[music playing]
[George Baxter]
The history of Community Foundation's go back 103 years now to 1914
when an attorney who is also chairman of the Cleveland Trust Company had the vision
of having a public foundation. And, the
vision was attracting and establishing
a tradition of philanthropy, 
a real culture of philanthropy.
[Ed Koren]
I was Jack Grady's attorney,
and he had been trying to
create a way to do things charitably.
And, I had met the director of a community foundation.
He was the head of the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.
[George Baxter]
So, after the Tampa Bay Community Foundation got started,
there were now nine Community
Foundation's in the state of Florida.
And, the Council on Foundations met with
us once and suggested that
it was nice that we were serving our local counties but that we needed to reach out.
and spread the word about community
foundations.
I knew the estate planners... Ed Koren, I knew, was a leading estate planner in Tampa,
and I knew Ed well enough to know he also had a presence in Lakeland.
[Ed Koren] 
And, so I introduced him (George) over lunch,
and explained to Jack what a
community foundation was and could be.
[George Baxter]
It was not long after that that Jack had
pulled together the key players
that started the community foundation in
Lakeland.
[Clayton Hollis]
Jack Grady was kind of quiet, behind-the-scenes guy
but really pulled this together.
[Barney Barnett]
I got involved with the community foundation because,
after talking to Jack Grady, I thought about it
and figured that it was a great idea not
only for my family,
but also for all families in the Greater Lakeland area
that wanted a way to give back to their community.
[John Vreeland]
I got involved with the Community Foundation because of my initial contact with Jack Grady.
He explained the concept of getting a group of community leaders together
to form a community foundation.
He was very enthusiastic, and I was
extremely impressed
by the group of individuals he had recruited to attend that initial meeting.
[George Baxter]
People clearly were wanting to invest
and make Lakeland a truly exceptional community
and they realized that through the Community Foundation they could do that.
[Ed Koren]
At its inception, it was an affiliate in a
regional council
of the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.
And they had set this target of $30 million expecting that to take 10 to 15 years to reach it.
And, in less than three years, they had reached it
and formed their own
foundation.
[George Baxter]
I was blown away with the spirit in the pride of Lakeland.
I knew this foundation was going to take off
like few in the country. And it did.
[Judy Cleaves]
We had a group of people in Winter Haven
who felt that the time had come for us
to form some sort of a foundation
because there are a lot of old families
and people who wanted to be
remembered in the community.
We realized some of the money was going out of town
when Winter Haven was really the home of these people who are feeling philanthropic.
So that's why we got together and thought that we should form a community foundation.
[Suzie Moraco]
I was Board Chair for the Community Foundation of Greater Winter Haven
when the proposal was made by Lakeland that we join forces to better utilize our assets
and broaden our impact, not only in our two silos but across the county.
[Clayton Hollis]
Well, I think it was important for
Lakeland and Winter Haven communities
to come together. We each were smaller in our own right but this allowed us to
couple our money bring it together be
able to do better things for an entire
community a broader community under the GiveWell Community Foundation.
The founding members of the Winter Haven Community Foundation wanted to be sure
there was a place that people of all
means would be able to give back to their community.
GiveWell makes it possible to help the community
we're in Lake Wale,s not Lakeland, and for
years we participated in what was then
the Greater Lakeland Community
Foundation. We're able to do that because
with a donor-advised fund, you can advise
that that fund be expended in your own area,
even if it's not where the
community foundation is based.
[Family Philanthropy]
[Clayton Hollis]
We've been very fortunate in that a lot
has been given to us and therefore
we have always been taught to get back. So it's just kind of in our DNA.
[Lynn Hollis]
Mark (Hollis) was in at the very early stages of the foundation.
We've always heard "it's better to give than to receive," and that is a great benefit.
Once you start giving, you benefit so much more.
[Clayton Hollis]
I think it's for families to give money together.
Actually, my dad kind of suggested I get involved and Jack get involved in GiveWell
because he and my mom had started a fund.
Multi-generational giving allows the younger generation to realize
what mom and dad or grandma and grandpa thought was important.
[Jack Hollis]
You know, one of the things I think is really important
is that we teach our kids and our grandkids
how to give and how to give back and be
involved in community.
[Kimberly Elmhorst]
The Community Foundation has been really important in our lives
because it's enabled us to teach our children how important it is to give back.
