Community Foundation of the Ozarks

The Wonders of Wildlife Board of Directors today announced that Johnny Morris and Bass Pro Shops made a $1.3 million gift and an additional $2.7 million pledge to the Community Foundation of the Ozarks to support conservation and tourism projects for the Springfield area.

Rob Keck, Chair of the Wonders of Wildlife, American National Fish and Wildlife Museum Board, also announced today that the museum no longer plans to accept its designated portion of the city hotel-motel tax. This is consistent with the museum’s goal of constructing the new Conservation Education Center and completing the expansion of the WOW Museum totally through private donations and sales-tax revenue collected through the Museum Sales Tax District established for the Bass Pro complex.

The $1.3 million gift made today by Mr. Morris represents an amount equal to the hotel-motel revenue collected since the museum closed for expansion in December 2007. This private gift from Mr. Morris and Bass Pro Shops is an equivalent amount being invested into the community.

“From all of us at Bass Pro Shops, we are happy today to announce these pledges of support for the museum and Springfield,” Morris said. “We want the new museum, aquarium and education center to be a very positive, long-lasting benefit to our community and to the future of conservation in Missouri and nationally.

“We are excited about the dynamic quality of the facility that is being created,” Morris added. “It will be among the first of its kind ever built. Personally, I am very grateful to our museum Board Chairman Rob Keck and all of the museum board members. Collectively, they represent the Who’s Who of great conservation leaders and heroes in America. We can all be grateful and consider it an honor that they are donating their personal time and talents to help create this facility.”

Keck presented a check for $1.3 million to CFO Board Chair Cliff Brown and President Brian Fogle. In addition, Keck returned the most recent hotel-motel tax payment of $32,506.14 to Mayor Jim O’Neal.

“It is our hope that this money can be used to support a number of important community causes especially those relating to conservation, natural resources, and promoting tourism in the Springfield area,” Keck said.

A portion of the gift will be endowed, which means that its principle will remain intact and an annual distribution of its investment growth will be available each year for grants to non-profit agencies working in the areas of conservation, natural resources and tourism.

The pledge of the additional $2.7 million private gift over the next five years or less is equivalent to the hotel-motel revenue invested in the museum from the inception of that tax until 2007.

The CFO and Morris have previously collaborated on the Stewardship Ozarks Initiative.

That initiative, which included a lead gift from the Johnny Morris Foundation, raised about $670,000 beginning in 2007 to offer matching challenge grant funds to environmental and conservation non-profit agencies to build their endowments for long-term sustainability, as well as grants to conservation-related education projects.

“This gift offers incredible potential to maintain and enhance Springfield’s natural assets, as well as the economic benefits of our tourism economy, for many generations to come,” Fogle said. “We are very grateful for this gift and look forward to developing grantmaking opportunities for non-profit environmental and tourism agencies working in Springfield.”

The Museum’s decision to voluntarily opt out of the hotel-motel sales tax revenue approved by voters in 1998 for several community facilities, including the museum, will mean about $330,000 will be available for other eligible uses for the City of Springfield. The Museum will continue to use sales-tax revenue collected through the Museum Sales Tax District established for the Bass Pro complex. The Springfield City Council will determine how these newly available hotel-motel tax revenues will be allocated per the 1998 ballot language.

“This is an amazing opportunity for Springfield, made possible by the generosity of Johnny Morris and the Wonders of Wildlife Board of Directors,” Mayor Jim O’Neal said. “The ability to re-allocate future hotel-motel tax revenues will make our community even stronger.  And the private gift to the Community Foundation of the Ozarks is extremely generous.  All I can say is ‘Wow.’”

(Not Pictured: Representatives of the Kimberling Area Library Association)

Eight Springfield-area and regional non-profits were each awarded a $1,250 Endowment Building Grant from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks at CFO’s annual Agency Partners Luncheon on Tuesday, August 23.

The monies were awarded as part of CFO’s annual endowment-building grant round, which seeks to help agency partners with communications and outreach projects that will enhance their ability to raise funds and help their communities.

The eight recipients were:

• Willow Springs School Foundation (brochures/handouts to community and alumni)
• Good Samaritan Boys Ranch (postcard campaign/breakfast and lunch events on planned giving)
• Tri County Pregnancy Resource Center (website/social media campaign)
• East Newton R-6 Charitable Foundation (estate planning-specific mailings to alumni)
• Kimberling Area Library Association (“Buy a Brick” fundraising campaign materials)
• Sigma House of Springfield, Inc. (video production for website, booklet for distribution to potential donors)
• Springfield Ballet, Inc. (creation of Legacy Scholarship Endowment Fund)
• Urban Neighborhoods Alliance (materials for Campaign for the Community and Project CoRE)

The 2011 Agency Partners Luncheon was held at 319 Downtown in Springfield. After opening remarks by CFO President Brian Fogle and lunch, more than 130 attendees learned about the Ozarks Empowerment Project, a multi-pronged initiative being started by CFO, which is aimed at helping Agency Partners become more efficient and effective through workshops, interactive projects, online outreach and other endeavors. Look for more Ozarks Empowerment Project details at cfozarks.org in coming days and weeks.

Also honored were CFO’s new Agency Partners, added during the 2011 fiscal year (ended June 30), and Agency Partners who opened new funds during the same year. All attendees took home gifts of chocolate-covered marshmallows from Elle’s Patisserie in Springfield.

For more information on becoming an Agency Partner of CFO, or for information on the 2011-12 grant rounds, contact Bridget Dierks at bdierks@cfozarks.org.

The work of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks and some of our partners and affiliates have been making news in southern Missouri and beyond in the last week or so. Here are a few of the prime examples:

• Seymour is FAMOUS! The Daily Yonder, an Austin, Texas-based blog that showers love on all things rural, picked up our story about the great work of the Greater Seymour Area Foundation, as well as the accompanying video by Brandon Goodwin. You can read the Yonder’s post here. It’s a wonderful showcase for one of the strongest communities around.

• Small Towns, Big Accomplishments. Education Week, a national education site, last week  featured not one but two interesting posts by Diette Courrege:

The first story was about the Center for Midwestern Initiatives, which grew out of our own Rural Schools Partnership and is being established in conjunction with the Rural School and Community Trust by former CFO president Gary Funk.

The second report was all about the unprecedented success of the aforementioned Rural Schools Partnership and the funds established and grants distributed for rural schools in southern Missouri.