Know Your Foundations!
Foundations that give… right under your nose!
Did you hear?
The Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy received a $5 million grant from the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation. This grant is being used to help improve treatments and knowledge surrounding schizophrenia. The BeST (Better Practices in Schizophrenia Treatment) Center will also receive money from this grant for its continued development “to improve and enhance the treatment of the mental disorders” reports the Kent News Network.
While many mental health organizations have been hurting during the economic downturn, Rick Keller, president of the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation said, “But we also have a mission to achieve ¬- it said a lot about our determination to accomplish our mission”. The BeST Center will use the grant money and continue to develop over the next four years.
Did you know?
The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation was founded in 2001, in Hudson, Ohio as a private, grant making foundation. Burton D. Morgan, Margaret Clark Morgan’s husband, provided the initial donation to establish the foundation. The Foundation works to pursue the interests of Margaret Clark Morgan, longtime Hudson resident and active community member.
The primary focus of support is the mental health field, with secondary interest in the education and arts fields. The Foundation also works proactively to research and fund projects of particular interest to its mission. The Foundation has provided funds for special projects, operations, endowments and capital campaigns. The foundation is dedicated to making an impact in the key areas of mental health in Northeast Ohio, education in Summit & Portage counties, and the arts in Summit County.
Did you know this about their mission?
To improve mental health practices in Northeast Ohio through effective investment in progressive organizations and innovative initiatives that raises the standards of prevention, treatment and recovery.
Did you also know?
Even in these difficult economic times the foundation will return in 2010 to their traditional three cycles of grant making: winter, summer and autumn. Currently, Letters of Inquiry received now through the October 1, 2009 deadline will be held for consideration for submission for the February 2010 grant making cycle.
Now, if you really did your homework you would know that:
In selecting grant recipients, the Foundation concentrates primarily on funding programs in the mental health field. The Foundation also supports the fundamental role of the arts and education in creating a vibrant and enriching society. The Foundation seeks applicants and proposals that have the following characteristics, regardless of program area:
- Includes sound organizational management and track record
- Ensures input of and benefit to primary consumers
- Supports innovation and creativity
- Supports diversification of participation
- Reaches underserved people
- Exhibits collaboration
So who was Burton Morgan, the founder of the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation?
Burton Davis Morgan was a successful entrepreneur, who started or helped to start dozens of businesses during his lifetime.
He was born in 1916 in New York City but eventually settled in the Chicago area where his father taught psychology at Northwestern University. As youngsters, he and his brother spent their summers at their grandparents’ farm in Indiana.
Throughout his life, Morgan considered himself “just a farm boy.” In reality, he was an engineer, an inventor, an author and a philanthropist.
He moved to Ohio because his first job upon graduation from Purdue University was at B.F. Goodrich in Akron. Morgan left Goodrich when the company failed to select him as a future company leader. He determined that engineers didn’t get enough respect and that he wanted to be the boss.
He landed at Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey, where he was assigned the task of designing a machine to make small-size Band Aids. What he called the “sticky paper” business would become his stock and trade.
In 1953, he teamed up with the Avery Label Company of California to start a company in Painesville, Ohio. Morgan convinced his partners that the pressure-adhesive paper company — known as Fasson — should be near Akron, where some of the world’s best rubber and adhesive compounds were made. Fasson found success when it began manufacturing an adhesive-backed product similar to Contact paper.
In 1958, Morgan teamed up with the owners of the Bemis Bag Company, once the world’s largest importer of burlap, and founded the Morgan Adhesives Co. in Stow. Burt and Peg Morgan and their three children moved to nearby Hudson, which had been settled by one of Peg Morgan’s ancestors.
In the early 1960s, Morgan invested in another start-up, Filmco, which wound up making an oxygen-permeable cellophane that helped revolutionize the way meat was wrapped in supermarkets. When that company was bought by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in 1967, Morgan’s small investment made him a multimillionaire. That same year, The Burton D. Morgan Foundation was established.
During the decades Morgan ran his companies, he traveled around the world on business. He also traveled with an organization of corporate leaders and as a business ambassador on behalf of the state of Ohio.
He returned home each time with a conviction: that entrepreneurship and the free enterprise system “comprise America’s number one advantage over the rest of the world.”
That conviction strengthened as the years went on. And as it did, the Foundation that Morgan established began to focus on grants to promote entrepreneurship and the free enterprise system.
Burt Morgan was diagnosed with cancer in 2002. He died in March 2003, at the age of 86. The epilogue of his autobiography quotes from a speech he gave at Purdue University summarizes the direction of his life:
“. . . failure never stopped anyone who was truly determined to succeed. I have found that entrepreneurs’ failures are often more interesting than their successes, and these failures help to develop the character and intelligence that eventually led them to success. An entrepreneur who fails is not stopped. He or she can always try again. And successful entrepreneurs always do.”
So what does all of this mean to you?
Well, if you live in Northeastern Ohio you might want to learn more about what this foundation does. If you do not live in Northeastern Ohio you might be wondering if there is a small foundation like this in your area that you may not know about. My bet is that there is. Stay tuned as we scour the country looking for foundations doing good work that most likely don’t know a thing about systems of care – but because of their mission and vision – they should!
Key Points in this post:
- When you think of foundations don’t limit yourself to the big ones like Casey and RWJ.
- Do your homework. Know the mission and vision of the foundations that are operating in your area.
- Consider it a likely “given” that they don’t know a lick about systems of care.
- Make it a point to educate them about the work you do and the work that needs to be done to improve services for children with mental health challenges and their families.
Scott Bryant-Comstock
