Funder Focus: Trevor Forrest and The Saskatoon Foundation
November 4, 2002
By Nicole Zummach
This month in our continuing series of interviews with some of Canada's
leading funders, we feature The Saskatoon Foundation, a community
foundation that was established in 1970 with an endowment fund created
by seven civic leaders each contributing $5,000, and which now manages
almost $7 million in assets. CharityVillage spoke with the foundation's
executive director Trevor Forrest, about the philanthropic climate
in Saskatchewan, efforts to raise the foundation's profile in the community,
and the importance of partnering with other organizations.
CharityVillage: Perhaps you could set the scene for me. What
is the philanthropic climate like in Saskatoon right now? How engaged
is the community?
Trevor Forrest: I think Saskatoon, and Saskatchewan in general,
is very engaged in philanthropy. We have a long history of being a very
caring and giving province and city. A testament to that is our Kinsmen
Foundation, which raises a record number of dollars per capita each
year through its annual Telemiracle telethon. We are also a community
that is well known for its volunteers. They volunteer their time and
I think in many cases they volunteer their gifts too.
CV: You operate several grant programs in partnership with some very
well known foundations, including the ArtsSmarts initiative with the
J. W. McConnell Family Foundation, and the Youth Granting for Youth
program with the Muttart Foundation. How big of a role do these partnerships
play at the foundation and what benefits do you see in partnering with
other organizations?
TF: In terms of McConnell or Muttart, it is very significant
to the overall benefit of the community. The relationships we've been
able to establish with those two foundations in particular have brought
literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Saskatoon community
over the years. We would like to think that a significant reason that
they are here is because of the work, the reputation, and the creditability
of the Saskatoon Foundation. I hope those private foundations have looked
upon us as a good partner.
CV: Do you actively work to cultivate new partnerships? Is
working in conjunction with other organizations a big part of the Saskatoon
Foundation?
TF: We actively work on creating new partnerships and it will become
a more important part. We have a relationship now where we work with
the Cameco Corporation, helping with their granting to charities. We
have established a very good track record with them over the last four
years and have provided a service that we can now offer to other corporations
to help them with some of their community responsibilities. I think
it is a good way to work with corporations. We have a reputation of
developing expertise in granting, and not only the actual granting,
but also the adjudication, and the follow-up of the grants.
CV: When you say follow-up, are you referring to evaluating
the programs or organizations?
TF: Yes, we enter into a contract situation with the grant recipient
where we detail what we expect from them. Through our grant coordinator
we monitor the programs that have been supported through our grants
to ensure that our donors are getting full value for their donation.
We do follow-up and at times we've had to ask for our money back. We've
said, 'you had promised to do this and you haven't done it so we would
like our grant back'. However, from time to time some of our grant recipients
have come back to us and said, 'this isn't going to work as we thought,
here is another idea'. We are flexible enough that we can modify the
situation.
CV: Tell me about your Batting 1000 program, which was launched in
the spring. Why did you start it and what has the response been so far?
TF: This is a completely new initiative for the Saskatoon Foundation.
We had never conducted an active fundraising campaign, so this is a
new venture for us. Our objective is to build an endowment for youth,
but also to create awareness about the foundation. Although we have
been around for 32 years, our research tells us that there is not as
much awareness as we would like. That's somewhat because of the fact
that we don't promote ourselves, as other foundations and charities
do, through fundraising initiatives. So the board decided that they
would embark upon this campaign with two goals in mind. The first goal
is to create awareness, and the second one is to create a youth endowment.
There are three special aspects to Batting 1000. One is our partner
in this, the Saskatoon Credit Union. What they are doing is allowing
donors to borrow up to $5,000, repayable over three years, and get that
loan interest free. Once the loan has been formalized with the credit
union, that amount of money is transferred to us and the donor receives
a tax receipt for the value of the donation. So we are very happy about
it. We think that is a very innovative way to allow donors to make substantial
gifts to the foundation. Already, we have received calls asking, 'What
is this Batting 1000 program? Tell us more'. That hasn't always translated
into a gift, but this program was initiated with a goal of 3-5 years
in mind. We are only 4 months into it.
