Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
My pleasure to have today a little longtime friend, but a relatively new president and CEO of the Arkansas Community Foundation, Jessica Ford. Jessica, thank you so much for joining me.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Ready to talk some community foundation as you celebrate an anniversary and so much good. And I know a lot of our listeners, which is why I like to educate. Don't really know what the community foundation is. They've heard of it, but they don't really know what you do. So we'll get into all of that, but wanted to talk just a minute because I always like to introduce those who listen to this podcast to our guests, get to know them better. So a little bit about your journey, if you don't mind. Before we get into that, you hail from Redfield, between Little Rock and Pine Bluff.
I guess now that you had the community foundation, you're now the second biggest thing to come out of Redfield after the mammoth orange. Is that correct?
[00:01:32] Speaker B: I don't know if that's true or not. The mammoth orange certainly wins that comparison for sure. I eat there still probably about once a week.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, of course.
As you know, I love the classic old Arkansas places, and that's just a classic from the way it looks to. As long as it's been around. And I remember you got me involved in updating and writing some more about the mammoth orange a few years ago. Gave me a good reason to go back down there. Had been there for a while. So thank you for plugging me back in.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: You're welcome. You can't beat a cheeseburger and a milkshake from the mammoth orange.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So you were raised there the whole time, growing up?
[00:02:11] Speaker B: I was raised there. I went to school right out of high school. I went to Whitehall High school.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Went to Whitehall.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Okay. So I'm not familiar with Redfield. Redfield doesn't have a high school.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: So Redfieldians go to Whitehall. And from there I went to a private liberal arts school in Jackson, Tennessee, called Lambeth. Went there for a year on a choir scholarship, and then, like many, met a boy, and he had family out in Wyoming. So I transferred to the University of Wyoming, which is where I. Wow, that's
[00:02:38] Speaker A: a long way away for a Redfield girl.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: It was. But I wanted an adventure, and I love the west and I love the cold. So I graduated from there with a degree in women's studies and then had my son, Davis, Came back to Arkansas to be closer to family. And that's when I began my nonprofit career in Arkansas.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Right, and you worked for a number of years for Heifer International, right before
[00:03:02] Speaker B: you joined the community.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: 13 years. And you know, a lot of people don't realize really from a nonprofit standpoint, some of the organizations that are just known worldwide that are based here in Arkansas. I like to tell, like you, those unknown Arkansas stories. I mean, Heifer is certainly one of those I can think of line World Services for the Blind. I mean, both headquartered right here in Little Rock and doing work all over the world.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: You know, when I worked for Heifer, I always thought the nonprofit community and the nonprofit sector. Sector in Arkansas is actually an economic driver. You mentioned Windrock International is another one here, does work around and all of the Winthrop Rockefeller sort of extensions.
And Heifer didn't have Windrock ties, but they were out at Perryville, you know, right next door. So, yeah, I was there for 13 years and got to travel the world thanks to Heifer. And it was a mate, lived in Peru for a year.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: In the executive office. Kind of saw it all.
And probably one of the greatest thrills of my life was just getting to work for Heifer International. It was a huge honor and I learned so much.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Now, and I know that those that do know Heifer and I'll get to the community foundation in just a minute. But since we're talking about big nonprofits in Arkansas, you know, they saw the story that the campus was sold to the Clinton School for. For its expansion.
But, you know, Heifer has so many people around the world. And then with the pandemic, many started work from home.
So they've kept a whole floor there. They just don't own it anymore. But some people think Heifer's gone away. And it has not gone away.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: No, it's thriving.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: It just sold it scanty.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: That's right. It just downsized the campus and sold to the. Like you mentioned, the Clintons and our Clinton School, rather. And so now they rent the fourth floor and they're still there. They're still doing really great work all over the world. I've met the CEO there, Sarita, doing a wonderful job. And yeah, I'm really proud that Heifer's here. I think Arkansans should be proud that Heifer International is headquartered here.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Absolutely. You mentioned the philanthropic things. You know, this is a state of only 3.1 million people. And you would not think of Arkansas as being home to so many well known foundations. Other charitable organizations, obviously, I think of the Walton Family foundation, which, of course, also does work around the world, but that's one of those areas where we really are punching above our weight class, to use the cliche.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: That's a great way of saying it. You know, Arkansas is the 50th on many lists, but actually, there's a lot of data, and there's a tremendous amount of information out there that says that we're also one of the more generous states per capita, so we're usually in the top 10 for giving per capita.
