Posts Tagged Gund Foundation
JumpStart Jumping with Big Salaries
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, People on February 5, 2010
February 5, 2010… We haven’t heard the next barrage of fireworks from the tiff among the Cleveland Foundation, the Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future… but I’m wondering how much big salaries have to do with the Cleveland Foundation’s desire for more control.
The Cleveland Foundation has sliced its hefty contribution to the Fund and says it will give individually to some of the same entities funded through the Fund for Our Economic Future.
Apparently, a major issue is where resources should be most concentrated. Cleveland Foundation suggests Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is its major concern. The Fund apparently wants to focus more outside those confines to a larger northeast Ohio area.
The issue has became fodder for The Plain Dealer recently and today’s paper has three letters to the editor on the matter.
The issue seems to be one of control. The Cleveland Foundation has given some one-third of the Fund’s budget annually but it has only one vote of 70 since each contributor giving $100,000 a year gets an equal vote. The foundation has cut its usually $3 to $4 million grant to a $100,000, the entry fee for a vote.
I looked at one of the funding recipients for money going to the Fund – JumpStart, Inc., a venture capital entity – and the salaries, at least to me, are rather shocking.
The top 10 employees of Jumpstart received in salaries and benefits in the 2007-08 report, latest available, to the Internal Revenue Service $1,871,354.
The top salary went to Ray Leach, President and CEO, at $369,311 with contributions to his benefits of $34,260, or a total of $403,571.
Other top salaries went this way:
- Rebecca Braun, Chief operating officer, $178,981 with $42,359 in benefits.
- Lynn-Ann Gries, Chief investment officer, $161,482 and $42,359 in benefits.
- Dawn Redus, Chief Economic Inclusion officer, $153,397 with $37,560 in benefits.
- Richard Jankura, Chief financial officer, $143,121.
- Jerold Frantz, manager, $143,273 and $35,772 in benefits.
- Kevin Mendelsohn, Entrepreneur in residence, $120,524 with $19,297 in benefits.
- Kerri Breen, Vice president, finance, $105,837 with $19,297 in benefits.
- Tiffan Clark, Vice President, marketing, $89,126 with $21,556 in benefits.
- Remsen Harris, investment associate, $88,205 and $34,821 in benefits.
Pension benefits seem to have become an issue for The Plain Dealer as they take after public employees. I’d suggest that they look at this benefit packages for nonprofit executives. They make the benefits to public employees seem rather skimpy. Especially when one sees the salaries bestowed upon executives of nonprofits. But fair isn’t one of the attributes of our news media.
You can read about JumpStart here…
http://www.jumpstartinc.org/ForDonors/
And here’s a link to the kind of positive promotion JumpStart gets from the news media…
http://blog.jumpstartinc.org/index.php/archives/117
Here’s a link to Ed Morrison’s take that offers some good information at Brewed Fresh Daily…
http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2010/whats-next-for-the-future-fund-and-the-cleveland-foundation
Unfortunately, private and even nonprofit organizations are not as open to public scrutiny as public agencies. They don’t have to be so they aren’t too forthcoming. That’s why there should be more attention by the news media to philanthropic organizations than there typically is.
‘Collaboration’… The Aim, Not Result
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media on February 2, 2010
February 2, 2010… Let me get this straight. The Cleveland Foundation is now the target of The Plain Dealer? You got to be kidding me.
The Sunday assault on the Cleveland Foundation decision to not give the Fund for Our Economic Future much new money suggests to me that the PD’s leadership doesn’t quite know what it is doing. In a front-page article and some blunderbuss from Brent Larkin, the PD slammed an institution that it has never had a bad word for in the past.
Ease into it, why don’t ya.
The “past” is the past at the PD these days and sometimes now that’s very good. Not always, however. Sometimes it gets overplayed. The paper is jumping on things. And jumping pretty hard.
The PD leadership – Terry Egger and Susan Goldberg – don’t know the community. And apparently they’re not eager to. They seemed to take a leap on this one, suggesting they are listening to voices and have taken sides. So, let her rip. Even if it may not be clear.
News, schmooze, we’ll tell you what to believe.
The new aggressiveness of the PD overall is welcomed. But some selectivity is in order. At times it seems the paper is just looking for a fight. Grrrr.
Now, if there has been a more critical voice about the Cleveland Foundation through the years, I guess I have to own up to it.
But I get the feeling that some new guys who think so highly of themselves – Brad Whitehead and the gang – have it in mind to be our new True Leaders – Entrepreneurs, Inc. They know what’s best. Fell in love with technology.
They maybe don’t think that helping Cleveland or Cuyahoga County counts for much anymore. Maybe they believe the core here really is dead. And not worth the opportunity to even lend a small helping hand.
I’m a bit surprised at the stridency of Dave Abbott of the Gund Foundation. He’s also chairman of the Fund. First, I always thought Abbott was a Cleveland city proper supporter. Abbott, in my experience, could never get much excited where it counted. He was a Tim Hagan man as Cuyahoga County administrator before he went truly corporate. As an original board member of Gateway there was nary a bad word about that abysmal operation. He was quiet as a mouse as the debt mounted.
Now, he’s roaring. “Silly and absurd” are knifing words. That’s how he described reaction to a column written for the PD supporting “collaboration” – the theme word of the Fund. It ran as an op/ed in the PD.
Ronn Richard, boss of the Cleveland Foundation, apparently is touchy that his institution has given millions of dollars to the Fund but has one vote – same as entities that gave $100,000. That’s what he offers to give each year now. But he did know the rules when he entered the deal.
The PD’s bomb hardly fit the “collaborative” theme everyone seems to think keen.
The publicity may have widened the gap between Richard of the Cleveland Foundation and Abbott of the smaller Gund Foundation. Usually, the two foundations are as collaborative in funding as two entities could get.
Maybe having the dirty linen hanging out is good but obviously it can be disruptive. A commodity overstocked here.
Back to your corners, guys.