Michael M. Parks, CFRE, is the President of The Dayton Foundation, one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations.
Mike is a leading voice in philanthropy, with recognition spanning well beyond the Dayton region. We sit down with Mike to learn about his story of community leadership, the future he wants to create, and how The Dayton Foundation helps people and organizations help others in the Dayton region and beyond.
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Episode Transcript:
David Bowman:
Welcome to creating the future. I’m David Bowman.
Evelyn Ritzi:
And I’m Evelyn Ritzi.
David:
And today we are joined by the President of the Dayton Foundation, Mr. Michael parks, welcome to the show, Mike.
Mike Parks:
Great to be here. Thanks to you both, appreciate the opportunity.
David:
The Dayton Foundation was founded as one of the first community foundations in the nation, and today it’s one of the largest. For listeners who might not be familiar with what exactly a community foundation is. Could you tell us a little more about what a community foundation is, and how did the Dayton foundation become an early pioneer in the space.
Mike:
The Dayton Foundation is a place where people that want to do good in the community can go so each and every day, we get up and we work with caring people that say, I want to do something good in the community. And what’s neat about the Dayton Foundation is it’s not one size fits all. There’s a place for everyone. So perhaps you’re interested in the arts, we can help you figure out philanthropically, what that might look like. That might be particular interest to the arts, an organization, an area of the arts you’re interested in, it might be a topic. You may say, Boy, I’m interested in in food security, or whatever your particular interest may be, our job is to get up and every each and every day and say, How can we help you? Help others. So we’ve been around a long time. This is our 100 and fourth year, the first committee. There’s 800 community foundations around the country. The country, each of them independent, supporting their local communities. First one was up the street in Cleveland in 1914 and it’s kind of a funny story. We are one of the oldest. I think we were number 18 out of the 800 and it happened because, simply because of proximity, individual, Mr. Garland that worked for Jon Patton event in NCR was at a meeting at a bank in Cleveland in 1916 and the guy sitting next to him starts talking about this thing they did in Cleveland, this Community Foundation. He says, This is amazing. He says, Yeah, everybody can be a philanthropist. Because if you think about that era, turn of the century, philanthropy was kind of limited to big money, right? Rockefeller, Ford, you know, big philanthropists. And what really caught Mr. Garland’s eye or ear, rather, was this idea that everybody could be a philanthropist. So he comes back home to Dayton, tells his boss, Mr. Patterson, about this idea of community foundations that was 1916 so in 1918 there’s a biography over at the library written about Mr. Patterson. And every year he’d sketch out on a piece of paper what his goals were for the coming year. And if you think about a very powerful person of that era, a lot of it was his goals, of what he was going to tell others to do, including his family. So he had this divvied up by domestic business, international business community, family, and he had his goals. And in 1916 in this biography over at the library, you can open it up, and it’s a copy of his page. And number two under community was start the Dayton Foundation. So it took him a few years, but 1921 the Patterson family was the first gift that founded the foundation. So some 104 years ago.
Evelyn:
Let’s talk about you and your story and how your journey led you to the Dayton Foundation.
Mike:
Yeah, so I came to Dayton some 30 plus years ago to work for the YMCA, and I ran the local wise and in 2001 Daryl Murphy retired from the foundation only the second full time president in our history. Interestingly, I’m only the third, and some common board members reached out, and I’d never thought about doing anything other than the why, but you quickly understand the reach and the impact of the Community Foundation that was really appealing to me. Yeah. So, so started in 2002 so this is my 23rd year, and just honored and pleased to be part of it. It’s think about every day you deal with people that only want to do good. I mean, they come to you because they want to make a positive difference. So how many, how many jobs in our community can say they only deal with people that want to do that.
David:
Did you always know you wanted to work in the not for profit space pretty early on?
Mike:
Yeah, my entire career has been in the nonprofit space. I always knew I wanted to do I didn’t know the word nonprofit, right? You know? I thought I maybe wanted to be a teacher, but some type of a helping career, yeah?
