Bob's Blog
 

Vandal-Bronco collaboration, it was interesting to meet the guy who had become the Micron CEO at the age of 31.

Over time I and many others watched his leadership of one of Idaho’s greatest companies. He was a tough and most competitive leader in one of the most difficult commodity businesses in the world.  He led Micron aggressively, smartly and successfully through the global “chip wars” of the last 20 years.  As remarkable as that story is, his personal story is equally astonishing.  From the rough and often harsh East Los Angeles neighborhood of his youth to a tennis scholarship at little-known Boise State University to a line job at a nascent Boise corporation to the youngest CEO of a major American corporation, it was an incredible success story and one that was enormously significant for the financial growth of Boise and Idaho.  He lived his life boldly and robustly. 

Appleton and Micron became very significant in Idaho philanthropy through the creation of the Micron Foundation, and his own person philanthropic commitment made them one of the most significant supporters of science and math education and research in Idaho. In addition, he loved his alma mater and supported it in numerous ways. BSU’s fantastic tennis complex that bears his name and the state-of-the-art Micron Business Building under construction on Capital Boulevard are just two of the many contributions he made to his university. The new College of Western Idaho Professional Technical Education Center will bear the Micron name as well.  All this is a marvelous testimony to Appleton’s leadership beyond the business world.

His philanthropy was cut short by his untimely death or in time it likely would have earned him equal billing with J.A. Albertson and J.R. Simplot, Idaho’s great corporate titans who gave back to their communities in significant ways. 

ICF and I send our deepest condolences to his family and to his company. Boise, the state of Idaho and Micron lost an incredibly gifted leader.  It is always tragic when someone so young leaves us far too early, but his legacy is truly exceptional and it has changed the face of Boise and Idaho forever. We wish his successor Mark Durcan (an ICF member) and his administration well in these next days and weeks as they provide vision, leadership and stability during this unanticipated transition.

1.26.12

First I’d like to start this post by congratulating two of ICF’s dedicated volunteers on special recognition they received recently from the University of Idaho:

• ICF Board Director Annette Elg received the 2012 Silver & Gold Award, which recognizes UI alumni who have a distinguished record of achievement and service related to career accomplishments; career organizations; voluntary efforts in charitable causes; efforts which have improved the cultural, social, political or economic well-being of society; and artistic, innovative or technical accomplishments.

Annette is the chief financial officer for the J.R. Simplot Company, one of the most significant Idaho businesses today. She is also Chair of ICF’s Audit Committee and is a member of our Investment Committee. In addition to her work with ICF she is also active in a number of Boise’s arts organizations and holds leadership positions in most of them. We at ICF are very lucky to have her on our board and committees.

• Martin Peterson (best known as Marty) is retiring from the University of Idaho, the school from which he graduated and where he worked as the governmental relations officer starting in 1992. He served seven UI presidents, including me. Before going to the UI, he served in three Idaho administrations and was president and CEO of the Idaho Bicentennial Foundation. The University of Idaho held a reception at the state capital on Jan. 25 to honor this very good man for the outstanding contribution he has made to Idaho government, higher education and Idaho’s nonprofits. 

At ICF, Marty serves on our Southwestern Region Grants Panel. We are lucky to have someone of his enormous experience and we thank him for his incredible commitment to Idaho.

I’d also like to report that the second installment of The Ed Sessions, sponsored by the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation, was an informative and entertaining evening and I thank the Foundation and its Executive Director Jamie McMillan for bringing keynote speaker Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs to Idaho. ICF helped sponsor the sold-out event, which was attended by many of our staff, board and other supporters. For those who would like to see Mike’s remarks, it will air on several Idaho television stations starting Feb. 1 and will include a discussion forum for viewers.

The consensus among our ICF group was that Mike is a charismatic, quite humorous fellow and his remarks made for a grand evening. He is passionately interested in raising the profile of skill-based American professions and communicating the value of their work. Farmers, plumbers, construction workers, machinists, electricians and others are crucial to maintaining our lifestyles, and we in Idaho and the United States need to prepare the next generation of Americans for key skill-based jobs. 

With the disappearance of the traditional apprentice programs in these professions, community colleges and technical colleges have stepped in. As we know, North Idaho College, College of Western Idaho, College of Southern Idaho and Eastern Idaho Technical College have experienced significant growth in recent years to meet the demands for the skill-based professions. Mike believes the real challenge is not access to such programs, but rather the perception of these professions in our culture today. His message is clear that until we value these professions and their importance, we won’t see enough people entering these careers to meet Idaho’s future needs.

