Fund, uno de los más emocionantes fondos asesorados por donantes de la Delaware Community Foundation.
Bajo el liderazgo de Adrienne Arsht y la Dra. Christine Cannon, el Arsht-Cannon Fund está logrando un gran impacto en las familias latinas de Delaware.
Se acerca la cumbre anual de la Comisión Hispana de Delaware, que se realizará el 30 de octubre, y vale la pena destacar las estrategias del fondo.
El Arsht-Cannon Fund se fundó hace unos 15 años con el patrimonio de la jueza Roxana Cannon Arsht y S. Samuel Arsht.
Allá por 2006, el fondo estableció una alianza con la gobernadora Ruth Ann Minner para crear el Consorcio de Asuntos Hispanos de la Gobernación (Governor’s Consortium on Hispanic Affairs) con el fin de abordar las necesidades de la comunidad, incluida la administración de los fondos provistos por el Arsht-Cannon Fund.
Desde ese entonces, el Arsht-Cannon Fund ha invertido casi 9 millones de dólares en crear oportunidades para las familias hispanas de Delaware de las siguientes maneras:
Quizás lo más emocionante que hizo el fondo últimamente fue ayudar a financiar y establecer una nueva iniciativa denominada La Colectiva. Este nuevo esfuerzo de colaboración entre organizaciones sin fines de lucro que ayudan a personas de origen hispano está desarrollando nuevas metodologías para abordar los principales problemas, necesidades y oportunidades de las familias latinas en el condado de Sussex. Es un poderoso enfoque de impacto colectivo que no habría sido posible sin la participación del Arsht-Cannon Fund.
En una época en que los fondos asesorados por donantes son objeto de críticas por su falta de conexión con las comunidades, el ArshtCannon Fund sigue demostrando que es todo lo contrario.
Su foco y estrategia, su predisposición para explorar nuevas metodologías, su capacidad para escuchar a las comunidades donde operan, su pasión por establecer alianzas con organizaciones sin fines de lucro y otros fondos… Es el resumen de la buena filantropía.
Felicitaciones al Arsht-Cannon Fund. Esperamos seguir aprendiendo y trabajando con ustedes.
This is a modified version of a column that was printed in the Oct 16 issue of the Delaware Business Times.
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Being generous with our money is one of the great joys in life. Whether we’re giving to help communities ravaged by natural disasters, local schoolchildren, for environmental cleanup, arts programs or any other passion, giving helps make our live complete.
And it turns out that being generous with our IRAs can be both personally satisfying, and provide tax benefits. This is even more important due to last year’s changes in federal tax law.
Many of us spend years contributing to retirement accounts, without digging into the details until it’s time for that money to come out. Some people even find they don’t end up needing the money as much as they thought they would. And they can be in a fix. Eventually we pay taxes on the money that accumulates in our IRAs.
If you’re fortunate enough that you don’t need all of that money, it’s good to have a plan. Here’s an idea.
When you reach the age – 70½ – where annual withdrawals are mandatory, you can reduce the impact on your taxes and also help worthwhile causes and organizations through a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD.
Best of all, QCDs can be made to almost any 501(c)(3) organization or house of worship, including the Delaware Community Foundation. IRS regulations permit QCDs into most types of nonprofit organizations – from programs serving children, to arts programs, environmental programs, senior centers, and so many more.
At the community foundation, while QCDs cannot be contributed to Donor Advised Funds, they can go into designated funds, which provide grants to specific charitable organizations; field of interest funds, which allow a donor to support a specific passion or interest; scholarship funds; or to the DCF’s Delaware Forever Fund, which was developed to address some of the community’s most pressing needs as they arise.
To read a longer piece, providing details about how this works, click here to read my recent op-ed in the Delaware Business Times.
I want to believe in the American Dream. I want to embrace the idea that with hard work and diligence, and a little help from others, we can all succeed and thrive. I want to stand behind the idea that wherever you are from, you can come here and you will have a chance to live a good life. I want us all to embrace that idea, and that reality.
