By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
The Covington Business Council March Luncheon Thursday featured a presentation on the efforts of Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky, from its president, Nancy Grayson.
Nancy Grayson, president of Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky talks wit CBC President Pat Frew about the organization’s goals (photos by Mark Hansel)
Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky, which launched last year, is the community-wide foundation focused on finding ways to pool community resources, large and small, in order to give back, make a lasting difference, and to improve life for generations.
Grayson said the new community foundation for Northern Kentucky really started its genesis about a year-and-a-half-ago.
“Our founders were coming together, there were some conversations and roundtables and they were saying that we feel we could be doing more for our neighbors,” Grayson said. “‘How do we stand up together, shoulder to shoulder and say what we can do to meet the most pressing needs of our community?’”
Those conversations led to discussions with like-minded community leaders to gain their input.
“I think what’s driving this is that we are 400,000 people who live in this community and that’s 22 percent of the MSA for Greater Cincinnati but we don’t see that same percentage of resources being used to invest in and meet the needs of our community,” Grayson said.
The partners agreed that it was time to step up and take advantage of the momentum around economic and residential growth in Northern Kentucky by developing a community foundation focused primarily on the defined geographic areas of Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties.
Scott Bowers of The Lord’s Gym talks with Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky President Nancy Grayson following Thursday’s presentation.
“We said at the outset, we hope to raise $50 million in five years,” Grayson said. “We have over $10 million raised to date in assets, which really was something that happily surprised me, how positive the response has been.”
The organization focuses on three types of funds.
The Community Impact Fund is unrestricted and can provide support for the arts, health, education, poverty reduction, innovation, development and community vibrancy.
“Those are funds that are more designated, our council of trustees…help to govern through the grant-making committee where that money is invested and over time that will spin out and be used for unforeseen needs,” Grayson said.
The Donor Advised Fund emphasizes charitable giving.
“These are folks who have some wealth that they want to invest in a fund and then they make recommendations on where that money goes,” Grayson said. “They can make recommendations to a charitable cause, a school, a church and they dictate the timing of that. We review those recommendations and once we give our approval, we are able to send those out.”
The Designated Fund allows a donor to give to a particular a charity or a program within that organization.
“The way we are approaching this a little differently, is working in partnership with organizations to consider how we help diversify some of their funding if they have resources that they are saving for future use and allowing others to give,” Grayson said. “They can give stock, they can give other types of assets or cash.”
The one catch to the impressive amount already raised is that most of the funds are really designated, by the donors, so they advise where that money goes.
Members of the Covington Business Council and guests filled the ballroom at the Madison Event Center to hear a presentation from Nancy Grayson of Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky
“We see that as an opportunity to educate the donors if they are interested in their causes, how we can help better connect them to opportunities and how we can help connect them to more information, so they are better informed,” Grayson said.
There are more than 1,200 nonprofits located within the three-county area footprint. Grayson estimates she has spoken to representatives from about 100 of them, as well as leaders in the community and potential partner organizations. She said there is a lot of good work already being done.
“A lot of that time I’ve been spending meeting with people in the community is really to say we are trying to hear what’s happening,” Grayson said. “This can’t be just a small group of people sitting in a room saying ‘this is where we think things should be going,’ we are trying to change the conversation. This needs to be something where everyone can feel a part of it in whatever way is comfortable to them.”
Grayson was drawn to the position, she says, to set the stage for future generations to participate in community giving.
“There really is this desire to start engaging young professionals, young families, children who are coming up through the schools right now and how we get them to be part of this and do it in ways that may be small,” Grayson said. “This isn’t just that (situation) where, if you have a lot of wealth we want to make sure that we meet your needs, but we also want others who maybe are just starting to get involved, or just starting to think about giving back to their community. How do we help them focus on what they care about and leverage that money with others?”
From the outset, the approach has been different because the goal is to encourage participation from those at all levels of income and all backgrounds, in every neighborhood.
One goal of the organization is to have more of that unrestricted money, the community impact fund, that can be used in a variety of ways.
“That’s why we’ve launched a $5 million campaign – our hope would be that we could have a successful campaign, of course, and then start granting that out in 2019,” Grayson said. “If you can give $50, $100 or $500 that’s something that you know will be pulled together with others in the community and it’s invested over time and is able to be used in perpetuity.”
There is also a concerted effort to develop a strategy to tap into a huge generational transfer of wealth that is underway.
“There was a study done this last year by the Kentucky Philanthropy Initiative and they found that in 10 years, our Northern Kentucky (Area Development) District footprint will have $9 billion that will be transferred via generational transfer,” Grayson said. “If we could capture 5 percent of that money, which is kind of the gold standard for charitable giving and toward community foundations, think of what we could do to invest in this community.”
There is also an effort to expand the leadership pipeline to encourage people to get involved in volunteering, giving and becoming more engaged in what Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky wants to do for the region.
“We are launching a new volunteer group, and this is open to anyone but we have a planning committee, called the Horizon Community Accelerator,” Grayson said. “This is really driven by human ingenuity and energy.”
The goal is to identify people who want to become involved, but don’t have the opportunities to do so and make them better informed and connected.
For more information about the Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky, or to learn about ways to become engaged, click here.
The monthly Covington Business Council Luncheon provides opportunities for members to interact with each other, as well elected officials and community leaders. Luncheons generally include a presentation on a topic of local interest to the community and take place at the Madison Event Center in Covington.
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com
