Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Marks 25 Years of Giving

by Patrick Garmoe, Duluth News Tribune, Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Many Duluthians have scrubbed their memories clean of the economic downturn that engulfed Duluth during the early 1980s. But one positive they still pluck from that period is the birth of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

The people who created and ran the 25-year-old foundation, which has doled out more than $28 million since its inception, will be celebrated during a banquet tonight at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

Duluth’s economic woes served as impetus for the group, despite skeptics who said the idea should be shelved for better days. “They just experienced a huge amount of pessimism,” said Holly C. Sampson, president of the foundation for 18 years.

With a declining population and high unemployment rates, there was ample reason to feel skeptical. A group of Duluthians already had tried twice to launch a community foundation, said Kay Slack, president of the original trustee board of the community foundation.

During the early 1980s even the United Way was having difficulty meeting its goals, largely because of all the losses in payroll deduction donations because companies closed, recalled Slack, a former United Way chairwoman. “The smokestack industry was shutting down.”

But unlike many non-profits such as the United Way — which raises money a year at a time — a foundation’s work is to steadily increase its assets so it can live off the interest and hand out money indefinitely. A foundation can help fill the gap for local nonprofits during economic downturns, Slack said.

So she and others pursued the idea of a foundation, thanks to $775,000 in grants providing the start-up money. And ever since the donations began, the future has been bright. “Our original three-year goal was $3 million, and then we thought it would be self-funding,” Slack said. It kept growing, to the current $53 million.

The first year, the foundation passed out $27,735. Today that figure has grown to more than $2.1 million. “It changed the way people contributed to their community,” Slack said.

It also fused together Duluth and Superior, communities that until then mainly viewed each other as competitors rather than teammates, Sampson said. In the past decade, the group has branched well beyond Duluth and Superior. Now it operates in the seven counties of the Arrowhead and Douglas County in Wisconsin. It also has an office in Bayfield to reach out to the Apostle Islands.

And its focus has widened well beyond helping the poor. In 1984, the global awareness fund was launched to expose Duluthians to other cultures. That in turn helped lead to the Sister Cities Commission.

During 2007, the group devoted nearly half its cash to scholarships and other education programs, while the other half went to economic development, projects that help people in poverty and arts programs. “Now we are really moving beyond the grants to nonprofits and the scholarships to individuals by identifying issues we feel [are] important,” Sampson said. Those include initiatives such as attracting and retaining young people and bringing more arts to Duluth.

A charity is considered fiscally responsible if it spends no more than 30 percent of its operating budget on payroll, administrative costs and fundraising. According to the Charities Review Council, which rates Minnesota charities, an average of 92.2 percent of the foundation’s budget over the past three years went toward programs and scholarships, while 7.8 percent went toward salaries, administrative costs and fundraising.

“It’s a phenomenal success story,” said Bruce Stender, a founding trustee.

PATRICK GARMOE can be reached at (218) 723-5229 or pgarmoe@duluthnews.com.

DSACF 25th Anniversary Celebration Announcement in Business North

Check out this link to Business North.com, telling about our 25th Anniversary Celebration on May 21st.

Denfeld teacher Ed Felien gets Gold Star award

By Sarah Horner, Duluth News Tribune, May 08, 2008

Teachers competing against Ed Felien for a local teaching award this year probably didn’t know how badly the cards were stacked against them. Hailing from a long line of teachers, the Denfeld High School chemistry teacher brought more than 270 years of combined teaching experience to the table.

With that kind of resume, it’s no wonder Felien was awarded the second annual Goldfine Gold Star Teacher Award on Thursday night at a ceremony at the Inn on Lake Superior.

“Teaching has been a tradition in my family forever,” Felien, 65, said. “I grew up steeped in it. I still have my dad’s first contract from Duluth for $900 a year.” Both his parents died before they could see the fruits of his career, he said. “I wish they could see that all their work paid off.”

Lillian Goldfine and her husband, Manley, started a fund through the Duluth-Superior Area Community Foundation to finance the award last year. “We are really lucky in Duluth to have so many really well-qualified teachers,” Lillian Goldfine said at the ceremony. “This is a way to give them more recognition and honor and reward than they get.”

Felien was one of eight secondary teachers nominated for the award throughout the Duluth school district. Next year elementary teachers will compete; it will continue to alternate until the fund grows large enough to recognize both. “This is so humbling, you can’t even imagine,” Felien said about receiving the honor. “This [career] has been a joy for the whole ride.”

Felien has taught in Duluth for 42 years, most of them at Denfeld.

“Mr. Felien is by all measures one of the finest teachers with whom I’ve had the opportunity to work with in my 28 years as an educator,” said Denfeld Principal Ed Crawford. “He challenges students to think beyond the simple to the complex.”

Crawford said Felien believes in the potential of each student and encourages them be successful. Several of his students have gone on to pursue careers in science.

Felien said he has seen many changes in his field throughout his decades of service. He was one of the first in the district to use a hand-held calculator, and more recently was one of the first to equip his classroom with a computerized “smart board.” But his core mission has remained the same.

“The kids come first and that’s that,” he said.

