Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 21, 2009
Benwood Foundation urges all to pick up philanthropy
David Laprad
By David Laprad
Chattanooga is a testament to how good leadership can transform a city. Once, derelict warehouses and abandoned factories defined its landscape; today, a vibrant community has replaced the decay. The air is cleaner, the scenery is striking and there are exciting things to do and see. More importantly, the economy is holding its own, improvements have been made in education and through the arts, Chattanooga is beginning to form a cultural identity.
Where an ash heap of exhausted industry once blanketed a valley with smog stands the Scenic City, a place of opportunity where many citizens have built an enjoyable life. None of this could have happened without the vision, skills, perseverance and money of forward-minded and altruistic people.
However, something has Corinne Allen, executive director of Benwood Foundation, concerned. For decades, Chattanooga has relied on the generosity of a small number of philanthropic enterprises as well as private individuals, lulling residents into believing every mid-sized Southern town has the same benefits. But that’s not the case, Allen says, and she’s not sure how long resources will be able to continue moving from a few people to the hands of many.
“The recession has hit foundations hard,” Allen says, “and at the same time we have an increasing need, especially in the delivery of basic human services to what we call the new poor.”
Allen also says the private philanthropy from which Chattanooga has benefited might wane as the children of those generous donors establish lives elsewhere. Those who remain are therefore looking at doing more with less.
To weather the storm, Allen says two safeguards will need to be in place. One, the community must cultivate a new generation of leaders able to move Chattanooga forward. And two, every capable person should begin to shoulder some of the burden of philanthropy
in the city.
Benwood is among the organizations that have made significant contributions to Hamilton County. The foundation was established in 1944 through the support of George Hunter, who wanted to honor his uncle, Benjamin Thomas, the Chattanooga industrialist who founded the Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Hunter lacked heirs, so he entrusted his money to Benwood for the betterment of the community.
Jump forward in time to 2009, and Benwood has become one of Chattanooga’s enduring legacies, although instead of funding a broad range of efforts, its board of trustees is concentrating on specific areas of interest in the hopes of having a greater impact.
“We had been a traditional foundation in terms of looking at and responding to proposals, so our giving was across the board,” says Allen. “But as we looked at how we could be more effective, we realized when you go broad, you can’t go deep. So we decided to focus our philanthropy on four issues we believed were pivotal to the growth and quality of this community.”
Those four areas were education, community development, the environment and the arts. Allen says Benwood’s largest endeavor has been in the area of education.
Around the turn of the millennium, the state of Tennessee issued a report that listed the lowest performing elementary schools in the state. Nine of those were located in Chattanooga.
“There was no resulting human cry from this community, so for the first time in our history, we did a proactive grant and committed ourselves to providing $5 million over the course of five years to make sure there were no low-performing elementary schools in Hamilton County,” says Allen.
Benwood chose to work with elementary schools to give children a foundation of proficiency early in their education. “From kindergarten to third grade, you learn to read, and from fourth grade on, you read to learn,” Allen says. “If a child doesn’t have those basic skills upon which to build, then we see the worthy efforts of the middle and high schools to be remediation. We wanted to get in at the front of that pipeline because we need a well-educated constituency. Otherwise, we’re building on sand.”
Allen says Benwood was naïve in believing it could achieve its goals in education “that quickly,” so the foundation has extended its work in the area through 2012. By the end of its commitment, Benwood will have invested about $18 million, most of which has been funneled through the Public Education Foundation in Chattanooga directly into the classrooms of 16 schools. The organization has also spent funds on professional development.
“We believe all children are entitled to a quality education, regardless of color, socioeconomic status or where they live,” says Allen.
Benwood has taken what it’s learned through working with local schools and applied it to its other philanthropic endeavors. Examples of the foundation’s involvement in other areas include its backing of the 21st Century Waterfront project as part of its focus on community development, contributions to public art and support of Crabtree Farms as an extension of its environmental initiative.
“We’re trying to be more helpful in our sponsorship of organizations working within our new food economy,” Allen says. “That addresses several areas of concern for us and brings people to Chattanooga.”
From green|spaces, to CreateHere, to the Land Trust for Tennessee and beyond, the list of organizations that have received funding from Benwood is several pages long. But the foundation does more than write checks; its staff collaborates with potential benefactors, working diligently to discover what Chattanooga needs to
continue improving its
quality of life.
“It’s not easy to turn around a culture or a system,” says Allen. “For that reason, you have to build on collaboration.”
While Benwood has a long view of what has been necessary to bring Chattanooga to this moment of relative prosperity, the foundation is striving to nurture a new generation of leaders that will rise up to replace those who turned the city around.
“We’re looking for new individuals that care about the community and want to take a dynamic role in its development,” Allen says. “The younger generation is getting involved in community improvement and doing some exciting things.”
The concern at Benwood, however, is that people in Chattanooga will be satisfied with the present and stop working to build a better future. “There’s always more to be done,” says Allen. “We don’t have the luxury of taking it easy because there’s still work to do.”
At the end of the day, the foundations and individuals that have given liberally of their time and money through the years are simply asking everyone in Chattanooga to begin looking at themselves as philanthropists, only on a smaller scale. “All of us need to ask how we, as individuals, can contribute to continuing the good work,” Allen says.
Then, the hands of many will lighten the load of
the few.
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