We are living in what has been described as “the dawn of the Golden Age of Philanthropy.” Spearheaded globally by industry titans like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, rock stars like U2’s Bono, and world leaders like former President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a new definition of giving is energizing the search for effective solutions to some very real problems.
In the twenty-three towns and cities of Fairfield County, 2,432 nonprofit organizations mirror the same commitment, addressing issues created by one of the largest gaps between rich and poor in the nation.
“Residents here want to make a difference in their own backyard,” says Susan Ross, president and CEO of the Fairfield County Community Foundation (FCCF), whose 2008 merger with the Greater Bridgeport Area Foundation will result in net assets approaching $150 million. The third-largest community foundation in Connecticut, the tax-exempt FCCF serves as “philanthropic concierge” for its fund holders, connecting them to the nonprofit organizations that match their charitable passions. More than 4,700 individuals, families, corporations and private foundations have established 230-plus funds under the FCCF umbrella.
Today’s FCCF donor makes contributions that reflect both heart and mind. “Our members want their gifts to have an impact,” says Sallie Mitchell, FCCF communications director. “Some trust us to guide them to the right nonprofit, while others divide their philanthropic dollars, choosing recipients discovered through their own research.”
Hands-on volunteers, behind-the-scenes organizers and donors who are actively involved with the organizations they support, the FCCF fund holders profiled here embody the spirit of altruism at its best.
Betsy & Jesse Fink
Focusing on the Environment
On Millstone Farm in Wilton, a Tamworth pig, three Devon cows, fifteen turkeys and thirteen horses share grass pastures with a herd of Shetland sheep and a couple of llamas. One hundred and twenty chickens are busy laying eggs to be sold at Wilton’s Village Market.
Owned by Betsy and Jesse Fink and run by Betsy and sustainable agriculture expert Annie Farrell, the farm is now in its third year and is a source of organic produce for local markets and the area’s finest restaurants. Soon it will also be a venue for educational programs and student apprenticeships. For the Finks, it is an investment in a future they’d like to help happen — just one of the many forays they are making in the environmental arena.
Baby boomers at age fifty, the Finks define their brand of philanthropy as hands-on. “We like being the catalyst, providing seed money to get the ball rolling so that other people become involved,” says Jesse, who was COO of priceline.com from its inception through its IPO in August 1999. Currently he is one of three founders of MissionPoint Capital Partners, a for-profit, environmentally focused investment firm.
Through the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation, the couple supports projects relating to climate change, land use and sustainable agriculture. “The Priceline success gave us a lot of options at a young age,” Jesse says. “It was our time to give back.”
In 2000 the then-fledgling foundation’s first gifts related to land conservation, supporting buyers dedicated to organic agriculture for a farm on Long Island and a peach orchard in Colorado. This past year grants were made to some fifty nonprofit organizations with which the Finks maintain an active connection.
The couple met in Syracuse, New York, at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. After college Jesse was a forest and land manager for Georgia-Pacific; Betsy, who grew up surrounded by dairy farms in Ithaca, New York, became a systems analyst but always dreamed of starting a farm. “My dad was a surgeon who took care of local farmers who, in turn, took care of us,” she says. “To me, a connection to the land and that way of life is very important.”
The Finks take a different approach from some foundations with regard to the end result. “Not everything works, but that’s OK because we learn from mistakes too,” Jesse says, adding that he believes a problem with philanthropy today is that people are very risk-averse.
“We don’t hold our grant recipients’ feet to the fire and demand they report progress of whatever kind,” agrees Betsy.
She admires Newman’s Own Foundation for its commitment to innovation, and the Finks have joined Newman’s Own in supporting renowned chef Michel Nischan’s Wholesome Wave Foundation Charitable Ventures, which they describe as the epicenter of a “local, sustainable, culturally significant food movement.”
Meanwhile at the Wilton Library, the Finks’ $250,000 donation to the capital campaign inspired others to make matching contributions. An additional five-year grant of $10,000 annually supports library programs to boost environmental awareness. “Whether funding out-of-town speakers or an energy fair in town, the library has done wonderful things with that money,” Betsy says. “Now other towns have approached us wanting to do the same thing — exactly what we hoped would happen.”
The Finks were the seed funders for a series of environmental polls run by the Yale Center for Law and Environment. “Results confirming widespread concern about climate change in America were picked up by USA Today and other national media,” Jesse says. “This kind of publicity sends a strong message to our lawmakers.”
The Soundkeeper Filter Project in Norwalk was jump-started by a Fink donation. “Smart sponges” were installed to cleanse storm-water runoff of pollutants like oil, pesticides, fertilizers, chemicals, animal waste, bacteria and debris that otherwise would contaminate Long Island Sound. “This was initially a Norwalk-based attempt that now may be tried more broadly,” Jesse says.
Back in Wilton, Betsy takes a visitor on a tour of Millstone Farm. “I regard this as my laboratory,” she says, recalling that she spent last summer working there, assisted by her college-bound son and his two friends. “We mulched, harvested, tilled, replanted; fed the animals, moved them to different pastures; collected eggs, washed, packed and delivered them to market,” she says. “We learned together.”
An encouraging postscript: At their respective colleges this past fall, all three boys either started programs in agriculture or are participating in ones already established.
Ann Mandel
Promoting Education
When it comes to philanthropy, former First Selectwoman Ann Mandel — the first woman and first Democrat to hold that position in Darien — wants to make it clear that she is “no Lady Bountiful.” The seventy-year-old grandmother of five and current president of the Norwalk Community College Foundation (NCCF) calls her focus on giving a logical progression — the result of growing up in Darien, attending its public schools from kindergarten through high school, going off to college, then returning to town to raise her family.
