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Danville Regional Foundation Aims for Maximum Positive Impact
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The Danville Regional Foundation is making a difference – investing in the Danville, Pittsylvania County and Caswell County, N.C., area today, and, more importantly, laying groundwork for a productive future.
Established in August 2006 to invest and distribute $200 million from the sale of the Danville Regional Medical Center to LifePoint Hospitals Inc., the foundation awards grants based not just on need – but opportunity and impact, says Karl Stauber, foundation president and CEO since August 2007.
“Need is certainly important,” Stauber says. “But if you have great need and at the end of the day [grant funds] don’t change anything, then that’s probably not a good investment.
“Part of the challenge has been to get people not to just tell us how bad things are,” Stauber says. “We look at our funds as investments in the community designed to produce tangible community benefits. We don’t look at our grants as dollars that we’re giving away. We expect something for the community in return for every dollar that we invest, and that’s community improvement.”
Stauber was president and CEO of the Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul, Minn., before relocating to Danville to take the reins of the DRF.
“I moved here for two reasons,” Stauber says. “One is I think there are great opportunities here and I think it’s a great place to live. Having said all that, there are real challenges here. If the problems of this region are solved, the solutions are going to be led by the people in this region.”
Having an available source of funding for those key solutions certainly helps.
In the first part of 2008, DRF awarded $628,275 to the BEST Coalition [Building Economic Success Together], $1.4 million to the Free Clinic of Danville and $2 million to the Industrial Development Authority of the city of Danville.
In July 2006, the largest grant to date, $9.7 million, was awarded to Danville Community College to build a Health Sciences Center.
Story by Anne Gillem