And in parts – in places – it remains true. Unfortunately, in too many places and communities it’s just not the case. Robert Putnam’s book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis is the best description of the fraying of that dream that I’ve ever read. I grew up not far from where Putnam grew up, in an Ohio that was an industrial power. Even twenty years after he grew up in the 1950s, the industrial heart of Ohio was still real. The jobs were real, the communities
Robert D. Putnam
were strong, the opportunities existed.
But where his classmates and mine could get good jobs in factori
es, those jobs no longer exist. Where his classmates and mine were embraced by a community and provided opportunities to learn and grow, to participate in activities and build their futures, it’s just that much harder now.
Many things led to this change. His book – Our Kids – talks about them, and tells the stories of families in America today, and what they are doing to strive for opportunity. In his books he tells about families in Port Clinton, Ohio; Bend, Oregon; Atlanta, Georgia; Orange County, California; and Philadelphia. He talks about families, parenting, schools, jobs, race, and religion.
It’s an important book, and worth reading. And we are giving away copies of the book. Thanks to the Delaware Humanities Council, we have 500 copies of the book to give to folks who want to host their own book groups. It’s one of the most important books I’ve read in recent years, and I urge you to check it out. Sign up – and get up to 10 copies for your book group. You can find out how here.
And then, once you’ve read it and discussed the book, come hear Dr. Putnam talk about the book and what he’s been thinking about since he wrote it. On November 14, we are hosting his presentation at the Baby Grand in Wilmington. Click here to get a ticket.
At the DCF, we believe that opportunity for all enhances the common good. Join us in a book group. Join us at the event. Let’s double-down on the American dream.
Here is another post about working with DCF, and why it can be a great way to achieve charitable goals…this one describes the Field of Interest fund.
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We all have passions that drive us, that occupy a space in our heart and motivate us to improve the world. One way to address those passions – and invest in our community’s future – is through the Field of Interest Fund. These funds are designed by the donor to focus gifts in an area that is important to them, such as protecting the environment, supporting educational 
advances, or expanding access to the arts. And then, instruct the DCF board and staff to make sure good grants are made on that issue now and in the future.
It’s a way to narrow philanthropic giving, but keep your donation flexible enough to meet the changing needs of the community. The fund type allows for long-term community impact on issues that matter, while providing immediate benefit for the donor in the form of a tax deduction at the time the gift is made.
Think of it as hitting the target without having to nail the bullseye.
Here’s how it works:
1. Donors identify an area of personal interest, as broad or narrow as desired. (DCF staff can help narrow the focus if you wish). For example, the Jonathan Moyed CARE Fund, established at the DCF in 2001, is focused on innovative and creative ways to provide/support long term health programs for Delawareans. The DCF researches the organizations doing effective work in this important area and awards grants to make the greatest impact possible. Over the years, Moyed CARE fund has supported the Mary Campbell Center, Ingleside Homes, Nanticoke Health Services and other important organizations.
2. Donors create the endowed fund at DCF with a gift of cash, securities, or other property worth $15,000 or more. That gift becomes a permanent source of community funding, targeting the donor’s area of interest. Donors can add more funds at any time.
3. The DCF board awards grants to community organizations and programs that are making a difference in the selected area of interest. All the while, DCF handles the administrative requirements for the fund, including managing the fund assets and overseeing the fund’s investment.
There’s a lot of great work being done in philanthropy today. A field of interest fund is a great way to not only protect and promote the issues you care about, but also to ensure they get the support they need in the future.
It’s hitting the target — even from far away.
Happy Fourth of July week, and congratulations to this country and its audacious effort to combine deeply community-minded principles with a strong commitment to individual liberty, and the celebration of both. 
As I write this, I’m considering the deeply disturbing shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. Every one of these shootings is a tragedy, in ways that are the same and in other ways that are different.
In this case, especially during this holiday when we celebrate our American freedoms, we should add a concern about the explicit attack on our deeply held commitment to free speech – and to a free press. I’m reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s observation – “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” The news media has taken a beating in recent years. It’s not always perfect, but in the pursuit of a more perfect union, we need strong journalism to inform our society, to explain the news, and to present a variety of voices.
