“We weren’t doing the outreach in the community that community foundations do,” Thomas said. “We have evolved into more than just a charitable bank. The board, under the leadership of John Dargan, allowed me to spread my wings. I just started convening and bringing the community together to consider what’s best for Spartanburg.”
She led the Extended Day Academic Program, a program that reached out to younger students to enhance their abilities in academics. The program allowed the trustees to make the largest grant in the foundation’s history of $1.05 million to all seven school districts.
From 2003 to 2004, the foundation began losing money from stock markets and struggled to figure out how to do more with fewer finances. Thomas’s experience at the Bethlehem Center allowed her to start bringing more national funding to the Spartanburg community.
“I was serving on some national boards at the time, and met with some foundations that had an interest in the South,” Thomas said. “One thing led to another, and we were able to get William Randolph Hearst Foundation funding, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation funding and the faith-based initiative that George Bush led while he was in office. All of that together helped us leverage well over $750,000 to do what we call ‘strengthening voices.'”
