Community Foundation of the Ozarks

Springfield public radio station KSMU’s bi-monthly “Making a Difference” segment focused on the history of the CFO as we celebrate our 40th anniversary today.

Reporter Mike Smith interviewed one of the CFO’s founders, Springfield attorney Fred Hall, along with Chief Financial Officer Susanne Gray and President Brian Fogle. Hall was among the 11 members of the Greene County Estate Planning Council who incorporated the CFO on June 18, 1973 to create a public charitable foundation. Since then, of course, it became the Community Foundation of the Ozarks and now includes 44 affiliate foundations across central and southern Missouri.

The Board of Directors and the CFO staff want to express our gratitude and appreciation to not only those 11 founders, but to all of our donors, partners, and professional advisors who understand and support the concept of a community foundation as a vehicle for private philanthropic dollars to improve the quality of life across our region.

The CFO will celebrate its 40^th anniversary at a community open house from 4-6 p.m., Thursday, June 13, at its offices at 425 E. Trafficway in downtown Springfield. A short program, including a proclamation from Mayor Bob Stephens, will take place about 5:15 p.m.

The program also will include recognition of the family members who are supporting the newly landscaped Fanny Baldwin Garden, adjacent to the CFO building, honoring the late “Posey” Baldwin, a dedicated urban gardener in the early 1900s. The CFO partners with the Springfield-Greene County Park Department to maintain the garden.

During 40 years as the region’s public charitable foundation, the CFO has returned nearly $150 million through grants and distributions, built a network to strengthen nonprofit agencies, regional affiliates and schools, provided leadership on community issues, and cultivated future generations through scholarships and youth philanthropy.

The Community Foundation of Greene County was founded on June 18, 1973 by a group of 11 men involved in the estate planning, legal, accounting and insurance professions. The late Mayor Jim Payne appointed the group to research starting a community foundation, a concept also encouraged by the late Anne Drummond, an insurance professional who later served on the Springfield City Council. Both Payne and Drummond were motivated by seeing the impact community foundations were having in other areas, particularly after learning that a large estate was left to a national organization that could have benefitted our own community if a public foundation had existed.

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We’ve fielded some questions today about how people can and should donate to help yesterday’s tornado victims in Moore, Okla. and the Oklahoma City area.

It’s a two-part answer, and it depends on your intent as a donor.

If you are interested in donating to the relief effort, for immediate needs and expenses, your best bet is to donate to a reputable agency with expertise in these areas, like Convoy of Hope or the American Red Cross.

However, for intermediate and long-term recovery needs, consider the Oklahoma City Community Foundation’s Tornado Recovery and Community Emergency Fund. The fund was opened by the OCCF in 1999 following another tornado, and is designed to help with longer-term needs that will include rebuilding homes and schools, city infrastructure repairs and other problems that will remain long after immediate-relief agencies have left town.

As CFO and the Ozarks learned with the 2012 Branson, 2011 Joplin, and 2003 Stockton tornadoes (as well as with other disasters), long-term funds are necessary to help a city rebuild and recover, a process that will take years.

If you do wish to give to the initial relief effort, please do not collect items like clothes, cleaning supplies or even food and water; the agencies on the ground in Moore, like the ones listed above, will best know what is needed and how to obtain and manage it in the days and weeks to come.