1.17.12

We are thrilled to report that the second installment of The Ed Sessions, sponsored by the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation and its partners (including ICF), is a sold-out success!

As my wife and many of the women on ICF’s staff can tell you, the keynote speaker is Mike Rowe, executive producer and star of Discovery Channel’s Emmy-nominated series Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe. The event is Jan. 24 from 7-8:15 p.m. at the Egyptian Theater in Boise. There will be a few unclaimed seats distributed at the door starting at 6:45 p.m.

Even if you watch Mike’s show or have seen his commercials, you may not know that he established the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which will support initiatives and organizations that focus on trade work. Rowe believes America’s emphasis on four-year college degrees has come at the expense of skilled labor professions. “Without skilled labor we’d all be in deep doo-doo…Take away plumbers and welders, and the Fortune 500 would collapse in a pile of its own stink,” he says.

You also may not know that Mike used to sing professionally with the Baltimore Opera.

Mike’s talk “Filling Idaho’s Skills Gap,” will focus on the steady decline in the trades, arguing for the need to fill the skills gap by bolstering enrollment in trade schools and technical colleges. It will air repeatedly on Idaho TV stations statewide, and will be followed up by a Discussion Forum recorded live on Feb. 1. You are invited to join the conversation on Facebook and watch for the skills gap discussion guide on The Ed Sessions website.

1.12.12

The New Year has arrived and we at the Idaho Community Foundation wish you a most happy and prosperous 2012! As ICF controller Holly Motes can attest, January is a very busy month for organizations like ICF that operate on the calendar year.

As Holly is “closing the books” on 2011, we’re seeing what a successful year it’s been for ICF:

• We helped donors establish 29 new funds
   

• We have almost 900 members, including 70 new members – the highest number of new members since 2007
   

• We made distributions totaling $4.6 million from our nearly 450 funds
   

• Of these grants, 208 of them totaling $305,700 were through ICF’s Regional Competitive Grant Cycles

Idaho’s nonprofits are familiar with our grant cycles because hundreds of them have received grants over the years. What they might not realize is that money for grants comes from ICF’s Greatest Need Endowment Funds (one for each region of the state), and numerous ICF funds from many donors over several decades.

In addition to donors to the Greatest Need Endowment Funds, the Regional Competitive Grant Cycles have received $50,000 or more every year since 1997 from the Steele-Reese Foundation, a private foundation that supports projects in education, health, human/social services, arts/humanities, and conservation/preservation in Idaho, Montana and the southern Appalachian mountain region of eastern Kentucky. That’s a total of $725,000 in 14 years to support Idaho nonprofits in the rural parts of our state.

Nonprofits can receive funding from ICF in other ways beside our Regional Competitive Grant Cycles:

• ICF’s endowed funds (donor advised, designated and agency), which support the philanthropic interests of the individuals and organizations that established them, provided almost $2.1 million. 

• ICF’s non-endowed funds (philanthropic gift and special project) distributed more than $1.3 million

This total 2011 ICF grant distribution of $4.5 million has become vital to Idaho nonprofits and we are proud of the role ICF’s nearly 450 funds plays in Idaho philanthropy.

ICF offers ways for people at all income levels to give charitably and enrich the quality of life throughout Idaho. I encourage you to contact us to learn more.

12.22.11

On behalf of the Idaho Community Foundation staff and Board of Directors, we wish all of you the merriest of Christmases, happiest of Hanukkahs and the very best for a great 2012!

 As you celebrate these wonderful days, it is also a time to reflect on the past year. We at ICF have called this year one of our most successful in our 23-year history:

• We have opened 25 new funds (over half of which are endowed) and now have nearly 450.
   

• We have added over $7 million in new funds to our endowment, independent of unreliable performance of the stock market. 
   

• We have distributed over $4.2 million to nonprofits and agencies. 
   

• We have gotten two Leadership Councils off the ground in the Panhandle and the Upper Snake River Valley and have built important partnerships with United Ways in southeast Idaho and south central Idaho to establish two more.
   

• We are building a collaborative relationship with the United Way of Treasure Valley and a statewide relationship with the Idaho Nonprofit Center. We are collaborating with the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson on The Ed Sessions initiative and the Pledge to Idaho’s Children promoted by Idaho Voices for Children.
   

