Meet some of the leaders of the region's community foundations.
by Jane Bokun
As a woman with a lot of responsibility, Barb Young heads up the Porter County Foundation, which gives out more than $1 million in grants each year.
She began her career as a volunteer for Porter County and has been affiliated with the foundation since its inception. She assumed the role of president in 1998 and the foundation has flown ever since. Under her direction, there has been successful growth and leadership in addressing key issues in Porter County.
“We moved forward to create the Porter County Foundation and I made a career change,” Young says. “I am a lawyer and had practiced law for 17 years,” Young says. She also was running a real estate development company. As for the law and her business expertise, she says, “I use it every day.”
Young says while she loves the foundation, she misses her friends in law. “I miss the people I worked with as a lawyer and some of them are still my good friends,” Young says.
In her role as foundation director, she says, she can always be growing the endowment assets for benefit of the community. Young says she enjoys creating new programs that can enhance her town. She especially has an interest in helping women.
“We created a Women's Fund Giving Circle in 2008, raising over $100,000 a year,” Young says. “We give away half of the money in high-impact grants which are causes that help women and children.”
According to its website, the Women's Fund Giving Circle was established by a group of passionate Porter County women. The Women's Fund of Porter County brings women together for the purpose of improving the quality of life for women and children in Porter County by collectively funding high-impact grants for charitable initiatives with the same purpose. “It's been a passionate endeavor and fun to watch,” Young says.
Young is not alone among women leading foundations. Indiana women have been successfully leading some area foundations for more than 20 years.
Pat Huber, president of the Crown Point Community Foundation, is another in this group of dynamic business women. “I'm a true blue, longstanding member of the Crown Point community,” Huber says.
Hence, her job running the Crown Point Community Foundation since 1999. She gained the experience after she and her family ran a junior department store that closed in 1996. “We have a lot of roots here,” Huber says. “Foundation work is all about relationship building.”
It's about satisfying the needs of both givers and receivers, she says. “People give you a gift and they want to know that it's the right thing.”
Huber says she had more of a business background so she was able to do lots of work including event planning. “You name it, we do it all,” she says. “It is a labor of love.”
In Huber's latest venture, the Crown Point Community Foundation designed a venue for not-for-profits to show off their wares. “It's sort of like a trade show,” Huber says.
She says when she saw there was a need, the foundation started to spring into action and set up booth space for people in the community who wanted to be volunteers and more. Last year there were 70 not-for-profits contributing. The different organizations found out each other.
“It was an enlightening experience,” Huber says. “It's women advancing women.” The program, which is still ongoing, was so successful that they had to add a second session. Huber says the ideas sometimes come fast and furious for Crown Point and sometimes they're just small ideas.
The Crown Point Community Foundation also reviews grants three times each year for organizations serving Crown Point, Winfield, Cedar Lake and south Lake County. The foundation funds projects that include education, arts and projects that enhance the quality of life in the area.
“We try to figure out a way to engage people and get them excited,” she says. “We make sure those programs are sustainable with the resources they need to make correct decisions.”
Another in the circle of power women is Maggi Spartz, who heads up the Unity Foundation of LaPorte County. Spartz is a graduate of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, where she honed her entrepreneurial skills.
“I was an entrepreneur and I came to be passionate about the Unity Foundation,” Spartz says. She says she started with nothing but a great board of directors. Now the Unity Foundation has a whopping $26 million in assets. “We're not just a charity, we're a vehicle to help others,” Spartz says.
She started her career at 21 in the banking business. She also worked with her dad, who also was an entrepreneur in the plastics industry. “We were running an international business out of the living room,” Spartz says.
Among her biggest accomplishments may be her son Emerson Spartz, who is one of the world's leading experts on Internet virality and has been featured in major media including the Wall Street Journal, “CBS Evening News,” CNN and more. Emerson Spartz owns Spartz Inc., and he runs one of the fastest-growing digital media publishers with 160 million page views per month. At the age of 12, Spartz founded MuggleNet, the top Harry Potter website, which attracted 50 million page views per month. He later became a best-selling author.
“He's gone on to all these other things and he works out of tech space in Chicago,” Spartz says modestly.
She says the whole reason she works with the Unity Foundation is to strengthen the region's communities. Spartz also loves the LaPorte County lifestyle.
When Spartz needs to kick back she sails. “I've raced sailboats all over Lake Michigan,” she says. She also is involved in the Society of Innovators in Indiana. “There are some amazing things going on in Northwest Indiana,” Spartz says. “We're on the cusp of a renaissance.”
Rose Meissner has also been a longtime foundation leader. Meissner joined the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County when it was established in 1992. Under her leadership, the foundation has grown to be one of the top 100 community foundations in the United States, with combined assets of more than $140 million.
Like Maggi Spartz, she also attended the Kelley School of Business at IU. As president of the foundation, Meissner has created a number of proactive initiatives that address challenges faced by the St. Joseph County community. They include the establishment of the $175,000 Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence, which recognizes local charities that demonstrate superior leadership and programming, and the Early Years Count Education Initiative, which improves early childhood education through teacher training and support.
Meissner also has championed the foundation's African-American Community Fund, a program that has received national attention for its emphasis on African-American-initiated philanthropy, and the ArtsEverywhere Initiative, a campaign that generated $6 million in resources to support the arts in St. Joseph County. Recently, the Community Foundation has partnered with law enforcement, leaders in the African-American community, and social services to support the implementation of the South Bend Group Violence Intervention, working with David Kennedy's National Network for Safe Communities.
Carolyn Saxton recently moved to the Legacy Foundation from the Lubeznik Center for the Arts. Legacy Foundation is a community foundation and the leading philanthropic partner serving Lake County. The foundation has been around since 1992. Legacy Foundation helps donors plan how to invest and manage their charitable assets; provides grants; offers scholarships to Lake County students; collaborates with local leaders; and serves as a mentor and resource center to provide for the people they serve.
Saxton was responsible for many positive programs at the Lubeznik Foundation, but she says she wanted to go back to her roots in the community.
The group at the Legacy Foundation is interested in looking at ways it can make a strong community impact to strengthen Lake County. “We have a couple of exciting programs on the agenda such as a neighborhood spotlight–we're doing a lot more promotion. Stay tuned,” Saxton says.
She says generating new ideas in a new job is a very exciting process. “We're bringing folks from Indianapolis and coordinating meetings about our new neighborhood program,” Saxton says.
Over the next several months, groups will be involved in meetings and submitting their letters of interest about the program. Right now, the Legacy Foundation invites potential partners and community-based organizations from any of the 16 towns and cities within Lake County to participate in the Neighborhood Spotlight training series. The upcoming informational session will educate community members on Neighborhood Spotlight competitive grant-making. The required training sessions that follow will coach your group on preparing the letter of interest application due by September 1.
Decisions will be made by the Legacy Foundation. More about the neighborhood program can be found at legacyfdn.org.
