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The Kansas Health Foundation has opened the second chapter of our Giving Resources to Our World (GROW) Healthy Kansas Initiative, and 51 community foundations across the state are expressing interest in being a part of this program. The goal of GROW II is to work with community foundations to help build local philanthropic leadership and resources that will result in long-term, sustained health improvements in communities throughout the state.
When potential GROW II foundations were required to send representatives to one of the application workshops recently held in Garden City, Manhattan, Hutchinson and Fredonia, 145 people attended to learn more about this competitive application process.
By investing $30 million in GROW II, the Foundation will assist many more community foundations across the state in building endowments, learning new financial management strategies and exploring ways that foundations can work together to reduce expenses and raise the quality of their services.
“The reason the Kansas Health Foundation decided to invest $60 million in GROW and GROW II is that Kansas is a state without much philanthropy,” said Steve Coen, president and CEO of the Kansas Health Foundation. “We know that many Kansans care deeply about their communities and if there was an opportunity for them to give back, they would invest in the future of their communities. GROW II is building the infrastructure to make that possible.”
One of the Kansas Health Foundation’s priorities for this new phase of GROW is to help foundations build endowments that are focused on public health improvements. In the first phase of GROW, a large portion of our matching funds established the Kansas Health Foundation Children’s Fund at each community foundation, which will provide ongoing resources to improve the health and well-being of Kansas children.
The Kansas Health Foundation started working with community foundations in the late 1990s as a way to further our mission of improving the health of all Kansans. We believe that stronger community foundations lead to stronger communities that result in healthier communities.
In just the first five years of GROW Healthy Kansas, participating community foundations had increased their assets by 141 percent, increased their total gifts by 163 percent, increased their grant-making dollars by 43 percent and established themselves as philanthropic leaders in their communities.
An independent evaluation of GROW concluded that the program “has already achieved significant success” and it “will continue to show a return on investment for generations to come.”
“We have some really great examples of where community foundations have helped Kansas in very clear ways,” Coen said. “After the Greensburg tornado, the South Central Community Foundation based in Pratt was able to raise more than $2 million to help with the Greensburg rebuilding efforts. Another example is the recent flood in Coffeyville. The Coffeyville Area Community Foundation was able to raise thousands of dollars to help people affected by that disaster. What would have happened if those community foundations hadn’t been in place? Who would have met those needs?”
Because of this great success, the Kansas Health Foundation decided to launch this second 10-year chapter of GROW. Community foundations can find more details and download a GROW II application at www.kansashealth.org.
GROW is urgently needed in our state because according to a study the Kansas Health Foundation funded last year about the transfer of wealth, over the next two decades, $66 billion will be passed from one generation to the next in Kansas. “There’s huge potential for some of that wealth to go to community foundations through estate planning,” Coen said. “On the other hand, if we don’t do something, there is potential that all of that money will leave Kansas because so many younger people who grew up here are now living in other states. That’s why it’s so important for us to build and strengthen community foundations now.”
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