I'm not saying that Right by person, essentially. Exactly, exactly.
The Arkansas Community foundation, if I can segue into that for just a moment, is an arm of that. We make that possible for Arkansans. That $3.1 million. There are some billionaires in Arkansas, and that's great, but anybody can be a philanthropist, and we have a network statewide that makes it possible for somebody in Wynn or Crawford county or cross it or wherever you are, to be a philanthropist as well.
I think we saw that in Covid.
The community foundation played a critical role during COVID of setting up a relief fund for the nonprofits that were getting hit so hard. And, man, Arkansans were generous. We got checks for $25 and said, man, it's hard on me right now, too, but I know y' all are doing good work, and people really stepped up.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: They really are. Arkansans really are generous people.
I think of the example because, you know, here we're taping this in late spring, and we're used to tornadoes in Arkansas. And, boy, you know, having worked in the governor's office for 10 years, I've. I've done my share of walking tours of areas hit by tornadoes. But anytime there's a storm like that, you're going to have hundreds. If it's a bad storm, hundreds of Arkansans that come from every area of the state with their chainsaws, they're serving food.
And. And I think. I don't think it's probably that way everywhere. I don't know. But we're like one big family, and Arkansans respond when a place was hit.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: My.
My hometown of Arkadelphia, back in 1997, suffered one of the worst tornadoes in the state's history, and they were there from everywhere again within 24 hours.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, we saw that in the March 31st tornadoes a few years ago that came through central Arkansas and then cross county. And we raised half a million dollars for central Arkansas and half a Million dollars for wind and man. People just showed up. It was unbelievable.
One of the pastors in Wynn said a storm blew through Wynn, Arkansas, but it was one of generosity. And he said it was just overwhelming how many people showed up from. And not even just in Arkansas, but Mississippi and Missouri. They came and helped. You know, it's the equivalent of a casserole after you lose a loved one.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: I like that. I like that.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel like that is just something that Arkansas is really good at is taking care of each other.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
So you leave heifer in 2020. You go over to the community Foundation. What was part of the lure of working there when you made that move?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Initially, it was Heather Larkin, the former president and CEO. She recruited me, I guess, is what you would say. I wasn't completely familiar with the community Foundation. I knew they existed. I knew the name. I knew they made grants. That was about it. But I didn't understand the depth of the organization. And when I met with Heather and got to know the leadership team, there it was. I was like, wow, where has this sector been all my life?
This is an amazing leadership team. It's statewide.
And it felt like in the arc of my career, it felt like I'd done all of this international work and served smallholder farmers worldwide and worked with an international board and had all of this great exposure to the world.
But something in my spirit was saying, it's time to come home, and it's time to serve your state and your neighbors and your family. And so that was the lure for me was, okay, let's take everything I've learned and how do we apply it in Arkansas? How can I do that? And the community foundation seemed like the perfect place for that.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, Heather. Heather was a tremendous nonprofit leader. She hails from Charleston over in west Arkansas. And as you know, I love to tell the sounds, the stories of Charleston. And look at that little town. It produced Dale Bumpers. It produced Archie Schaefer. It produced Heather Larkin.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, it has a great history. And Heather, she was. She was always good about.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Recently guest on this show, the Marion superintendent, one of our education leaders from Charleston also.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Amazing for a little town.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: It's amazing for a little town. And she still gives back to Charleston and the Community Foundation. We just, you know, you appreciate your roots, and so Heather Larkin's roots are there. And so we love Charleston at the Community foundation just for that reason.
But, yeah.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: So when you heard Heather was retiring from the foundation, did you immediately, in your mind, know I can do this. I'm going to go for the job.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: That's a great question. I came in 20, 23 weeks before COVID and so my orientation was not normal. Right?
Yeah.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Suddenly you were working from home.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Suddenly we were working from home. And then three weeks after I started, the governor, Asa. Asa Hutchinson, endorsed us as the best place to give for pandemic relief.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: So I in comms as the mouthpiece for an organization that I was just getting to know. But we made it through, and we raised a lot of money. But now, when Heather announced her retirement, my first thought was, how do we communicate this? What does a leadership transition look like? I sort of dug into my role as the chief comms officer, but I spent some time with a friend in Montana over Easter that year, and it was last year, and I don't know, I kind of had this moment where I was like, you know what?
