(bright music) - PNC is proud to support Business Forward, where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.

(inspirational music) - Welcome to Business Forward.

I'm your host, Matt George, and it's going to be a fun one tonight, we've got Mark Roberts.

Mark is the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Central Illinois.

Welcome, Mark.

- Thanks Matt.

Nice to be here.

- Yeah, it's cool, let's get down to it.

So, are you from this area?

- I am a Illinois born and bred boy, never lived outside of the state of Illinois.

So I'm originally from a little town outside of Decatur, called Mount Zion.

- [Matt] Oh, I know Mount Zion.

- It was a nice place to grow up.

And then my travels took me to a few different places, Champaign-Urbana, but we've been here in this area for nearly 25 years now, so this is very much home.

- [Matt] What brought you here?

- So I was working at a completely different industry than I was now, I was in the big business world working for a large telecommunications company, and I was moved over here to have a part of the sales team that was servicing Caterpillar and so many others in this community.

So, you know, that's what brought me here, but ultimately, made a career change some years ago and that's been a good, good move.

- Kind of a unique, kind of a funny story between you and I is I grew up going to school in Danville, Illinois with your wife.

- How about that?

- Isn't that crazy?

- My in-laws are still there.

- And so is my mom.

- Yeah.

- So that is great.

So just in general, what is, when you hear Community Foundation, what's the definition of a community foundation?

- You know, the way I like to describe it, that tends to make sense to most people, is a charitable savings account for the community.

When I say that people are like, oh, okay, that makes some sense.

Our job is to work with all kinds of people in the community, be they families or individuals, couples, corporations, even other nonprofit organizations.

They contribute money to the community foundation to establish charitable funds under our umbrella.

And then our job is to administer those, to invest them, to grow them, and ultimately to make grants, to impact the quality of life in this community in all kinds of areas.

So it's pretty delightful work.

- Yeah, that's impactful.

So there are community foundations really all over, right, there are, I mean, cities everywhere.

- Fastest growing segment, actually, in the nonprofit sector are community foundations, over 750 throughout the United States and counting right now because communities are increasingly figuring out, "Hey, in an era of decreasing corporate support, decreasing governmental support and other things, having that permanent source of charitable capital in your community that's growing over time, that you can deploy to do all kinds of great things in your community.

It's a really big deal.

And so that's why I think that the pace is so fast.

- So, your charitable gifts last forever, right?

- That's a pretty good phrase, I like that.

Yeah, we talk a lot about "live here, give here."

These are people who have lived in this community.

They've started a company, they've raised a family, they've worked at a major employer for 40 years, whatever it is, they love this community, and this is their chance to leave a legacy for those that come after all of us, to make sure that this place is as vibrant, as safe, and good as it can possibly be.

And it's a real blessing to get to do that work.

- So how long has the Community Foundation of Central Illinois been around?

- We're in our 36th year, we were formed in 1985, so we've been around a little bit.

The interesting story I love to tell, our first executive director was a lady named Donna Hare.

She took over an organization that had exactly $2,540 and 39 cents to its name.

So we were hardly a going concern at that time.

But through a lot of hard work by her and a lot of wonderful volunteers over the years, we've grown rapidly.

We're an organization that's pushing $80 million in assets, now, making many millions of dollars in grants annually to the Central Illinois community.

There's a lot of momentum right now.

- So, okay, 80 million.

So I'm Mark Roberts and my goal is what, 90 million, 100 million, do you look at goals like that, strategically?

- Yeah, we're very strategically driven as an organization, which frankly is part of the secret to our success, in my estimation.

But yeah, the actual defined goal for our next step is a hundred million dollars, and we're on the fast track to that.

We're growing very rapidly.

We've more than doubled in size within the last three years.

And the market has helped that, obviously, we have permanent investments that we are charged with growing.

The markets help, but we've also attracted many millions of new dollars into the foundation through people's estates, bequests, outright donations, and other things as well.

So the hundred million dollars is right in front of us.

- Well, how long have you been at the Community Foundation?

- A little over 13 years at this point.

- Well, see that's an important number because people over time, whether it's a nonprofit and I know this is nonprofit, but in this case that security knowing, you know what you're doing.

