The Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
The Marin Community Foundation is planning major shifts in its governing structure and grantmaking policies.
“It was definitely my initiative but not mine alone,” said Rhea Suh, who replaced Tom Peters as the foundation’s president and chief executive officer in June 2021. “It’s not uncommon when you have a new leader in any organization to think about the future in a refreshed sort of way.”
Suh said the move has the full support of the foundation’s board.
The organization has $3 billion in assets, the sixth largest amount among the nation’s community foundations. About $1 billion is the product of the original Beryl Buck endowment, while the rest involves “donor-advised funds.”
In addition to managing the Buck Trust assets, the foundation administers charitable funds for more than 561 individuals and families. These giving accounts are known as donor-advised funds because the donors consult with the foundation on how their money should be spent.
The foundation was created in 1987 following a legal battle over control of a $435 million charitable fund that grew from a bequest by Buck, who lived in Ross. The ensuing legal settlement mandates that the foundation distribute 5% of the Buck Trust assets annually based on a five-year rolling average.
Eighty percent of the distribution must be spent on local grants, while the rest is divvied up among the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, the Buck Institute for Education and Alcohol Justice.
In its most recent fiscal year, the foundation allocated $38 million in local grants — counting the three special projects — from the Buck Trust. The foundation also distributed $154 million in grants from its donor-advised fund cache during the fiscal year.
The legal settlement also specified that the foundation’s board members be appointed by a variety of authorities, including the Marin County Board of Supervisors, which was to select two of its members.
Other appointing authorities included the Marin Interfaith Council, the president of the University of California, the Center for the Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership and the Buck family.
On Wednesday, however, the foundation announced that it is dissolving the nine-member board that oversees the Buck Trust and its grantmaking. Three of the trustees will be added to the board that already control the foundation’s general operations.
In March 2016, the foundation reconfigured its organizational structure into a two-tier structure. The board at the time created a new board to which it ceded control. The members of this board were selected with an eye toward attracting new money to the donor-advised funds.
Mark Buell, a retired real estate developer, was appointed chair of the new board and continues to hold that post.
Suh said that while the new board was given legal control over how the foundation spends all of its money, authority was delegated to the original board to oversee the grantmaking of the Buck Trust.
Noah Griffin, a Buck trustee whose position is being eliminated, said he supports the changes, but that the reduced local representation on the board is a legitimate concern.
“Because in many instances,” Griffin said, “the people on the Buck Trust board of trustees are the eyes and ears of the Marin community.”
“I know every organization has to evolve and change,” Griffin said, “but I think they need to make certain that they keep the grassroots input from the community, which I think deserves and expects that.”
The foundation made no effort to publicize its reorganization deliberations prior to this week’s announcement.
Instead, Suh said, “we worked with our community partners to develop forums in four or five different places throughout Marin.”
Suh said the opportunity for local input on how Buck Trust dollars are spent will actually increase because the foundation will allow more non-board members to participate in board committees.
Buell said “the board is committed to honoring the original intention of the Buck Trust governance structure — to ensure that constituencies in Marin have a meaningful voice and input into the grantmaking of the Buck Trust.”
Marin County supervisors, for their part, expressed no concern about the loss of their power to appoint board members.
“My sense is that a single, unified board will be better able to leverage the combined resources and benefits of the two prior boards to benefit the community,” Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters said.
Another important change announced by the foundation this week is the decision to use Buck Trust funds to provide multiyear, general operating support for nonprofits serving vulnerable populations.
“What we’re saying now is we’d like to move forward with a grantmaking process that is frankly less burdensome to both the grantees and to the foundation,” Suh said.
As with the decision to return to a single board structure, this change seems to be a case of the foundation moving back to the future.
In 2006, the foundation shocked the Marin County nonprofit community when it announced it would no longer set aside at least 70% of its Buck Trust grants to help cover operating costs of local nonprofits. The foundation said it would use half of its Buck Trust grants to foster bold new initiatives.
Peters, the foundation’s leader at the time, said the change reflected a national trend in philanthropy toward supporting efforts that had “clearly identified goals and some measurable impacts.”
Tod Brody, executive director of the Marin Symphony Association, said that prior to the change the symphony had been receiving about $100,000 a year from the foundation. Since then, Brody said, the organization has received sporadic funding, including a modest increase since 2019 because of the foundation’s teaching-through-the-arts program.
“As far as the Marin Symphony is concerned, this probably isn’t going to change things for us,” said Brody regarding the foundation’s new direction. “I think it is fairly clear that the emphasis on social justice and communities in need is even more a focus than it has been before.”
In another major change announced this week, the foundation said it would rejigger its strategic initiatives to focus its Buck Trust grants on addressing homelessness, affordable housing and climate justice.
“Whether it be affordable housing, homelessness, or climate, we’re really looking at it through the lens of equity,” Suh said. “We’re really trying to focus on the reality that in Marin you’ve had these long-standing pockets of segregated poverty that have persisted through decades.”
The foundation’s goals have remained fairly consistent. Over the previous eight years, it focused its energies on education, economic opportunity, health and the environment. Prior to that, its top concerns were education, affordable housing, economic opportunity and global warming.
Every shift in emphasis results in some winners and losers in the nonprofit community. Suh identified early childhood education as one subject area that might have reduced funding.
“We are aware there are going to be changes, so it’s always a bit frightening,” said Aideen Gaidmore, director of the Marin Child Care Council.
Over the past eight years, the organization has received about $1.3 million annually from the foundation.
“So obviously that will be a big loss to our agencies and the families we’re serving,” Gaidmore said.
Suh wouldn’t identify any of the nonprofits that will have their grants increase or decrease.
“I will say that in addition to these initiatives we’re launching, we are continuing to provide the core support to organizations throughout the county that provide the critical social safety net for the most vulnerable,” Suh said.
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