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Why.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Why can't I do that?
I can do that, and I want to do that, and sort of set my intention and said a prayer and said lots of prayers and came back and said, you know what? This is something I want to pursue. And so went through the CEO search process, which was rigorous. Our board was a. It was a statewide search led by our executive committee of our board, and they hired a search consultant to do that. So I was treated just like any external applicant. And it was. It was rigorous. And Heather. Heather kept saying, I don't know if they would have hired me if I'd applied, which is crazy. But, yeah, was thrilled to be offered the position last fall and take over on January 1st.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it is to the benefit of the state that you have done. So now, I want you to outline.
Again, let's. Let's just say somebody listening didn't know anything about the community foundation, what it is, because you're a different animal. You're not. You're not like a family foundation that's just given grants from one pool of money. I mean, you. You are managing. You're almost like, to use an analogy, a farmer's cooperative.
You are managing money for all of these local foundations. So kind of. Kind of lay that out in simple terms what you do, who you are.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: I always say that, you know, they talk about an elevator spiel, and I don't feel like the community foundation has an elevator spiel. I feel like we have an airplane ride to explain our work.
But simply put, we are the largest grant maker in the state.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: So we make more grants than any other entity and touch more nonprofits than any other entity by the number of grants we make each year. And we do that through the generosity of donors, people coming to us with their philanthropic dollars, their charitable dollars, if you will, and saying, I want to make a difference with this money. But then we also have institutions, corporations, other nonprofits that come to us and say, help me make a difference with these dollars. I want to have a corporate program or I want to have an endowment, and I want to live beyond my lifetime. So there are a myriad of ways that donors can come to us, any entity, essentially, to make a difference. And then we turn that money into more money and then grant it out. So there's. I hope that, simply put, no, it
[00:14:17] Speaker A: does, it does make sense.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: We, some of it, we invest and grant out the returns on that investment. Other, it's more an in and out. I want to make a difference right now. I want you to help me simplify my giving. Some people come to us and say, I want to support domestic violence shelters all across the state. We can make that happen. Some come to us and say, I like this one nonprofit, the American Red Cross, and we make that happen. Others say, I don't know what I want to do. Help me out here. And so we use a lot of data. We have a whole data website dedicated to what are the top needs in Arkansas, county by county. We introduce them to that information and then help them make an informed decision about how and where they want to give.
Other people want to be anonymous, which we honor.
Some people want to not give now, but they include us in their will or their planned giving. And they say, once I'm gone, I want to leave a lasting legacy and I want my kids to decide where this money goes or I want to leave it to X, Y and Z.
Some people come to us and say, man, I want to give to 20 nonprofits every Christmas, but I'm tired of writing 20 checks and help me with that. And we charge a, you know, 1.5% fee to just they write us one and we distribute that out by December 31st. You know, some that's transactional. Others it's deeply meaningful. For others, it's a family affair. For some, it's a tax write off. For some corporations, it's their staff engagement.
I feel like we provide a myriad of resources like an options for people to make giving easy.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Now talk about these local foundations. I mean, some are county wide, some are city wide. So we have around the state, we
[00:15:56] Speaker B: call that our affiliate network.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Affiliate network, that's right.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: So they're Community foundation affiliates, where if you think of a bank that has a headquarters and then multiple branches, we are headquartered here in Little Rock. We have a satellite office in Rogers. And then we have 29 affiliates statewide. And each of those affiliates has their own advisory board.
So it's about 440 board members statewide. And those 29 affiliates cover 44 counties geographically. So we're trying to get to 75 eventually. But each of those affiliates, we call them our boots on the ground.
So I mentioned Cross county before. We have Sharp county, we have the Twin Lakes region, Texarkana area, western Arkansas. We are all over the state.
And each of those affiliates, they raise their own funds. They get some funding from the state office. And then using those advisory boards that I mentioned, they grant those monies out. So those are local offices. They are raising local dollars. A local board is deciding where that money is going. And so we say local decisions for local impact.
So that really. And this is where my heifer roots come into that. I believe that the Community Foundation's model is really strong. Is that the best solutions, Arkansas, and the best solutions for problems like literacy and food insecurity, they're going to come from the ground up. They're going to come from the communities that are actually dealing with them. So for our affiliate network, they're the, they're the, not just the boots on the ground, but they're the ears and the eyes and they see what problems. What's happening in Marked Tree.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: You know, what's happening in Redfield, what's happening in Hope. Right. And so using that intel and that information, that's where we can direct those grants to make sure that they're making a difference on whatever the problems are.
