APRIL 1996
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 8 / $5.00
Philanthrt^jJqmpal
Hatching progress
Reynolds Foundation cultivates change
Because of its six decades of
helping to improve life in the
state, the Z. Smith Reynolds
Foundation is the 1996 winner of
the North Carolina Philanthropy
Award. The award is sponsored
by the Philanthropy Journal.
Bv Merrill Wolf
Winston-Salem
Its impact is felt throughout North
Carolina every day m settings and
situations that could not be more var
ied: ■ '
A five-year-old tentatively but
proudly releases her mother’s hand
on the first day of kindergarten.
A poor family that never really
thought this day would come signs
the papers to buy its first home.
Visitors to the state zoo in
Asheboro feel themselves transport
ed to the African plains.
Although most North Carolinians
probably recognize its name only as
somehow connected to a tobacco for
tune, the Z. Smith Reynolds
Fbundation, which this year marks its
PHILANTHROPY AWARD
60th anniversary, has touched - and
improved - life in the state in count
less ways.
In 1936, three children of tobacco
magnate R.J. Reynolds created the
foundation, which is based in
Winston-Salem, with a $7.5 million
trust from their youngest brother’s
estate.
Four years earlier, 21-year-old
Zachary Smith Reynolds - a dashing
aviator and man-about-town - had
been found dead of a gunshot wound
on the family estate. His death was
never fully explained.
The foundation was further
enriched by a 1951 bequest from R.J.
Reynolds’ younger brother, William
Neal Reynolds. Its assets now total
$309 mUlion.
The mission of the foundation is.
Pre-collegiate education is one of the Z. Smith Reynold's Foundation's top funding priorities. In this
picture from the foundation's 1990 annual report, a mother reads to her child as part of the Head Start
program in Madison County.
Photo by Rob Amberg. Photo courtesy of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundotion.
quite simply, “the accomplishment of
charitable works in the State of North
Carolina.” Its first grant - $100,000 to
the state Board of Health to fight sex
ually transmitted disease, known
then as “venereal disease” - set the
pace for six decades of bold, innova
tive grantmaking and related activi
ties that have played a large part in
improving the qu^ty of life in North
Carolina.
More than $220 million in grants
later, the foundation can reflect back
on a long history of incubating and
supporting programs that have had a
profound impact both in North
Carolina and beyond state lines.
Characteristically, however, the
foundation doesn’t have time for
reflection.
“The truth is we haven’t paid
much attention to the anniversary
year,” says Tom Lambeth, executive
director of the foundation since 1978.
PROGRESSIVE LEGACY
At this time of year, especially, the
foundation’s staff and trustees - who
now include R.J. Reynolds’ great
grandchildren - are too busy looking
ahead. Preparing for a May trustees
meeting, Lambeth and his colleagues
are travelling throu^out the state
visiting prospective grantees.
Last year, the Reynolds founda
tion approved more than $8 million in
grants to 219 Thr Heel organizations
- about a third of those that applied
for funding.
One of the largest grants every
year - $1 million - goes to Wake Fbrest
University, under a perpetual con
tract established in 1946. Apart from
that agreement, the foundation’s
grantmaking is restricted only by
geography
In addition to steady support over
the years for arts and culture -
including seminal funds for the state
zoo - most recently it has focused on
Look for REYNOLDS, page 18
First Union courts community foundations
First Union will manage the char
itable money its clients put into
the Fbundation for the Carolinas.
The agreement will be a model
for si^ar arrangements with
other community foundations.
By Sean Bailey
Charlotte
First Union National Bank of
North Carolina and the Fbundation
for the Carolinas have formed a part
nership that both sides think will
become a model for the way in which
foundations and banks do business in
the future.
The agreement allows First Union
customers to establish a charitable
fund, or endowment, at the communi
ty foundation and have the bank con
tinue to manage the money
The arrangement will allow the
client the continued benefit of the
professional expertise of the bank’s
investment team and the professional
grantmaktug assistance of the com
munity foundation staff.
Fbr instance, if one of the bank’s
cUents has a strong interest in help
ing the homeless, the bank could take
that client to the foundation and
establish a fund there. If desired, the
client could then work with the foun
dation staff in an advisory capacity to
address homelessness in the commu
nity
Bank and foundation officials say
their partnership will be a model that
will guide them in similar partner
ships with other foundations and
banks.
“It’s just part of what you are like
ly to see happen over time in terms of
cooperative relationships between
community formdations and financial
institutions,” says Bill Spencer, presi
dent of the Fbundation for the
Carolinas.
In addition to allowing the bank’s
clients to maintain their relationships
with First Union, the partnership
Look for FIRST UNION, page 11
More with less
Jury out
on Legal
Services
This is the fourth article in a
Journal series examining non
profits’ changing relationship
with government.
ByRobLamme
Legal Services attorney John Vail
has seen the future after the
Repubhcan takeover of Congress and
he doesn’t like it one bit.
“It’s literally miserable. We’ve had
to lay off dedicated and talented peo
ple who have been with us for a long
time,” says Vail, executive director of
Catawba Valley Legal Services Inc., a
nonprofit law firm that provides free
legal assistance to poor people iu
Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba,
Cleveland, Lincoln and McDowell
counties.
While Congress and President
Clinton still are fitting over this
year’s federal budget, they already
have agreed that funding for the Legal
Services Corporation (LSC) will be
cut, probably by about one-third, from
$378 million in 1995 to about $273 mil
lion this year.
THE NEXT REVOLUTION
In 1995, Vail’s agency received
about $640,000 - 65 percent of the
organization’s annual budget - in LSC
funds. This year, he expects to get
about $400,000. 'Ib m^e matters
worse. North Carolina lawmakers last
year cut their contribution to the
state’s Legal Services programs to $1
million from $1.25 million.
As a result, Catawba Valley Legal
Services has atrophied from six
lawyers and 10 support staff in 1994
to three lawyers and four support
staff. The number of clients the
agency sees also has dropped - from
about 1,800 clients in 1995 to an esti
mated 1,300 this year.
“And that’s not because the other
five hundred have suddenly become
middle class,” says Vail. “It’s because
I haven’t got the lawyers to help
them.”
Over the past two years, the 15
LSC North Carolina field offices like
Vail’s, and the statewide legal pro
grams that support them, have lost
about 25 of their attorneys. These
days there are less than 400 LSC
lawyers working in the state - all of
which are funded from an over
look for LEGAL, page 24
M
Connections 3
Grants and Gifts 16
In April 16
Job Opportunities 28
Opinion 10
People 17
Professional Services...26
Durham nonprofit
boosts sisterhood
1 . . . .» -r
Hospital expands
community service
:
Real estate developer
toast of auctions
Banks compete
to manage arts funds
A two-year-old nonprofit with
national ambition strives to
be a comprehensive resource
to brighten African-American
girls' prospects in life.
The new chief executive of
Rex Healthcare in Raleigh
believes that health care and
economic development
should work hand in hand.
Raleigh real estate developer
Jim Branch has become a
popular fixture on the charity
fundraising circuit as an auc
tioneer.
Three North Carolina-based
banks will manage an
endowment fund for the Arts
& Science Council in
Charlotte.
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j FUNDRAISING
Volunteers form guild
to fight cancer
Founding members of a new
volunteer guild in the Triangle
ore wading through organi
zational details to raise
money to fight cancer.
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