The second special aspect is the support we receive from Cooperative
Trust and North Ridge Developments who have generously agreed to underwrite
the promotional and advertising costs for the campaign. This means every
dollar of donation goes directly to the endowment for youth to benefit
future generations in Saskatoon. The third significant aspect of Batting
1000 is that the future granting from this endowment will be done by
a youth panel in Saskatoon, with the grants restricted solely to charities
that serve their peers in the city.
CV: I have read several reports suggesting that foundation
endowments are suffering because of the stock market downturn. Is this
shift in the market affecting your endowments? Will you need to change
any of your granting programs as a result?
TF: We rely on investment income for granting. We have built
up some reserves over the years, so in the immediate short run we will
be okay, but certainly this cannot continue in the long-term. It will
have a significant impact on our ability to grant. Particularly disturbing
is the CCRA [Canada Customs and Revenue Agency] regulation regarding
disbursements. Right now for endowed funds, CCRA indicates that we must
grant 4.5% of our asset value, which is somewhat difficult to do. We
are suggesting that it would be much more suitable to be tied to income
rather than assets. So we hope that CCRA will very quickly re-evaluate
that situation.
CV: Prairie farmers were extremely affected by drought this
year and probably will be for the next few years. What portion of your
donors come from the agricultural community? Do you think this situation
will affect donations to the foundation?
TF: I don't think directly. Most of our donors come from within
the municipal boundaries of Saskatoon. If they don't, they are maybe
expatriates who still have an affinity towards Saskatoon. The media
tells of us about the difficult situation in rural Saskatchewan and
I think that a lot of people in Saskatoon who rely on agriculture as
part as their business are certainly concerned with the future of their
business, the future of their jobs. That can have a detrimental effect
on their philanthropy. It creates a bit of a negative atmosphere. What
is going to affect us in terms of donors is that many of our donors
use the Saskatoon Foundation and the charitable tax receipting system
as a way to address some of the tax consequences of their investments.
If their investments aren't generating a tax problem, then that will
have an effect on donations.
CV: At the Community Foundations of Canada conference earlier this
year, the Saskatoon Foundation won the Alastair Gamble Memorial Award
"for having the confidence to go beyond traditional grantmaking, taking
some risks, and playing a greater community leadership role." Is the
foundation moving in a direction where you'll be taking more risks?
TF: No, I don't think so. In my opinion, a community foundation
is not about taking risks, not in the sense of the investments. Innovative
programming and things like that, yes of course. Leadership in the community,
very much so. But I hate to get talking too much about taking risks
with donor funds.
CV: Where would the foundation like to see itself in five or ten
years?
TF: One of the things that intrigues me most about the foundation,
is the fact that the granting that we do will continue on in perpetuity.
It also offers some flexibility to provide grants in areas that we may
never have thought of at this time, something maybe ten or twenty years
down the road. I think that is one of the key aspects of a community
foundation, that with undesignated funds you have the ability to react
to the issues of the day, to issues that we haven't yet thought of.
We always talk about the size of our endowments, and that is always
the focus, to try and increase their size. So, we are working very hard
with planned gifts and to encourage regular donations. We believe that
over time the work that we are doing now will enable the foundation
to continue to provide support to the charities. Our role is to built
the endowment, make strategic grants to charities and show leadership.
It's the charities that we support that really provide the services
to the community. And we are very happy to be able to support those
charities. We see it as our responsibility.
Trevor Forrest joined the Saskatoon Foundation as its new executive
director in June 2002. Prior to that, he was in charge of corporate
development for Tourism Saskatoon. For more information about the foundation,
visit: www.thesaskatoonfoundation.ca.