It varies. I mean, we mentioned, you know, I've mentioned food insecurity and early literacy and being 50th on a lot of lists. But sometimes the data says it's addiction, so that's where the grants need to go. Sometimes it's access to early childcare. So that's where the monies need to go. So we listen to that.
We're like, I like to say we're like the who you know, you know how they say it's not what you know, it's who you know. The Community foundation is kind of who you know. And we are, we, we are listening so closely to those local communities and we're reading the data reports coming in and we try to bring all of that together to make sure that every dollar directed is making the most impact.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And you are so broad based in what you do. I mean, I. I think of my dealings with the community foundation through the years. For instance, I spent seven years as chairman of the Political Animals Club. And at the time we had a scholarship program and you administered that for us.
Before that, I worked for a federal state partnership known as the Delta Regional Authority. There was a separate Delta grant program that I was put on the committee for. And we would go to the community foundation offices and brew a huge pot of coffee and spend all day working through applications for those grants. I remember very well.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: We administer hundreds, we might be in the thousands now, of scholarships statewide. Oaklawn Foundation, I think they announced this week they did more than 150 scholarships just for Garland county schools.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Oh, wow. And you administer all those?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: We administer those.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, lots of scholarships statewide for people who are, you know, seeking funding and we need more. If I could put a call to action out there, please do go out there and look at our website. And if you're a senior or, you know, a senior, if you're a school counselor, we need. We need people applying for scholarships. There's money, money to be had for scholarships for seniors in Arkansas.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mentioned past jobs and my associations with them, you know, in the world changes so fastly, quickly.
And few entities are changing more quickly than this business, the newspaper business.
And so now, like a lot of newspapers through the country, we solicit private funds. And guess who's administering that? The Community Journalism Project.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: That's right. Arkansas Community foundation does that. And we do that for several papers.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: So we're really proud to be part of that effort. As a matter of fact, in 1976, we made three grants to the tune of $8,000. One of them was to AETN.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: One of them was to the Arkansas Arts Center Center. And then the third one was to the Institute of Politics and Government, which now is considered, I think, press forward is essentially what that is.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're proud of those. Those first three grants that we made, those are still rocking and rolling.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: All right, well, I wanted to get into that, so we'll go there. 1976. So you are celebrating a 50th anniversary this year.
Tell me the roots. Tell me the story of how the Arkansas Community foundation got started.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Well, in 1976, Mary McLeod was Governor Winthrop Rockefeller's right hand woman and she was paying attention to the philanthropic landscape sort of on the east and west coast and what was going on nationally. And community foundations were an emerging factor. And force for filling philanthropy.
She believed that Arkansas needed one, and she convinced Mr. Rockefeller that that needed to happen. And he listened. Thankfully, they met at Jacques and Suzanne's. Thirteen people got together in Little Rock and decided, okay, we're going to do this.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: 1976. So in the first year, like I mentioned, they made $8,000 in grants to those three non profits that I mentioned and have had a. Their first executive director was David Roosevelt, FDR's grandson. That was the first executive director of Arkansas Community Foundation.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: And yeah, I'll go back as far as Pat Lyle, right?
[00:21:53] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. So I'm the. I'm the sixth.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Sixth, yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Sixth CEO of Arkansas Community Foundation. But yeah. So from 1976, they just. It was a slow start, but by 86, they had their first affiliate. Texarkana Area was the first affiliate. And then Pine Bluff followed suit after that. And then in the early 2000s, we got a big grant from the Walton Family foundation to start our. It was called the Partners program, which started the affiliate network. And so that was matching dollars. And so that's when we really exploded in size and geographically statewide. And so we've been adding affiliates over the years until we got 29.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Is that right?
[00:22:35] Speaker B: That's right. Covering 44 counties. So that's a really quick summary. But, you know, in 50 years, I love to think about those first $8,000 in grants and how that was. I read back at the annual reports and I read the, the conversations that were being had in old minutes, and it's incredible that, that they were celebrating that 50 years later.