• We shared our message with 1,000 people who attended one of four ICF luncheons across Idaho, and one-on-one with dozens of ICF members, fund creators and friends across Idaho.

All of these activities are helping ICF meet its mission of enriching the quality of life throughout Idaho. We do that by providing individuals, groups and organizations with ways to support Idaho nonprofits forever. It is the wealth of these funders, along with their philanthropic commitment, that is really enriching life throughout Idaho.

So at a time when philanthropy is so vitally important to Idaho’s nonprofits and the people they serve across the state, we thank our funders and others who support Idaho’s nonprofits.  These are very challenging times but these generous people have given nonprofits the resources to continue to make Idaho lives better. 

Happy holidays,

Bob

12.15.11

ICF staff had a wonderful time volunteering for KTVB’s 7Cares Day last weekend. Community foundations are traditionally the recipients and distributors of donated funds and that’s exactly the role we played for 7Cares Day. Our whole staff participated at sites in Boise, Nampa and Twin Falls and brought friends and family along as well.

Treasure Valley and Magic Valley residentsgenerously opened their piggy banks and pantries to donate food, money, clothes and toys to the

ICF Controller Holly Motes in Twin Falls.

Boise Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army, the Idaho Food Bank and the Jubilee House (Twin Falls). About 73,500 pounds of food was donated (including 30,000 pounds of chickens from Tyson Foods), and $68,539.18 was raised in cash, including corporate donations. Of that cash, nearly $3,500 was in coins mostly donated by young kids! We were thrilled to see that a culture of philanthropy and generosity has been in instilled in so many young people. All of us at ICF found the 7Cares Day inspiring. There is something magical and electric about seeing thousands of people taking time out of their busy holiday preparations to drive to these three sites for the purpose of making the lives of others better.

Holly Motes from our staff was at the Twin Falls site and reported on

seeing a family drive up with a trailer full of food and gifts. The kids and parents were watching the 7Cares coverage during breakfast and decided to hitch up their trailer and visit Costco where they purchased the food and other items to donate. It was a remarkable day and we at the Idaho Community Foundation are proud to live in a community like ours.

A Twin Falls family loaded up their trailer at Costco to donate to 7 Cares.

The role of community foundations has always been to pool resources from many and distribute them fairly to those in need. We are glad for our partnership with KTVB and look forward to working with them on other philanthropic activities in 2012. 

12.8.11

As a veteran attendee and leader of many silent and live auction fund raisers over the years, I have to admit that they are not my favorite events. They take a tremendous amount of time, effort, management and luck to be successful. On the other hand, I’ve always been a fan of heartwarming, emotional fundraising events that tell the story of the organization I’ve been invited to support. 

After 2 ½ years with the Idaho Community Foundation, I’m starting to see that silent and live auction events can be extraordinary fundraising and friend-raising events all rolled into one. As ICF representatives, Leslee and I have attended more than a dozen of these events hosted by symphonies, school foundations, shelters or museums from Sandpoint to Boise to Idaho Falls.

The most recent such event we attended was Kinderhaven’s Festival of Trees Gala which has become a Sandpoint tradition. As many of you know, ICF is impressed with Kinderhaven’s work and they were our Featured Nonprofit at our North Idaho Luncheon in 2010. Kinderhaven is a group foster home and emergency shelter for children who have been removed from their home for their own security and the only facility of its kind in North Idaho.

In addition to an excellent dinner, the evening featured two former Kinderhaven kids who were absolutely inspirational. One was an angry young man when he came to Kinderhaven several years ago and who has transformed into an interesting, articulate, successful Sandpoint High School student who just finished an impressive football season. There was hardly a dry eye in the room when he finished – an incredible story. He was followed by a young woman who recently graduated from college and is now working with troubled kids. She was remarkable and we were inspired by her ability to “pay it forward.”

The evening reached a crescendo when one of Sandpoint’s philanthropic couples offered a $10,000 challenge to attendees at the event for general financial support for Kinderhaven. It was matched immediately with four $2,500 commitments and then many more of lesser amounts. The couple then added $5,000 to their commitment.

Great stories and great philanthropists make for great philanthropic evenings. Having attended this event and the Panhandle Alliance for Education fund raising event last summer, Leslee and I agree that there is something very special going on in Sandpoint and we are proud of ICF’s affiliation with these amazing groups!

Bob's Blog Archive: November 2011