[Kurt Elmhorst]
We allowed our kids to pick out some things
that they would feel passionate about and that they could give to.
And the idea is that in the future this fund will be theirs
and they'll have some experience on how to give.
[Kelsey Elmhorst]
For my 17th birthday, I decided that
I didn't need any presents or anything,
so my mom gave me an Impact Polk book,
and I chose Oh My Baby. And all my
friends brought about $10,
and then we had enough to donate a bag to a mom that just got out of the hospital.
[Josh Lewis]
Eight years ago, my brother, Jeff Lewis,
came to me, who two years prior to that was diagnosed
with stage four colon cancer, and he was
in the heat of his battles and came and
said Josh you know I'd really like to do
something to give back to the community
that's been so good to me and our family.
We decided to pull together
and do some type of fundraiser. And he said, "how are we going to do it?"
We partnered with GiveWell Community
Foundation, we started the Lewis Family Cancer Fund,
and since then, we have just been very fortunate to make an impact
on people's lives here locally and
regionally that are fighting cancer.
[Dr. Alan Rich]
It was five years ago on a beautiful
Saturday morning,
it was in the middle of a tennis match when my heart suddenly stopped beating.
Well, lucky for me, there was a cardiac defibrillator on premises there at the tennis court.
I was so grateful after the smoke
settled with all this to be among
the few out of a hundred who survives sudden cardiac arrest.
And so, you know, we wanted to do something in this regard.
Linda and I found that the Polk State College Center for Public Safety
provides the degree and does all the teaching for the emergency medical technicians.
And so it was just natural that Linda and I wanted to help with their scholarships.
And we're able to do so through our fund in GiveWell.
[Linda Rich]
I can say that it has enriched our lives tremendously
because we've been able to give back to a community that's been very generous to us.
[Nonprofits]
LVIM is a free clinic for the working
uninsured of Polk County,
people that don't have access to health care because they don't have a health care insurance.
or they can't afford to pay private pay
amounts.
We will see about 25,000 patient visits every year
and provide about six million dollars' worth of health care free
to the working uninsured in our county.
[Curtis Reddick]
We enroll about 600 kids every year for after-school programming.
During the summer months we enroll about 550.
So we provide for those 600 kids a place to be after school
so parents can work and go to school and take care of of their families.
Our Community Foundation agency fund has helped us in a number of ways:
One, its mission base is the same as
ours, so we feel very much aligned in that base;
We also like the idea that our money is managed in a prudent way
and because we have to be good stewards of that money;
in addition to that, it's been really great knowing that many of our donors
also have self-directed, donor-advised funds within the Community Foundation.
[Curtis Reddick]
There would be no way that we could do the things that we do without being involved with GiveWell.
Getting through those bumps in the road where you get cut funding, you may have a shortfall that you need covered.
GiveWell has enabled us to be able to continue to do what we do every day.
[Engaged Giving]
[Barney Barnett]
The Community Foundation, to me, is very
important because
it gets people more engaged in giving back to their community,
and it gives them a lot more options on how they manage their money in giving back.
[Jack Hollis]
Well, the interesting thing about the Community Foundation is really,
it's not an agency that replaces a current agency.
It's an agency that helps people give money to agencies.
They're not replacing something, they're
not in competition with anybody else,
they're doing something that
nobody else does.
[Kurt Elmhorst]
The Community Foundation is the most administratively-efficient and the most tax-efficient way
for our family to give the gifts that we want to the organizations that we really love.
[Kimberly Elmhorst]
We can still give to the organizations that we have been passionate about
all of our married life, but we also have the opportunity
to expand that to organizations that we
might not have ever heard about before.
[Suzie Moraco]
I'm really excited about the future of GiveWell.
The more we can pull our resources together and educate folks
and continue to build on the synergies that we already have,
the more effective that we are going to become in the future
[Josh Lewis]
I know GiveWell changes lives, and I know with the lives that they're changing just through us,
so I know, with the other funds that are within that foundation,
I can't even imagine the countless number of lives not just here, in Central Florida,
but nationally and, believe it or not, there's some international lives that they're touching.
[John Vreeland]
If someone had said to Jack Grady that within 20 years we were grown
from a start-up charitable organization to have more than $160 million of assets on hand, he'd be thrilled.
[Linda Rich]
When you give, you get back.
It's a wonderful feeling, and I think it gives meaning and purpose to our lives.
[music playing]