We. Last year alone we granted 67 million. I think we're on track to do closer to 80 this year. And now we manage more than a billion dollars in assets.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: So it's incredible growth in 50 years that we're really proud of.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: It really is. You, you, like you said, started over a dinner meeting at Jacques and Suzanne, now over a billion dollars in assets, 29 local affiliate offices.
Arkansas experiencing really great economic growth. But we're still, at our heart, we're still a relatively rural, relatively poor state. So even with all the work over 50 years, I know you and everybody you work with there realize the needs are still great in our state.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. And the, the data. Data tells us that. So that's what we did this last.
In the last. I guess, what are we in May?
[00:23:56] Speaker A: So in January, as we type, not as we post. Oh, I'm sorry, we're a little ahead. That's fine, though.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Well, in January to celebrate our 50th anniversary, we made more than a million dollars in grants statewide. And what we did is we put a tic Tac toe grid over the state of Arkansas and organized it into nine regions. And we looked really deeply into what are the top issues in those nine regions, and figured out it was just across the map. Rex. What the issues were access to early child care. I mentioned incarceration rates. Foster care in northeast Arkansas surprised us and the demands that are happening up there. Food insecurity, access to maternal health. And so we found nonprofits that were doing good work in those areas in those nine regions. And sometimes it was hard to find nonprofits that were addressing these things, but we found them and we called them up and said, we want to make a grant to you for $50,000 for the ones that had been around for a long time. And then there were some organizations that we gave 30,000 to that were a little bit newer, and we called them rising nonprofits. But so we made a million dollars worth of grants in those nine regions. It was so fun to make those calls, by the way. Oh, I bet they thought we were pranking them. We're like, no, we're real.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: And we want to give you a thousand dollars.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: So to your question, the needs are really, really great, but that's why we exist, is to help address those and hopefully connect people that want to help with those who need it most. And that's what we're here to do.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: So let's look to the future a little bit before we run out of time.
Where would you like to see the community foundation go? What kind of things would you like to see done that maybe aren't being done right now in, oh, let's say the next three to five years?
[00:25:48] Speaker B: One of the things I'd like to see is us expand our affiliate network to make sure we're touching every county. You know, Newton County's a little bit hard because there's not a lot of people.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: There's very few.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: But it's an awesome county.
There's many awesome counties. But I want us to truly be statewide and be able to make grants and build funds in every county. I keep talking about data, but I think that we have a responsibility now that we've hit a billion dollars in assets and because we're such a force for philanthropy in Arkansas, to make sure that we have the most up to date data and that we're getting it from reliable sources and that we're really directing the discretionary dollars that the Community foundation has specifically to the highest needs. The only way that you can do that is by knowing the truth about what's happening. And I think data will tell us that. So what I'd like to see is the beginning of us really starting to dig into a couple of areas, whether it be food security or early literacy or childhood activity, which right now we feel like are the top three priorities for us, and try to move the needle on those three areas. That's where I think the Community foundation, while we can't be the single driving force for those three issues, we can play matchmaker. We can bring the right partners to the table. We can do a lot of convening and maybe fill the gaps whenever private philanthropy or public funding can't necessarily do it. So long way of saying, I want us to move the needle on some really big issues that are facing Arkansans that can hopefully set the state up for success in the future.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I think of. We talked at the outset of the show about how Arkansas punches above its weight class as a small state with some really great philanthropy organizations that do work around the world. Those that are focused here in Arkansas, though.
You mentioned getting a grant from the Walton Foundation. As we tape this, I was just printing out they have a new strategic plan for their home region, which is northwest Arkansas and the Delta, for instance. I was printing that out. I think of them. I mentioned I was from arkadelphia. I think of somebody like the Ross foundation, who has done so much good in my home county through the years. The larger foundations in the state, is there any coordination there? Do you get together? Do you talk to each other?
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: I was hoping to answer with you.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Absolutely. So they're strategic priorities.
They don't perfectly line up with our strategic priorities, but they are definitely a partner with us. We partner with the Walton family, with the family foundation, with Walmart as a corporate.
Corporate. We are the arm of a lot of their philanthropy.
I'd say we're thought partners as well.
We're both trying to serve the same population using the same kind of data. And so we often are convening with them and executing some of their priorities, and they help us. So there's. There's board crossover as well, with Heather Larkin sitting on the Walton family Foundation board. She's currently president emeritus, so she's still really in the family.