Positive change on the way
By Will Ashenmacher, Duluth News Tribune, April 27, 2008

A year ago this month, the Duluth Superior Community Foundation named 31 people "community catalysts" and asked them to spend the next 12 months studying how to improve the Twin Ports community. Six months ago, the News Tribune asked the catalysts how they were doing. Now, those people and civic leaders not affiliated with the group have praise for the work that's been done and high expectations for what's to come.

The 31 volunteers split into five groups of about six members. Each group studied one area identified by social economist Richard Florida as being important to the development of a "creative economy." Over the past year, the catalysts seem to have spent most of the time gathering and digesting information.

That doesn't surprise Rob West, the chief executive officer of the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion, or APEX. West, who is not affiliated with the catalyst initiative, said his 4-year-old business spent its first year just figuring out what it was supposed to do. It didn't hit its stride, he said, until its third year. "Anything that has to do with development, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon," West said. "We won't see the fruits of this for two or three years, and that's OK."

The highest profile event staged by catalysts over the past year probably was the Art Works conference March 13-14. Catalyst and event organizer Samantha Gibb Roff said more than 300 people came to the conference. "I think the Art Works Conference was a positive step in encouraging more cultural opportunities for our community," said Duluth Mayor Don Ness, who gave opening remarks at the event, along with Superior Mayor Dave Ross. Ross said the conference was the most interesting event he has attended this year.

"They put together businesspeople, there were investors, there were a lot of different people. It wasn't your one-sided, narrowly defined event. It was very diverse," he said.

Ken Buehler, the director of the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in the Depot, was impressed by the Sept. 8 event one catalyst group organized, which took about 50 people up to Two Harbors by train so they could bike back to Duluth. The purpose of the ride was to call attention to non-automobile travel and ways to experience the Twin Ports' unique natural features.

"It was a great event. I know that we made special accommodations because there were so many" riders, Buehler said. "I'm hoping we can do something like that in the future. I'd like to see that become a tradition."

Each catalyst agreed to spend two hours per week working on his or her chosen initiative. Buehler said he met with several catalysts and gave a few small presentations on the progress of the Northem Lights Express passenger train last summer and fall. "Several of them, early on, wanted information and updates on our effort to reinstate passenger rail service between Duluth and the Twin Cities," he said.

Although the initiative had a run-time of one year, some of the groups don't plan to dissolve yet. Catalyst Tara Alfonsi, for instance, said her group will stay together until it sees a project" artist-created bike racks to encourage bike commuting" come to fruition, perhaps as early as this fall. After that it may assimilate into another group.

Roff said her group is officially disbanding but is continuing to explore the possibility of a program with Leadership Duluth that would prepare businesspeople to be board members for arts and cultural institutions.

It remains to be seen, though, where the groups that continue to operate will settle in the Twin Ports’ network of already existing groups and organizations. Public Arts Commission president Dennis Lamkin said the Art Works group, for example, doesn’t want to be affiliated with the commission, and he is sure why it isn’t part of the Duluth Art Institute.

Duluth Legacy fund launches campaign to promote community projects
By Patrick Garmoe Duluth News Tribune, April 25, 2008

Thursday turned out to be a soggy day for planting pine saplings. But Jeremyia Calmes, 7, a first-grade student at Grant Elementary School, didn't mind. "I have another perfect spot," he yelled, as two volunteers and his buddy Jerquan Clark, 7, race up a soaked hill at Hartley Nature Center.

"Good grief," said volunteer Becky Byers, as she tried to keep up with the pair offirst-graders from Grant.It was fitting that students in this after-school program named Young Explorers were trying to plant something new.

The program these students are in received $565 from the Duluth Legacy Endowment Fund, which is trying to cultivate young programs like Young Explorers. The fund was formed by former mayor Herb Bergson.

Legacy fund board members used Thursday's event to kick off a campaign to raise $250,000 over the next year. The fund exists to pay for community projects in the public's interest. Future grants will range between $300 and $2,500.

This year the nonprofit Grant school collaborative that runs Young Explorers is teaching more than 130 students about the environment. While board members and Mayor Don Ness made proclamations about how wonderful the program is, the kids scrambled around them.

The 28 Grant students were doing everything from helping cut planks of wood for a new boardwalk to planting new trees in an area deer can't reach. Kay Bogen, program co-director with the Grant Community School Collaborative, said Young Explorers is designed to teach about the environment this year, through giving kids hands-on activities that bolster what they learn in classrooms.

The fund's grant paid for the group's transportation to the nature center, along with some of the equipment and staff time to work with the kids. Before heading out, kids were taught the value of establishing trails and bridges" so people can admire nature without damaging it, Bogen said. It's one of many lessons tied to the environment kids are learning this year, Bogen said.

The program also teaches life skills, and involves tutoring and mentoring. "They're learning good citizenship," Bogen said, as part of such projects. "We all have a responsibility to do things in our community." The program also involves working to improve natural spaces in neighborhoods in the East Hillside and at Chester Bowl, near where students at the school live.

PATRICK GARMOE can be reached at (218) 723-5229 or pgarmoe@duluthnews.com pgarmoe@duluthnews.com He blogs at www.areavoices.com/buzz .