Over 40 years, Frank McArthur has served on the boards of 22 nonprofit organizations in Baton Rouge, often leading the major fundraising efforts that help them continue their work.
Just some of the groups where he has served on boards or chaired them over 46 years of living in Baton Rouge: Woman’s Hospital, Istrouma Area Council Boy Scouts, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center and the Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center.
McArthur, who turned 80 in January, said fundraising for a charitable cause may be his gift.
“I don’t mind asking for money for a good cause,” he said.
And for himself, he says, “Philanthropy is my passion. I’m a fairly generous guy; I’ve always felt the need to give back. I’ve done that my whole life.”
For his efforts on behalf of the Baton Rouge community, McArthur has been named the winner of the 2023 Golden Deeds Award.
The award, established by the Inter-Civic Council of Greater Baton Rouge to recognize hard-working volunteers for their good works, will be presented to McArthur during a banquet at 7 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Baton Rouge Marriot.
McArthur, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, moved with his family to New Orleans when he was 8. After graduating from De La Salle Catholic High School — “I was one of three Baptists that went there,” he said — he graduated with a degree in history from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
He next entered the Southern Baptist Theology Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
“I had a lot of questions that drove me to seminary,” McArthur said. “I thought maybe I would be a minister, I wasn’t sure.”
While he was in school there, McArthur interned as a chaplain at a local hospital and, another year, served a church congregation as a student pastor, then took on the role as pastor when the church’s minister left, all while taking a full load of coursework at seminary.
At the end of two years, he was burned out, he said, and looked for a different path.
Back in New Orleans, he went to work for the Prudential Insurance Co., relocating to its Tulsa office after his training.
A few years later, he was transferred back to New Orleans — then learned his next stop would be Detroit.
He turned down the position. He was tired of moving.
“I wanted to be where I could sink my roots in my community,” McArthur said.
He got that chance in Baton Rouge.
McArthur and another Prudential insurance agent, the late Paul Arst, founded an independent insurance company, Arst McArthur Associates, in Baton Rouge.
McArthur retired from the then-named McArthur Sanchez insurance agency 40 years later, in 2017.
His work with nonprofits continues. McArthur currently serves the Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center, as well as Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area, as a board member.
He also serves on a Woman’s Hospital committee that works on governance issues, such as compliance, regulations and education.
McArthur has been a member of Broadmoor United Methodist Church for about 40 years, and, for 10 years before that, was a Unitarian.
“I say I’m a ‘Unimethbatholicarian,'” he jokes. “I’m pretty much a Universalist these days.”
As his work with nonprofits continues, McArthur says, “I encourage people to give planned gifts.”
“You don’t have to be wealthy to be a philanthropist,” he says. “You just need to care about something that you want to see continuing.”
For ticket information on the Golden Deeds Award banquet, call Richard Flicker at (225) 931-1626 or email him at flicker@premier.net.
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