And so, yeah, we're absolutely working together. We. We can't do this in a silo. We know that. They know that. And we're committed to working together to. To Solve a lot of these issues.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, one.
One of the things that I notice around the state is corporations, more and more, fortunately, are realizing that philanthropy is good business to do it themselves. For instance, before I came back to the paper full time, as you know, I was working for Simmons Bank. And when that Arkansas legend, Tommy May, stepped down as chairman of the bank, he stayed on to run the foundation. And one of my heroes is Tommy May, who, you know, well over a decade into his fight with als, still puts on a suit and tie every morning and goes in and runs that foundation, for instance.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: He's an inspiration.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: He really is truly one of my heroes.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: I got to know him through the Little Rock touchdown, seeing him every week, and I was like, wow, this is an amazing human. So, yeah.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: But I point that out to say a lot of our corporate community has come to the realization that it's really good business for our corporation because you want to be seen well by the public to be involved in the philanthropic sector.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
The term for that is really corporate giving, but it's really about engagement. It's really about community.
Simmons is actually a great example of giving back to the community. And their CEO, Jake Brogden, is a fund holder with us.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Oh, great.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: And so we have a rich history with them, but also with many corporations statewide who see the value in corporate giving, in philanthropy, engaging their staff and their employees and giving back, whether it's volunteering or giving. And we're happy to be, like, an administrative arm of that, like, making that simple so that they don't set up their own private foundation. They don't need to do that. They can just use us.
And so I believe that there's a term I'm sure you've heard of is public private partnership, and that's. It's. How do you do those two things? Well together.
That was actually an example in Fordyce a couple years ago after the shooting. We really worked closely with the state to make sure that the victims were served. But, yeah, to your point, those. Those kind of partnerships and elevating philanthropy for good business, for good economics, and I think probably for goodwill. I just. I just made that up.
Is. Is good for all of us.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. So before we wrap up, you mentioned the needs vary so much from one part of the state or another, but, you know, I'll make you kind of give me the bottom line.
Our greatest needs in Arkansas, maybe two or three areas.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: What are they the greatest needs in Arkansas?
Early literacy.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: And that's one of my favorite Topics because once you teach someone to read, you can't take it away from them.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: And I think that, that, I think if we invest in that now, we're going to see the benefits of that down the line for reasons food insecurity. And that's for children and seniors primarily, but it's statewide and it's a real issue.
And then childhood activity is something we're seeing emerge as a problem because it's leading to obesity, which then leads into a health crisis, which leads into. And, and, and, and, and so those are the three topic areas that, that we're focusing on right now. And if I may say one more thing, Rex, to address those things, I believe, and a co worker said this to me, and it really hit home is that philanthropy is actually a freedom of speech.
You can do anything you want with your money, anything. You have to pay taxes, but you can really do anything you want.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: That's a great point.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: And what I see in Arkansas is that I get to see it every day from where I sit. But people are really generous and they're using their, any extra money they have. Even. It's just, even if it's just a little bit to their church or to their food pantry or with us, that they're exercising that freedom to help others. And that really inspires me.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
So let's say that a family is out there. Let's say maybe they just sold a farm or they just had a bunch of timber cut and they've got a, they've got money and they say, I want it, I want it to do good. So do they. Do they just call you guys up and you can guide them from there?
[00:33:40] Speaker B: That's right. I know that seems very old school
[00:33:42] Speaker A: to give us a call, people listening.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: But yeah, you can also go to our website. It's arcf.org you can ask for me directly. You can email us. There's an email address on our website. But really call us. It's 501372, 1116. And that is the best get started because a lot of people don't know where to start. And we'll just ask some questions and introduce you to our staff and we make it really easy. We can turn around something in probably 48 hours.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: And that's so important. That's why I wanted to know. I mean, I know people like that who's, you know, maybe whose grandfather planted a stand of timber and they've just had it all cut. They said, look, this is a windfall. We want to do something good with.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: That's right. That's right.
And maybe. And maybe they and there's tax benefits to that, too. I mean, giving back doesn't have to be purely an emotional or, you know, purist sort of ideal. It also has tax benefits that people can we can help them realize.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Great. Jessica, thank you so much.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Fun visit 50th anniversary of the Arkansas Community Foundation. I hope you can work with them with your charitable dollars. Our guest has been Jessica Ford. She's the foundation's president and chief executive officer. And you've been listening to another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
Sam.