You know what you're talking about.

If I'm going to give you a million dollars, I'm not giving it to someone that's been in the business two months.

- Completely agree, people, at the end of the day, people give to people and the institution of the Community Foundation is an important one and people know and trust us.

But there is a lot to be said for the continuity of the leadership at the top of any organization.

So I completely agree.

- [Matt] So do you have a board?

- I have a board currently of 18 members and I'm not shy in saying we have one of the finest board cultures that I've encountered anywhere, and so many of them agree as well.

We've worked very hard over time to make sure that we honor the work of our volunteers in the right way.

We have the right kind of discussions, charge them with meaningful and interesting service to the Community Foundation.

And it pays off in the way that we operate day-to-day, the way that we grow and the great line between governance and administration at the foundation.

- How many employees do you have?

- We are a total of five employees and so small and mighty.

- Small and mighty, and then you're probably the only one that reports to the board?

- I'm the only one that reports to the board, everyone else reports to me.

So structurally that's how we work.

- So marketing and branding is really a key piece of what you do, I'm guessing.

- It is, and frankly, when I'm speaking really frankly, one of our challenges over the years has been devoting the right kind of capacity to the marketing and the communications function.

And just earlier this year, for the first time, we hired our first full-time person to do that job.

And in the first 7, 8, 9 months, it's already proven to be the exact right thing because our visibility has rapidly increased just in that time, because we've had a chance to be intentional about it.

- I mean, social media... - Everything.

- Everything, - Everything.

- Website.

- Success breeds success, right?

And to the extent that we're able to sort of talk about here's the funds that we've established because of the great people in the community, here's the grants that we've made that have benefited all these different causes of the community.

When people see that they say, "Hey, I wanna be a part of that, we can do that too, as a family," and they come alongside.

- I guess the way to put it, too, is you're hiring someone to take that hidden gem mentality somewhat because not everybody knows what a Community Foundation is, and you need your story told.

- That's the exact right words.

We talk everyday about telling the stories of the Community Foundation.

Funds established, grants made, all the wonderful stories of these people in this community who care so much about the Central Illinois community.

And sometimes they work with Community Foundation to leave that legacy.

- You know, people ask me about my business and non-profit all the time.

And I think the thing that I describe, I don't ever go into deep dive of what is a normal business day, but really at the end of the day, I'm a storyteller, and that's what you are, too.

And you get to see a lot of the innards of a community, no matter what, because all of these opportunities come right to you.

And then you have to, how do you sort through all of them?

- Well, there's a couple of ways to look at it.

Number one at the Community Foundation, we, in theory, can get our hands in anything, almost, that's going on in the community.

We're a neutral entity that's here to improve the quality of life so we can deploy our resources in ways that can literally impact almost anything.

So the challenge of that, that's the opportunity.

The challenge of that is, the flip, is that in theory, we could get our hands in everything.

So the point is that about every three years, we do a strategic plan.

We pick the three or four most important things for us to work on, at that time, we don't make this massive plan that ends up as so many dues sitting on a shelf because you can't execute it.

The three or four most important planned things, we execute the heck out of that to move the organization forward.

So we're guided literally by strategy and that's not sexy, but that's how it's done.

- So, what would be one of the pillars that guides you, like give me an example of what you and your team go out and do every day that's tied to the strategy.

- Yeah, so the most interesting one over the last few years has been what we call Ending Hunger Together, which was a grants program that we put together because we saw, year after year, we were granting to the same food-focused, hunger-focused organizations in the community, which all do a great job.

But every year, it was the same grants for the same purposes.

And what it really was, was more and more food into the emergency food system.

And that's important, right?

Because today we have hungry people in the community, but our point was, when's that going to end?

How are we really making an impact other than just money?

So we stepped back, we decided to learn a lot about the hunger space.

And then we developed Ending Hunger Together, which did a couple of important things.

Number one, we wouldn't make grants to any organization in isolation, at least two or more of them had to collaborate.

So we talk a lot about fostering- - [Matt] Thank goodness.

- We talk a lot about fostering collaboration in the community, and this has really driven that forward.

And the point I'll make is that there's a lot of silos in the community, but my observation is, it's not because organizations just want to be siloed, it's a capacity issue.