David:
Well, there are so many amazing not for profits in our community, there really are. Yeah, one thing I don’t think people know is how much work you all do behind the scenes, whether it’s standing up these not for profits, or funneling opportunities from benefactors to the appropriate not for profits, kind of behind the scenes, there’s a lot of things that you guys do at the Dayton foundation that are just incredible. But in terms of just some of the unique benefits of giving through the down the Dayton Foundation, talk about the difference between just donating to, you know, picking a not for profit, or donating to a charity through the Dayton Foundation.
Mike:
Yeah, so there’s kind of two sides to our mission. So one is working directly with donors. I want to do good in our community. And the other is this side of our mission that’s around community development. What are stubborn, persistent, difficult problems that we can bring others together to work on and on the first we’re really fortunate and blessed as a community. There’s now about 4000 individuals, families, organizations that have raised their hand said, I want to do something good, whether that be a fund for your family, it might be a designated fund for maybe your church, your synagogue. They say, Boy, what? What happens when I’m not here and I’ve been giving during my lifetime, I want to make sure that want to make sure that continues. It could be for a cause, homelessness, prevention, food insecurity, whatever it is that you’re trying to do, you can set up a fund to help try to make a difference in that. And that’s really the unique aspect of the foundation. It’s for all it’s for all issues, and it’s also about being here forever, right? This idea of leaving a legacy, of doing something that’s more than just my individual life, you’re part of something bigger. You’re a collection of folks that are trying to do something good. That power is really what allows us to come together to work on bigger issues, right? So some families say, Boy, I’m interested in cats and dogs, or I’m interested in the arts or a specific organization. Other families say, Boy, Dayton has been good to me. I just want to give back hey Dayton Foundation, whatever the highest and best need is, you decide. So when somebody says they get a grant from the Dayton Foundation, that’s really coming from those families that have said, Hey, Dayton Foundation, you decide. So at any given time, we have a group of community volunteers, caring volunteers, that can say, what is the highest need at any time. So when you think Forever is a long time. So when you think about things like the response to the tornadoes in 2019 or the response to the devastation in the Oregon district that followed a few months later, the covid 19, or big projects in the community, building the Schuster center or the Job Center. Where do those funds come from? Dayton foundation really doesn’t have a penny. What we really have are families that have made the commitment say, hey, Dayton foundation, you make the call. So we never do that alone. We always do that in partnership with others. And that’s really when I talk about power of the foundation. It’s really this convening, ability to convene other caring people that want to work together on an issue in the community.
Evelyn:
It’s amazing. And I just want to reiterate, like, the amazing thing is that you don’t have to be quote, unquote “wealthy” to be a part of this. Like an everyday person can be a philanthropist. Can you talk a little bit about, maybe, what it’s like to establish a fund or a charitable checking account.
Mike:
You do tend to think, right, all of us that full philanthropy, that’s for someone else, that’s for way beyond what my means are. And that’s really not what you see at the Dayton foundation. You have what we all would think of as our friends and neighbors, that there’s a place for everyone. You know. The best example of that is a fund set up by the Harmony’s and the Harmony’s fund was set up in the late 90s. They were one worked at Frigidaire, one worked at General Motors. Didn’t have two nickels. Growing up, worked their entire life, and they said, We want to provide outdoor experiences for kids. We never had that opportunity. We want to make sure that kids have that opportunity. So when they passed away, they set up a fund to send kids to camp. So here’s two factory workers that you never would have, right? They didn’t have huge means, but in their estate, they left their funds to the foundation to make sure that happened. So they passed away some 20 plus years ago, and there’s now over 500 kids each and every year go to some camp in our region that never would have had the opportunity. It’s based on financial need. So when you think about camp Kern, or the Girl Scout camp, or the Boy Scout camp, and you say, well, I could never, you know, have the means to go to camp. Well here’s this fund set by this family everyday people that collectively, now 1000s of kids, and that legacy will go on next year and the following year and the following year. So that’s really the power we speak of this idea of doing good, even beyond our lifetimes.
David
Well and beyond funding, Dayton Foundation has a history of bringing people together and organizations together to create change. So what are some of those community collaborations that really stand out to you as special that you’ve been a part of over the years?
Mike:
So when we talk about our mission, one side is helping the 4000 families and individuals, and the other side’s this community impact side. And we never do that by ourselves. We always do that in partnership with others. So you find kindred spirits and organizations, funders, individuals that want to work on something together. And when you look back over the years, things like the Schuster center, the Job Center, crans to classrooms, which I know the Ohlmann group has been very active with, as volunteers Miami Valley works at Goodwill, learn to earn all those never by ourselves, always with others. But how do we make those kinds of of initiatives, those kinds of organizations, something that becomes part of the fabric of the community?