“Both my husband and I were brought up to contribute to the community, and between the two of us, we’ve been involved in just about everything in town,” she says. A very incomplete list would include the Darien Library, the school board, the board of finance and the United Way.
During her tenure as first selectwoman back in the 1980s, local leaders were invited to join the board of what was then called the Five Town Foundation (the forerunner of today’s Fairfield County Community Foundation). Ann became the FCCF’s founding president in 1992. “That involvement opened my eyes to problems that needed to be addressed beyond Darien,” she says. “I knew there were issues, of course, but the FCCF sharpened my focus.”
Working with the FCCF led Ann to Norwalk Community College, which she describes as “probably the most important educational institution in Fairfield County” in the sense that it serves 12,000 students every year. “NCC is the oldest and largest of Connecticut’s twelve public two-year colleges,” she says, pointing out that its students, whose average age is thirty, come from fifty-two countries and speak a total of thirty-four languages.
“Many work part-time or full-time and still are studying to get degrees to help them make better lives for themselves and their families,” she says. These include first- generation immigrants, like the twenty-seven-year-old man from Uruguay who came to the United States five years ago and now works at a café in Stamford while majoring in engineering, and the mother of three from Puerto Rico who is majoring in early childhood education.
As for success stories, Ann relates the story of a single mother of two young children who pursued her studies with scholarship help and excelled. After completing NCC’s two-year program, she was accepted by Smith College as a transfer student. “I just heard from her,” Ann says. “She’s graduating this year and will go on to get a master’s degree in social work. That’s the kind of news that makes my day.”
While helping individuals is important, broader societal implications exist. Ann points out that people educated in a variety of necessary skills are in short supply in Fairfield County. “The workforce requires them,” she says. “Without them, we are going to fall apart.”
The growing shortage of nurses and allied health workers, nationwide as well as locally, is a case in point and is the focus of the NCC’s current fundraising campaign. A 55,000-square-foot facility at the college is being planned to train workers in these fields. “We have to raise $15 million to partner with the State of Connecticut, which will provide an additional $25 million,” Ann says. “Effective philanthropy does not supplant government — the two join together to get the job done. That’s what we’re doing in this case.”
Also contributing to the project are Greenwich, Norwalk and Stamford hospitals, which are not only providing financial help but also lending their expertise to planning the facility and to implementing the actual training programs. “We are all on the same page regarding the need; we want to make this happen,” Ann says. “The support of the medical community adds impact to what could become a model for other institutions to duplicate.”
Meanwhile, Ann is at NCC almost daily. “I take classes in Spanish and literature, and I interact with students and with faculty,” she says. “I am the one who keeps learning.”
Christine Stiassni-Gerli
Maintaining Close Ties
You don’t have to travel across the globe to do good works. But for Christine Stiassni-Gerli of Greenwich, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program was the perfect eightieth birthday celebration, an adventurous complement to a lifelong focus on philanthropy related to economic advancement and education for working women.
September 2007 found Christine perfecting the art of spackling in rural Csurgo, Hungary. She was the eldest in a group of volunteers ranging from an eighteen-year-old to mostly senior citizens, who came from all over the United States and Canada.
Working side by side with members of the two families for whom the house was being built, Christine became very adept at measuring drywall to fit. “I had to leave the heavy lifting to younger people,” she says. “I also discovered I was exceptionally good at varnishing.” Her on-the-job training included other challenges, such as adapting to unseasonably cold weather and hiking four miles daily to and from the work site.
An English teacher who became director of Bridgeport’s Discovery Museum and then founder of Helping Hands, a Greenwich nanny-finding service, Christine thrives on challenges. Over the years she became involved in local philanthropies whose goals mirrored her interests and those of her growing family. A mother of two sons and two daughters, she now has five grandchildren ranging in age from twelve through college age. “Communicating to them that it is vital to give back is my highest priority,” Christine says. “Leading by example is the best way to get the message across.”
These days Christine is on only a handful of boards. She just rotated off Greenwich’s Women’s Business Development Committee Board (WBDC), where the focus is on assisting women entrepreneurs, particularly minority women. “They helped me when I started Helping Hands, so it felt right to become involved,” she says, adding that the WBDC has expanded into other towns over the years.
When her daughters were in high school, they mentored students who were less fortunate through the Rye Youth Council. “That connection remains bittersweet for me,” Christine says, explaining that one of her daughters, who had been particularly active with the council as a volunteer, died in a tragic accident in the early 1980s. “I give an award every year in her memory.”
As a member of the Outreach Committee of Greenwich’s Round Hill Community Church, Christine observes local philanthropies to determine which ones might deserve the church’s support. “I analyze things like how well they fulfill their goals, how many people they impact, how the dollars are used,” she says. “I need to be able to tell the congregation exactly what was accomplished with their donations.”
An association with the Carver Center in Port Chester dates back to when Christine was on the center’s board in the 1960s. As a family agency, the center offers services to senior citizens and runs a food bank and after-school programs. “For me, it offers a more immediate way of helping,” she says. “I just pick up the phone, and there’s always something that I can do.”
Christine notes that two of her California grandsons do hospital volunteer work and one uses his fluency in Spanish to register Latino voters. In Manhattan, her daughter is active in supporting the restoration of parks through the Westside Conservancy. “And two of my grandchildren became involved in rehabbing a community center in Millerton, New York,” Christine says. “Doing that kind of manual labor was a real eye-opener for them.”
This winter Christine will be mentoring foreign speakers in conversational English one day a week at the English-Speaking Union in Manhattan. “I’ve worked with Italians, Germans, Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese,” she says. “This is a time in our history when we need to reach out, person-to-person, as much as possible.”
Looking ahead, word has it that experienced spacklers are still needed in rural Hungary. “I might go back to Csurgo with Habitat for Humanity,” Christine says, “or possibly join the team that will be going to Thailand.”