And that leads me to a point I deeply believe about the importance of the community foundation. Central to our work is the idea that we are and need to be an umbrella for the wide diversity of people in our communities. If you look at the many types of funds and people and activities with which the DCF is involved, you will find a little bit of everything that Delaware has to offer.
We are
And we are an organization – DEDICATED TO A PLACE – where all people are welcome and encouraged and celebrated. And in this strange time on the national political scene, we need organizations like the community foundation to step up and be counted.
We need to learn again how to make it safe for all of us to be part of our community, and how to celebrate our commonalities, understand our differences, and disagree without demonizing others.
I know that this work matters. It’s not easy and there’s no simple solution. But it matters, and it’s a big part of why we’re here.
Thanks for being our partners in this work.
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You can click here to read more of my thoughts on this topic, and my annual year-in-review presentation.
I usually write in my blog about trends and activities in Delaware and the country. But with this blog, and some others to come, I am going to explain a bit more why working with the DCF can be a great way to achieve their charitable goals…in this blog, I talk about Donor Advised Funds at the DCF.
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Technology allows us to do almost everything in an instant — order groceries, stream our favorite shows, even pay a parking ticket.
But not everything is meant to over in a flash, especially if you want to give with lasting impact.
For those who are looking to make a difference with their charitable dollars, a donor advised fund at the DCF remains a great way to make meaningful contributions to the causes and organizations that personally matter to you while also taking advantage of significant tax benefits. And donors who work with the DCF also get the benefit of the expertise and experience that DCF staff have about organizations and initiatives that are making a difference in Delaware.
Every year, our donor advised fundholders give away millions of dollars (almost $8 million in FY 2017 alone) to help important causes in Delaware and around the world, ranging from the 1916 Fund’s gifts to the Delaware Theatre Company and the Delaware Humane Association to the Charles C. Allen Jr. Family Fund’s support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Seaford and Nanticoke Health Services.
Every day at the foundation, our staff works with donors to help them achieve their greatest charitable goals. For instance, you may want to help with efforts to improve literacy but don’t know which nonprofits are doing the kind of work in Delaware that is making a difference.
Our staff at the DCF does.
Whether your interest is children’s issues, the arts, the environment, education, health or more…by working with us to create a donor advised fund, you can get help developing a plan that allows you to directly invest in meaningful programs and projects that benefit the community. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to identify meaningful grant making opportunities.
Quite simply, donor advised funds are an efficient way to leverage your personal resources to help others while also enjoying an immediate tax benefit.
Compare a DAF to a private foundation – it provides many of the advantages without the cost and time-consuming administrative responsibilities.
As the donor, you direct where you want your money to go. Of course, you don’t have to decide right away which nonprofits to support, but know that your gift rests with a local staff keenly aware of the needs of the community and the best way to create impact within it.
Donor advised funds aren’t a new idea — they were first established in the 1930s — and they provide community foundations like ours with a means to address some of the critical challenges in our area by putting resources where they are needed most. They’ve gone through some changes in recent years, but when coupled with a strong local organization like DCF, they remain a powerful tool for meaningful giving.
Donor advised funds are just that — donor advised. You choose what organizations to support. When you want to recommend a grant to be dispersed from your fund — either to an organization in Delaware (most grants given through DCF funds are to local organizations) or around the world — you can do so at any time by contacting us.
Philanthropy, like volunteering, is a way to feel good about helping others. It can be an empowering experience, but it doesn’t have to be over in the same amount of time it takes to download a new app.
A strong donor advised fund can provide an opportunity to strategically link philanthropic giving with community needs.
We’d love to talk with you to learn more about how to make that happen.
How can we maximize our charitable impact?
That’s a question that consumes considerable time in the philanthropic world. Whether it’s an individual donor, a family foundation, corporate giving program, major national foundation, or community foundation, we all want to know. What can we do to ensure that our charitable dollars are put to the best use – and make the biggest difference for the causes that matter to us?