These are organizations that have their heads down, they're doing the best that they can, but we had a chance to say, look, we're putting some money on the table, community, and we're going to ask you, at least two or more of you to work together, to develop a grant programs or programs that we will help fund that are working on the systemic needs that are contributing to hunger in this community, that are based on best practices, that are sustainable, that are measurable.

And that worked.

The very first grant we made was to what's called the HEAL Partnership, healthy eating, active learning.

It's headed up by the Tazewell County Health Department and they had lined up 19 organizations or programs to work together.

And it's been wonderful because they are executing the heck out of what they're doing, and it's been a very good move.

- There needs to be more of it.

You know, I say all the time that a lot of people don't understand what the true meaning of collaboration is.

I know it's a vague term, but you put it nicely that everybody puts their heads down and goes towards their own goal.

But a lot of times, there's some other factors that play into that boards, and this, and that.

And I don't want to get off track here, but I do think as a community, and you get to see it from a pretty high level, more agencies need to work together.

- They do, and it's a hard, you know, you had a nonprofit, I had a nonprofit and that's a hard discussion.

And a lot of times I think it takes the board of directors to say, hey, where should we be partnering?

Where should we be collaborating in ways that make some sense?

'Cause the, I have to say frankly, and observing, the days of the standalone organization are starting to decrease, we're all going to have to work together more closely to really move the needle in the community.

- Well, that's why I brought it up, because, and the boards are one thing, and corporations are the other, that are driving.

All right, so let's kind of do a little role play here.

I have some money, I want to give it in my parent's name.

Let's just say my mom's name, and I can come to the Community Foundation and say, I'm going to write one big check, or I'm going to write monthly checks or whatever, and start a fund in her name.

Is that correct?

- Absolutely, yeah, and the first question I would ask you as we're sitting across the table is what is it that you're wanting to accomplish?

What is it about this community that you're trying to impact?

Let's talk about that, right?

- [Matt] That's a good one.

- And then that gives us an idea at the foundation of how we can structure a charitable fund that's going to meet the needs of what you're trying to do.

And I have to tell you, in my day-to-day work, that is the most wonderful part of the work that I get to do is when I'm across that table from someone talking about what's your dream for this community and how can the Community Foundation help to facilitate that for you?

That's pretty good work.

- Are there limits, are there minimums that you look at, or are there?

- Yeah, so to establish what we would call an endowed fund, a permanent fund, it's $10,000 to start that, which to some sounds like a lot of money, and to some, it doesn't sound like it, but over a few years, a family, or a couple, or whatever could, or an individual, a couple thousand dollars a year and build that fund.

So that's the minimum to start an endowed fund.

But the thing is we have nearly 500 different charitable funds under the umbrella of the Community Foundation.

Anyone at any time can write a $20 check.

- Well that's what I was getting at.

- It's the community's foundation.

There's a role for everyone, and every single dollar is important to us.

- So then how is the money dispersed?

So like now go back to my example.

And I say, my mom likes books, so I want to have it go to libraries for kids or something.

And so we come up with those terms, and figure out whether it's, is it market-driven, too.

- Not so much, for any fund that we sit down and we construct at the foundation, we're going to have an agreement that sort of spells out here's what we're going to do.

Now, what's critical about that is it, because it helps us understand how to execute the wishes of the donor at the time that we do it, but more importantly, 30 years from now, when none of us are involved anymore, 50 years from now, this is a permanent fund, right?

This is a legacy being left.

And so we want there to be, everyone to understand 30 years from now, when they look at that, here's what's going to happen.

But to answer your question directly, we have volunteers.

So the model is a great one.

We have all these funds.

We solicit proposals from nonprofits in the community when those all come in, our staff organizes all of that.

And then the volunteer committees, board members of the Community Foundation and other committee members as well, they review all those.

They read them and then they rank them.

And then they get together to have a very lively discussion about which ones to fund based on the resources we have available to grant at that time.

So it's a great model.

It's community members making good decisions about community resources that are entrusted to the Community Foundation.

- When you started 13 years ago, what was the foundation's dollar amount?

- I started in May of 2008.

So, and I'm saying that for a reason, we were about $24 million at that time.