Evelyn:
And you already mentioned it earlier, but the Dayton Foundation has been so critical in helping Dayton recover and rebuild after some major challenges throughout its history. How do you balance meeting needs that are urgent and come up unexpectedly with building long-term solutions for the future?
Mike:
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not an easy balance, right? Because those emergency kind of things, they’re exactly that. They’re emergency, so you can’t really plan for them, and you just have to understand that those things are going to happen. And we’re a community foundation, so that means we’re for all and so when those types of things happen, it’s, it’s not only part of your mission. It’s who we are. We are the community, so we don’t do it by ourselves. You know, the tornadoes is a great example. What a what a wonderful response from the community, Catholic Social Services, Salvation Army, St Vincent’s, whole bunch of groups came together. Our role is to put a little glue in there perhaps be kind of a fiscal steward, if you will, but so many people that care deeply about making sure our community recovered. And when you think about that, 20 some organizations coming together, our community should feel really proud about that. FEMA, you know, they were on site here. You know, that was Memorial Day of 2019 FEMA was on site just a few days later, and they have continued to hold up Dayton as an example of how you should handle recovery. And you know, funny story about that is, you know, the community was so generous. You know, the Fund was established at the foundation, millions of dollars poured in to help with recovery. The focus of that recovery was on individual homeowners who had had their homes impacted, right, not necessarily folks that had investment properties right, or businesses because they should have insurance and so on, but really individual homeowners that perhaps were under-insured, or, in some cases, didn’t have any insurance. And at the end of the day, over 2000 homes were recovered, rebuilt, and as a community, we should feel really good about that. Well, we get all done. We had some money left in the bank, right? We had, I think, $800,000 so FEMA talked about, once you do individual recovery, you do community recovery. So think about trees that had been torn down and uprooted. So think about example that would be Sinclair Park, right? They had 1000s of trees. Wegerson Gardens, right? You know, what do you do for community recovery? So we got. To that point. We called FEMA and said, Okay, community recovery, we had 97% of the homes impacted, MVR, PC. I just go on and on and on about the community groups that stepped up, but you could really say we did a great job as a community on that recovery. So we had money in the bank. We called FEMA and we said, you talked about community recovery. What do we do? How do we do this? And they go, you know, there’s this pause. They go, I don’t know. We’ve never had anybody have any money. Nobody ever had any money left, and that was because of the partnerships. And we had people donate truckloads of shingles, and everybody just came out of the woodwork to help with that. So the point there is, we’re a great community. We know how to come together, particularly in times hard, hard times at the shootings, pandemic, lot of examples, and we should all feel really proud about that their community, where we care about our neighbors, people will give of their time, of their money, to make sure that it’s a little better place to live, work and play.
David:
So as you look into the future with you know, there’s so much change happening. But how do you see philanthropy evolving, both nationally and locally, in the next 5 to 10, years?
Mike:
Do you have an easier question? Don’t give me, give me a softball? Yeah, I don’t think there’s a harder one. I should say, Yeah, that’s a that’s a toughie. I, you know, philanthropy nationally and here in Dayton continues to grow. That’s a good thing, right? People, even though you have inflation difficult times, people continue to reach into their pockets to say, I’ll help my neighbor. And that’s never been more true than here in Dayton. When you think about all 4000 of those funds at the Dayton Foundation, all doing a wide variety of things, collectively that impact, it’s doubled over the last five years. It’s now, you know, over $120 million collectively that goes out to groups in our community. Just five years ago, that was 55 million. So we have a very caring, generous community. The challenge is really around the change in the environment, around public funding. You know, locally, state, national, every week, groups are calling that have money that they had gotten from one of those sources they’re no longer receiving. And that’s a real challenge, and private philanthropy cannot backfill that. There is just no way the scope and scale of that public money and the response. There’s a reason we have public services, and you can’t have an expectation that private philanthropy, the scale and the scope, it just dwarfs what the public money is. So that’s going to be a challenge for all of us, right? So some of that, you know, private philanthropy will do more, but a lot of it’s going to require some tough decisions and some really hard challenges, I think, lie ahead for that, but we’ll get through it. We always do. We’re resilient, and you know, you don’t have a choice. We’ll adapt and we’ll we’ll figure it out, and we’ll keep moving forward.