The “impact investing” movement is right in the middle of that discussion. The term impact investing describes a range of investment practices intended to generate social and/or environmental impact AND a financial return. In other words, impact investing actively seeks to make a positive impact by investing not just for financial return, but also in activities that benefit the community, such as in clean technology enterprises, low-income housing, or some other social goal.
For decades, the rule of thumb for foundations that wanted to exist in perpetuity has been to put out 5% in grants, and invest the rest in the market, so that the corpus grows and generates more money for future grants.
Instead of just investing it in traditional ways, what if we invest it with the goal of making a social impact AND generating a financial return?
Last week, I joined 600 or so foundation colleagues at the Mission Investors Exchange Mission Forward conference in Chicago. All of us are engaged in impact
investing, or investigating how to do it.
For foundations moving into impact investing, it’s simple. To quote Dana Bezerra, President of the Heron Foundation, “Five percent of the assets doing 100% of the work just isn’t enough.” The Heron Foundation has pledged that 100% of its assets will be directed to impact investing.
This movement has said, let’s take our investment assets and see if we cannot put them to use in a way that helps our mission. Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, which has made a major commitment to impact investing, put it this way: “Philanthropy can no longer be defined by the pursuit of investment alpha. I’m a capitalist but the current market system is delivering too few benefits for the people we serve.”
Over the past 20 years, foundations near and far, and small and large, have committed to expanding the impact of grants by taking some portion of investment dollars – and making sure they too are moving the mission forward, whether by inspiring sustainable agriculture, or local job development, or reduced dependence on fossil fuels.
I’ve been hanging around this world for about 10 years, since my first days at the Vermont Community Foundation. It’s exciting to see how dramatically this field has grown since then. Back then, there were probably a couple dozen community foundations doing any impact investing. Today, it seems there are few community foundations that are not thinking about it.
At the Delaware Community Foundation, our work is under way. Some fundholders have already decided to invest their funds not in our primary investment portfolio, but in our screened, “socially responsible” pool. (The financial returns in that pool have been great, by the way.)
Even more directly, the relatively new DCF Social Impact Fund, funded in significant part by our friends at Discover Bank, has already made two impact investments 
– one to help bring to market a new chicken-manure bio-digester (you can see the team that worked on the project at the left), which makes use of more of the chicken waste product. The other investment is coming. Watch for an exciting announcement about that in the coming weeks.
There’s more to come. In the coming months, we’ll not only be announcing the exciting impact investment I mentioned above, but we’ll also be hosting fund-holders and others who want to become involved in our impact investing work. It’s part of the future of philanthropy. It’s part of the future of the DCF, too.
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I serve as Chair of the Mission Investors Exchange board. To learn more about impact investing, check their website.
If you’re interested in participating in our efforts around mission investing, I’d love to talk with you. Please drop me a line or give a call (scomstock-gay@delcf.org)
One of the challenges of every generation is to ensure that succeeding generations are prepared to lead. Whether in our families, our schools, our workplaces, or in community groups, we should all be attentive to inspiring and encouraging new leadership.
At the DCF, one way to watch that work in action is our Youth Philanthropy Boards. And if you’ve ever bemoaned the lack of responsibility and leadership in the “next” generation, these students will make you change your mind.
Each year, DCF invit
es a student from every high school in the state to participate in YPB in their respective counties. With light touch guidance from DCF staff and volunteer mentors, the youth are in charge.
Each year, these students walk into a room of strangers and begin a process that starts with identifying critical issues, moves on to picking an issue for a grant program, building a grant application form, reviewing applicants, conducting site visits, and then awarding grants – $10,000 each in Kent and Sussex Counties, and $15,000 in New Castle.
From beginning to end, the leadership of the students is inspiring.
It starts with the topics they choose. They don’t flinch at hard topics, but zero in on the needs of modern society.
This year, those topics included mental health and substance abuse counseling (Sussex YPB); support services for at-risk youth, with a preference for programs focusing on substance abuse and/or mental health issues (Kent YPB); and assistance for families or friends after the loss of a loved one through substan
ce abuse, suicide or other tragic circumstances (New Castle YPB).