And you remember, - Oh, 'cause '09 hit?

- Well, late '08 hit, right, and then into '09.

So the joke that I make at this point, it's easy to laugh now, it wasn't that funny then.

But I say, I turned a $24 million organization into a $19 million organization in about five or six months, which is funny now, with time.

But even though that was hard, we still followed our plan, made all the right decisions about investments and how to handle things at that time guided by our formal policies.

We very quickly grew all that back.

And now we've gotten, as I said earlier, much, much larger.

And so we've grown a lot, it's been gratifying.

- That's pretty cool, so, let's talk about Bob Gilmore for a second.

- [Mark] Sure.

- You walk in at WTVP here, Bob Gilmore's name is on the wall.

You go to Children's Home and he donated 76 acres of land and Scott's Prairie.

And then, now look at the Community Foundation.

His footprint is on almost every piece of this community isn't it?

- [Mark] Literally, literally.

- [Matt] Museum.

- And all of us that had the privilege of knowing Bob, knew exactly how sharp and caring and committed to this community that he was.

And he left a multi-million dollar estate gift to the foundation that establishes the Gilmore fund.

And he's asked us to do three things, he's asked us to focus on grants to arts and culture.

He's asked us to focus on grants to sort of general quality of life, social service kind of work, which we already do a lot of.

And he's also asked us to focus on economic development, job creation, which is not an area we've done a lot in, so this is good for us.

- That's a big one, that's a big one.

So I wanted to bring that up because I was lucky enough to, his office was at Scott's Prairie, so he had an actual caboose.

The caboose is still there, and that was his office.

And he would call me and say, "Hey, I want to meet."

And I documented, I had lunch with him 15 times and the sandwich was, his favorite sandwich was a Reuben, and I'd bring him a Reuben, and we'd go sit there, and at age 100, he was still CEO.

- And you were getting a master's class.

- Oh, 15 times.

That's why I documented him, I knew what, I was being mentored by a former CEO of Caterpillar who, when he took over at Cat was losing a million dollars a day.

It's crazy, it's crazy.

- So what a wonderful thing that's happened.

So the legacy Bob has left, we're going to execute that and we're in the midst of really planning what that's gonna look like in a lot of areas.

It's very exciting.

It's a good stretch growth for us as well.

And it's been a result in so many positives for the community, not to mention the actual Gilmore Foundation that exists as well, and the legacy Bob has left there.

And we're increasingly talking with them about how do we collaborate?

How do we leverage resources together to really make an impact on this community?

- So I heard something about future plans for a nonprofit resource center, what does that mean?

- You know, it's been a vision of mine since the day I walked in to the Community Foundation.

I think we are uniquely positioned at the Community Foundation to house a nonprofit resource center, and the model in my mind, and it's not that I've made it up out of thin air, there are other models throughout the United States.

But our community needs a one-stop shop where nonprofits of all sizes, but particularly some of our smaller ones, can come and gain access to board training, governance training, executive director training, help with strategic planning, help with designing a comprehensive fundraising program and on and on and on.

And we have that in bits and pieces in this community, but we don't have a place, - It's scattered?

- It's scattered, but I'd like to have a place where it's housed at the Community Foundation.

We have access to resources that all these can take advantage of, because I see it day-to-day, we have some really strong executive directors in town, and we have some who are very well-intentioned, but need some additional support.

We have boards of directors all across town that are all well-intentioned and all good people, but sometimes the organizational culture doesn't allow them to quite understand effective governance.

And so these are just important things that I think we can help with.

And I think before the day I walk out of the foundation, we'll have that established.

- Well, effective governance is a good way of putting it, but coming off of COVID and not everybody being with everybody, it's, as a director of a nonprofit, I have board members coming up and saying, I'll do anything you need me to do.

And they are, they all mean well, and it's very tough to kind of get back into that groove, I've heard it from just about every CEO.

- There's no doubt.

I give a lot of thought to governance, to boards of directors.

It's one of my areas of professional interest.

And I'm a little concerned because we've all responded, right?

We've gone virtual, we've gone hybrid, we've done whatever we've done.

There's nothing that replaces having all of your board members in one room and the synergy that you get with that kind of thing.