David:
Yeah, we are well prepared here in Dayton for anything the world can throw at us.
Mike:
Resilient, yes.
Evelyn:
But please give us a break sometimes too. Is there anything about the Dayton community in particular that you think is unique when you look at the giving landscape as a whole, talk about neighbors and resiliency.
Mike:
Yeah, two things I’d share there. One, we definitely have a history, and I think personally, it goes all the way back to the 1913 floods of caring for our neighbors. You know, the floods, the tornadoes in the 70s, the tornadoes here. You know, more recently, we have a track record, a history, of stepping forward and saying, I’ll take care. I’ll take care. You know, John Patterson, when the floods in 1913, you know, he stopped making cash registers and he started making boats. You know, he didn’t wait for the federal government. He said, I’m going to take care of my neighbors and my employees, right? And their families. I’m going to I’m going to do that. And that’s a there’s something in our DNA that we’ve all grown up with about caring for each other. So I think that’s part, part of it. Secondly, we’re a size community where you can get your hands around problems. You know, you look at some of the issues, and we’ve got all the issues of big cities, right, homelessness and all the challenges, but we’re such a size that we can call people, and you can get people in the room, and you can get and you can get to work on something, and you can make a difference. And, you know, sometimes you think about all the challenges we have, but then you go visit some of the big cities, and you’re like, boy, thank God, I live in Dayton, Ohio, right? We can. It’s a size of community where you can call people, people care, they’ll respond, they’ll come together, and they’ll work on community projects. So I think that bodes really well for Dayton, Ohio.
David:
So. It’s funny because in in other cities that I’ve been in, people know of people that do things right, but, but here, people actually know the people right. When you’re saying, Hey, we can call on people, you’re just pulling up your cell phone and looking for their number and tapping right, it’s you actually know those people. You’ve been in the rooms with them many a times. And when you think of, well, it’s this kind of problem. There’s a handful of faces that pop to mind of, like, oh, well, maybe I could reach out to these folks, see what they say. And nine times out of 10 you’re gonna get, yeah, sure. I’m happy. Look, what can we do?
Mike:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. David, and it’s, it’s also so welcoming. You know, some some communities you hear stories about, I can’t, quote, break in, right? I can’t. I’m always an outsider. I can’t break in. You know, you never hear that. In fact, you hear the opposite about people are welcomed in. You know, the more folks we have working on community issues, problems, helping raise money for the groups we all care about. People are welcomed in. I remember some 30 plus years ago when I came to Dayton to interview for the YMCA. I went back and we were living in Milwaukee at the time, my wife goes, What do you think my first comment was, everybody is so friendly. And by everybody, I didn’t mean just people at the Y it’s like the person at the gas station, the person you know, the person everywhere you went, it was noticeable. And so that welcoming spirit, I think people can find a place if you want to get involved, if you want to try to make a difference, serve on a board, volunteer at an agency. It’s such a welcoming place. And I think that’s a great part of our community,
David:
Yeah, and it stands out in the world in which we live today.
Mike:
Oh, it’s refreshing, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah.
David:
One last question we like to ask all of our guests, what’s the future you want to create?
Mike:
You know, when I think about it from the foundation’s perspective, you know, we have a vision at the foundation about opportunities for all, creating a community where there’s opportunities for all. We don’t do that by ourselves. We do that in partnership with all the individuals that have funds at the foundation. We do that with other funders, other organizations, and that’s really what we think about each day, is where are those opportunities in the community where people are not left behind, where we truly have opportunities for all, we’re clearly making great progress. You think about organizations like learn to earn, that are really making progress. National models established here in Dayton, Ohio, a national model for working on K 12 education, working on helping folks transition into living wage jobs. I mean, that is a model for the whole country. Started here in Dayton, Ohio, so we have a great track record of making sure that we come together to work on opportunities for all.
David:
Well, I want to thank you for being our guest today.
Mike:
Thank you all, appreciate the opportunity to be here.