Site visits are organized and attended by the students.
The decisions about who gets the money are theirs. (Awardees this year included LaRed, Children and Families First and Urban Promise. Check our news release page to see details.)
And the awards program is run by the students.
It’s wonderful stuff.
The YPB program is a great example of how – by giving responsibility and a cause, with some mentoring and assistance, to young people – we can watch next generation leadership develop. Here is an excerpt from comments shared by New Castle YPBer Alivia Scott at the awards ceremony in April.
I am so proud of the work we have been able to do through the YPB and the amazing opportunity it has been itself. It has inspired me to be involved and knowledgeable about issues in our area, to volunteer and make my time worthwhile, and has opened my eyes to those in difficult situations.
Talking with the students up and down the state, the comments were the same. “I thought the adults would tell us what to do, but we were in charge.” “This wasn’t easy.” “We were given the responsibility and we took it.” “I didn’t know that I could do this.” “This was a tremendous learning opportunity.”
This year represented the 19th year of the program. And over that time, the YPB groups have awarded over $480,000 in grants. (Foreshadowing: the 20th year of YPB will take them over half a million in grants!) Scores of nonprofits have received much needed support.
Most importantly, scores of young people have strengthened their leadership skills, and built belief in themselves to make a difference in the world.
Philanthropy comes in many forms. It frequently involves financial giving, and giving of time. But even more, philanthropy – at its root – is about a love of humankind.
In the past few months, Delaware has lost at least three great philanthropists. All of them have touched people – thousands of people – with their leadership, passion, and indeed their love of humankind. Those of us at DCF are not the only ones who mourn their passing. But like others, we also celebrate their lives.
Morton Kimmel is extremely well known to the legal community in Delaware, to Best Buddies Delaware, to people in the local sports scene – and to pretty much anybody involved in a community betterment project in Wilmington. He was a long-time supporter of the DCF Friends campaign, and worked closely with DCF on a project to raise funds to buy vests for the Wilmington police. Moreover, Mort was a genuinely nice man. I personally feel fortunate to have met him in the past year and a half.
Helen Eliason, who passed away in December, has been one of DCF’s stalwart and steady supporters for decades. Those who received her 
support knew her as passionate about children, about reading, about gardens, and about Wilmington. She was a long-time supporter of innovative projects at the West End Neighborhood House, from support for an urban farm to a software app to aid the track team, to an environmental job training program, educational field trips, and scholarships for summer camp. “We can’t begin to express our gratitude for her support and the incredible legacy she leaves behind,” said Paul Calistro. Nor can we.
CAMP Rehoboth co-founder Steve Elkins was also an important philanthropist. It takes a deep belief in helping others to spend your career eschewing
financial largesse in favor of building community. Steve and CAMP Rehoboth co-founder Murray Archibald have, for 25 years, led the charge toward making Rehoboth a welcoming community, and leading the charge for equal rights for the LGBT community. A leader indeed. An activist, sure. But also… a philanthropist.
We sometimes think of philanthropists as only those who have millions to give away. But as these stories remind us, philanthropy indeed comes in many forms.
All of us can be philanthropists in one way or another – by giving money, by giving time, by how we live our lives. Thank you, Mort. Thank you, Helen. Thank you, Steve.
Adrienne Arsht is an American philanthropist and business leader.
She is widely recognized for her $30 million contribution to the City of Miami’s Performing Arts Center, now known as the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Through her contributions to the arts, Arsht has become well-known within the three cities she calls home, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C.
The Honorable Roxana Cannon Arsht was just the fifth woman to pass the Delaware Bar Exam in 1941, and went on to become the first woman appointed judge in Delaware. Judge Arsht was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Trailblazer Award, the First State Distinguished Service Award, and the Josiah Marvel Cup, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women.
S. Samuel Arsht was a partner in Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnel, and was a prominent corporate attorney who chaired the committee to revise the General Corporate Law in 1967, making Delaware a more favorable place for businesses to incorporate.
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