Jefferson Foundation executive vice president Missy Endres remembers a meeting five years ago when the organization first started talking about its grant program with representatives from local nonprofit agencies.
At the end of the meeting, Endres said, one of those representatives, who was almost crying, stood up and said, “We have been begging for funding scraps for Jefferson County from St. Louis for so long, and to have an agency like the foundation dedicated to Jefferson County is going to make a world of difference.”
The foundation was formed in 2013 and started awarding grants in 2014. Since then, it has doled out $38,412,640.22 in grants to charitable and educational groups that promote individual and community health and well-being. The foundation’s latest group of grants was announced May 8.
“Sometimes, it is hard to say how big of an influence we have made, but we feel like we have made a contribution,” said Jeff Draves, one of the original members of the foundation’s board of directors, who has helped decide what organizations receive grants for the past five years.
“I feel like five years has gone very fast,” said board chairman Ron Ravenscraft, another one of the original board members. “I think we have done well for a new foundation. We’ve had good cooperation from Mercy and a good response from the community. The feedback we have gotten from organizations we have made grants to has been positive.”
Five years of giving
The foundation awards two types of grants – responsive grants and proactive grants.
Responsive grants typically are awarded in May and November, with the money distributed in June and December. Those grants are intended to help advance the health and well-being of people in Jefferson County. The average amount given each year in responsive grants is about $5.8 million, and $28,770,984.13 in responsive grants have been awarded over the past five years.
While the foundation awards some large grants for $100,000 or more, Draves said even smaller grants in the $5,000-to-$10,000 range can have a huge impact on food pantries and other small organizations.
“Some of the smaller organizations that supply basic needs that if folks didn’t have, what would they do? Those stand out,” Draves said.
Endres said the foundation receives about 275 applications for responsive grants each year with the total request amount averaging about $18 million.
Draves said it is not easy to decide what groups receive grants, and the process takes about a month.
“There are always needs out there,” he said. “That is one of the tougher jobs. So many places can use help, but we can only invest so much. We want to keep this going in perpetuity.”
In 2016, the foundation awarded its first three proactive grants, which are larger sums doled out over a three-year period.
The first proactive grants went to Catholic Family Services, which received $1,169,787 to provide mental health services for children; to Mercy Hospital Jefferson, which received $2,720,008 for mental health services for children; and to the Jefferson County Health Department, which received $3 million to provide dental services for adults.
The focus for the first proactive grants was on mental health and dental care, but for the next round, Draves said the foundation is looking to tackle another health issue in Jefferson County.
“Right now, every week you see something about an opioid death or heroin overdose,” Draves said. “We are hoping with our next round of grants we can start to have an impact on that by supporting agencies that assist in recovery and prevention. Will that make a big change in the next two or three years? Maybe not, but let’s hope five to 10 years down the road, we will see the impact for those investments.”
Endres said the foundation has received several applications for its next three-year cycle of proactive grants, and is expected to announce the recipients this month.
Win-win
The Jefferson Foundation began on Jan. 31, 2013, as the Jefferson Memorial Community Foundation, funded with $154 million in proceeds from the sale of Jefferson Regional Medical Center (originally Jefferson Memorial Hospital) to the Mercy health system.
Currently, the foundation’s asset base is $161 million, financial coordinator Jennifer Bieser said.
Ravenscraft said the sale of Jefferson Regional to Mercy has helped the region in several ways.
“The transaction with Mercy definitely benefited the health care community,” he said. “We can see the improvements Mercy has made with the facilities and medical services, and we have made in the neighborhood of $40 million in grants in the community. It has been a win-win situation.”
John Winkelman, Mercy Hospital Jefferson spokesman, said grant money from the foundation and other contributions have led to nearly $4 million being invested in the hospital.
The most recent example was the April 29 opening of the Adult and Adolescent Intensive Outpatient program in the building that formerly housed the cancer center.
“Since Mercy came to our community, renovations and expansions have been visible throughout the campus, including construction of the new, all-private room patient tower, the new Mercy Cancer Center, a new diagnostic cardiology program, advanced medical imaging capabilities, new Mercy Clinic offices for specialists and primary care physicians, and much more,” Winkelman said.
Keep going
Draves said the board had one goal in mind when the foundation first started awarding grants in 2014.
“Our approach at that time, and still is, is just don’t screw it up,” Draves said. “The best thing is, with our investment committee and advisers, we have maintained that $150 million we started with. It is still there, and we hope 20 to 30 years down the road that we still have that much, if not more. We have been pretty fortunate with the stock market these last few years here, and we hope that continues.”
Other original board members included Martha Reed, Lindell Carter, Ben Albano, Jim Muehlhauser, Timothy Patterson, Stokely Wischmeier and Donn Sorensen. However, Reed died in November 2018, and that seat has not been filled, and Sorensen has been replaced by Eric Ammons as the Mercy Hospital representative.
Jeffery Buck was the foundation’s first president and chief executive officer, before moving into a consultant role in 2017. Juan A. Figueroa was hired to replace him as president and CEO in September 2017 but resigned in April, and Buck returned to his role as the president and CEO. Jan Miller is the foundation’s office coordinator.
“We have a great staff here. They make life much easier for us. Without them, we would have a lot more work to do,” Draves said. “I feel sometimes we get the credit for all of their hard work.”