October 08, 2007
Pa. Community Fund Receives $100-Million Pledge
By Anne Howard
The Erie Community Foundation, in Pennsylvania, has received a pledge of $100-million from an anonymous donor. The donor asked that $85-million be used to make unrestricted gifts for local nonprofit groups and $15-million for organizations nationally.
Though the donation comes without strings attached, the donor, an Erie resident, did express a strong preference that the charities use the money to create endowments at the community foundation, says Mike Batchelor, who has been president of the Erie foundation for 17 years. He says he suspects that $60-million of the $85-million will be used this way.
The local organizations that will benefit are mostly small human-service groups, including housing and health-service providers, food banks, women’s shelters, religious organizations, and children’s groups, says Mr. Batchelor.
The Second Harvest Food Bank, the Vision and Blindness Resources, St. Paul’s Neighborhood Free Clinic, and the Mercy Center for Women, all located in Erie, will receive some of the gift, and the donor also earmarked gifts for Edinboro and Gannon universities and Mercyhurst College.
Mr. Batchelor estimates the grants will be between $1-million and $2-million apiece and will be distributed over a three-year period that will probably start in 2009.
“Frankly, I think that’s kind of brilliant, because it gives the agencies time to plan,” Mr. Batchelor says of the three-year arrangement. “For most of them, it’s the largest gift they’ve ever received.”
The Erie Community Foundation and the United Way of Erie County will each receive $11-million. The community foundation’s gift is unrestricted, and Mr. Batchelor says the money will enable the fund to award $1.1-million each year in grants to local groups. The donor directed the United Way’s gift to its endowment.
He says he will not name the charities that are not in Erie because doing so “might give away the donor,” though he said they include universities and religious groups.
Mr. Batchelor says he worked closely with the donor for a long time to plan this gift, but the announcement came as a surprise to the other groups. Erie is a town of 110,000 people — the entire county has just 275,000 — so a gift of this size is “historic,” Mr. Batchelor says.
“Almost everyone was stunned,” he says. “There are a lot of nonprofit CEO’s that have been there a long time, and it’s such a validation of their work. We’re all going to need time to let this sink in.”
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