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ACROSS
THE BOARD
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Whitaker
Foundation
By Pam Droog
Funding arts, parks and health for generations of St. Louisans.
Seated
left to right: Eugene Mackey III, Laurna C.
Godwin
Standing: Melvin Brown, Donald Gallop
Not piictured: Dudley Grove |
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Few people know what Mae Meissner Whitaker looked like. But
the foundation she created upon her death in 1975 is changing
the face of the St. Louis area.
“None of us knew her. We don’t even have a photograph of her,”
says Whitaker Foundation trustee Eugene J. Mackey, principal,
Mackey Mitchell Associates. Despite this lack, the foundation
has flourished under the leadership of Mackey and his four fellow
trustees (a five-person board replaced the original sole trustee
in 1994).
“In the foundation world, we are small to mid-sized,” says executive
director Christy Gray. In fiscal year 2000, the foundation’s
current asset base was $42.5 million. In the recently concluded
fiscal year, the foundation made grants totaling $1.8 million
to organizations working in the foundation’s three focus areas:
arts, parks and health.
“The feeling was if we stayed focused, we’d have greater influence
with a smaller amount of money,” Gray says. “The foundation
conducted a needs assessment before selecting its funding areas
and found the arts in particular need of additional foundation
support.” Park groups receive support “because St. Louis is
so neighborhood-based, and parks are so hard to bring back,”
Gray says. Health grants are a tribute to some of the gifts
Mrs. Whitaker had made in her lifetime.
Trustees meet four times a year, and attendance is mandatory
(present-by-phone counts). Instead of a chairman, there is a
presiding trustee, who changes quarterly. Terms are five years,
with one trustee rotating off each year. They represent various
professions and community interests: besides architect Mackey,
the trustees are consultant Melvin F. Brown, attorney Donald
P. Gallop, communications specialist Laurna C. Godwin and community
volunteer Dudley R. Grove. “We have some very interesting conversations,”
Mackey says. “It’s not a predictable group of people.”
Above all, the trustees have organized themselves as “a committee
of the whole,” Mackey says. “Everything has been a matter of
consensus in terms of our deliberations, and that has worked
very well for us.”
Without the distractions of fundraising, the Whitaker Foundation
trustees reached consensus on funding 57 programs last year,
increasingly spending significantly, partly due to the high-performing
stock market. “The trustees felt strongly that the community
should benefit from the success of the market as much as the
foundation benefits,” Gray says.
Typically, the foundation funds one-quarter of the proposals
it receives. Groups may submit detailed proposals three times
a year. Gray and her assistant, Betsy Kellerman, review each
one and meet with the applicants before making recommendations
to the trustees.
“We have really encouraged Christy to represent us in the community
and help people get organized, so we can support them,” Mackey
says. “Sometimes we’ll contact an organization we’ve heard about
and say, ‘You’re doing a great job and we want to encourage
you to do even more,’ and we’ll give them a grant,” he adds.
“Or after we hear a proposal, we may ask Christy to tell the
group to change its focus or timing, and instead of giving them
$5,000 for such an exciting idea, we’ll give them $10,000.”
Gray says, “Those are nice phone calls to make.”
One example of this support is the Whitaker Jazz Festival at
the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Garden was expecting about
1,000 patrons and 9,500 showed up. “To make sure people had
a good experience and the Garden wasn’t penalized for the festival’s
popularity, we made an unsolicited grant to improve the stage
and sound system,” Gray says. One condition of the grant was
that admission be free.
Another unsolicited Whitaker grant went to the Public Works
Pool pavilion at Tower Grove Park, which had been recently restored.
Gray explains, park management wanted to retrofit the pavilion
into a theatre. “We provided funds to make this possible, and
also gave an additional grant to provide programming in perpetuity,
so they can afford to actually put things on the stage,” she
says. Free theater at Tower Grove Park is scheduled to start
next summer.
Mackey notes, although the trustees focus on arts, parks and
health, “we realize there may be other definable areas we should
be involved in, within Mrs. Whitaker’s broad wishes of building
a better community.” A prime example is the foundation’s recent
two-year, $100,000 grant to the RCGA’s Regional Business Council.
“We wanted to make sure the Council would have the chance to
mature at a very high level of interest for its members,” Mackey
explains. “Hopefully the grant will enrich the program so the
Regional Business Council can bring in top speakers to enthuse
and inspire the group.”
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WHITAKER
FOUNDATION: FAST FACTS
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- Mae
Meissner Whitaker was born in Bunker Hill, Ill. in 1883.
She married advertising executive Lyndon C. Whitaker.
The couple had no children.
- The
principal source of her personal wealth was the St.
Louis-based McKinney Bakery Co., owned by her brother
and brother-in-law.
- Mrs.
Whitaker created the foundation upon her death in 1975
at the age of 92 as a memorial to her husband and a
gift to the community.
- Some
recipients of Whitaker Foundation grants include: (in
the arts category) Circus Flora, City Museum, Guardian
Angel Settlement House, Opera Theatre of St. Louis,
Robert Reed Tap Heritage, UMSL Performing Arts Center;
(in the parks category) Magic House, Gateway Greening,
Forest Releaf of Missouri, Tower Grove Park; (in the
health category) Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club, Jackie
Joyner Kersee Boys & Girls Club, OASIS Institute, Washington
University School of Medicine.
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Whether it’s for art, parks, health or beyond, every grant and
decision is made with Mae Whitaker in mind, Mackey says. “We
always ask ourselves, is this what Mrs. Whitaker would have
wanted? We have to remember we’re blessed with her original
gift and the good fortune to see it grow.” In fact, he adds,
“I like thinking ahead 50 years when the foundation will have
hundreds of millions of dollars, knowing the decisions we’ve
made in the last few years will have set the stage for this
tremendous thing as it moves forward, way beyond us.”
Pam Droog is a St. Louis-based free-lance writer.
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