That's what's helped build and propagate the really good board culture that we have at the Community Foundation, I'm convinced of it.

So we're going to have to find a way that we all adapt, that allows us to preserve it and grow that that culture.

- Is it true that the Community Foundation has given out like 25 to $30 million worth of grants, in that range, something like that?

- No, since our inception through all the different ways that we grant it's approaching the $110 million at this point.

- Oh, well, I'm way off, wow.

- We have two corporations though, at the Community Foundation.

So literally the Community Foundation is about that number, you're about right.

We also have the depository, which is a charitable checking account that a lot of local folks use and they use it.

It's a transactional thing.

They donate most often appreciated stock into it.

We liquidate that, they get the deduction, the money sits there, when they're ready to make grants, they do it.

Through that, we've put the other 75-ish million to work over the years.

So the impact between some corporations, large.

- So what you just said is interesting too, because that kind of goes to a different area.

You have to have some great relationships with financial advisors.

Because your money is constantly moving.

- It really is.

There's a lot moving around at the Community Foundation.

The best things happen, in my estimation, when we have good relationships with professional advisors, most often estate planning attorneys, accountants.

And to some extent also with actual financial advisors themselves.

When those folks understand the value equation of the Community Foundation and how we can help their clients to meet the goals that they, their charitable goals that they have, wonderful things start to happen.

Because the next thing you know, somebody says, Mr., Mrs.

Client, you really should go sit down and talk with Mark at the Community Foundation, because I know you're thinking about this impact on the community.

They can help you with that.

And then multi, multi-million dollar gifts tend to follow and that's aided in our growth.

- So I want to talk about you for a second, because one thing that I was always impressed with is you can join a club like Rotary, which you're part of Rotary North, right?

But you were more than a part of it, you went all in.

So you were the president and had other roles.

So one of the goals of Rotary International was to eradicate polio, right?

So you had a heavy hand in that.

And just tell me a little bit about that.

What got you into this?

- As we sit here today, I've been a part of Rotary for a little over 20 years, member of Peoria-North Club.

I love everything about Rotaries.

I've never left a Rotary meeting feeling worse than when I went in, because you're surrounded by, just everywhere you go, the finest people that care about their communities, they care about Rotary, they care about doing good.

These are the kind of people we should all want to be around.

But yeah, I served as club president in 2010, 2011 Rotary year, and then two years ago, I served as the district governor for the 48 clubs throughout West-Central Illinois.

And that was one of the finest experiences I've ever had because I got a glimpse of Rotary, not a glimpse, much more than a glimpse, of Rotary at an international scale.

And the impact that the organization has globally, and met people from all over the world that are just like us, just trying to do the right things for their communities.

On the topic of polio, so far, this year, two new cases of wild polio virus in the world, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the last two countries that have polio, two.

So we're literally that close to eradicating polio.

And I'm never shy about wearing this Rotary pin everywhere I go.

- Wow, I wanted to bring it up because I think it's important.

I think there's a lot of clubs like Rotary that are kind of losing membership.

And it's very hard, but at the same time, if you think about it, you want to know how you can make an impact, but you don't know which way to go.

There's a lot of good people there.

You want to be part of a board or a committee, you can do it at Rotary.

- [Mark] No question.

- So it's pretty cool stuff.

So I wanted to bring that up.

I think you and your team do a great job for how small amount of employees that you have because it takes some navigating.

And now you've got your marketing and branding person there, and that's great.

They can get hold of you, Mark Roberts at the Community Foundation of Central Illinois.

If you have anything that you want to do, family-wise, dollar-wise, estate-wise.

You can bring your financial advisor and come and talk to you, an accountant, - Happens frequently.

- I would guess so, your accountant or whoever it may be.

So, all right.

Well, Mark Roberts, President, CEO of the Community Foundation of Central Illinois, always doing good work, has a great family and really cares about our community.

And that's a meaningful thing.

I have four more pages of questions, so we might have to kind of come back and do part two.

- [Mark] Sounds good, I'd enjoy it.

- All right, well, I appreciate it.

It's been another great episode of Business Forward.

(inspirational music) - Thank you for tuning in to Business Forward, brought to you by PNC.