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Our Mission WE SUPPORT ARTS, CULTURE, EDUCATION, ANIMAL WELLBEING, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION, PRIMARILY IN CENTRAL OKLAHOMA. The American bison is the official state animal for Oklahoma. This image appears in ArtDesk (the quarterly magazine published by the Kirkpatrick Foundation) and was taken at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Wyoming, started in 1987 by Bill and Joffa Kerr, native Oklahomans who have amassed one of the largest collections of wildlife art in the country. From the Chairman PROGRESSIVE AND ENGAGED PHILANTHROPY The year 2016 was one of the busiest years on philanthropy in the Southwest. We will miss her record for the Kirkpatrick Foundation. Everyone— leadership and razor-sharp wit. from the top of our organizational chart to the Jeanne Hoffman Smith has indicated that it is bottom—has been involved in our community as time for her, too, to retire from the board of trustees leader, speaker, listener, or change agent. This year’s in the first quarter of 2017. In her ten years of report will highlight much of what we have accom- service, Jeanne has brought cultural expertise to all plished and, at the same time, give you a clearer of our meetings, particularly her work in promoting understanding of what we think of as progressive cinema, poetry, art, social innovation, and philan- and engaged philanthropy. thropic best practices. Jeanne has always made us Protecting our mission and ensuring the vision of think twice, and our decisions have been better for it. our founders, the trustees of the Kirkpatrick Foun- As these influential women cycle off our board, I dation have been gently guiding four generations of am reminded of how my grandfather established a philanthropy for our private family foundation. It is precedent of attracting bright, independent women with reluctance that I accepted the resignation of Dr. to positions of authority. He started this in the early Anne Morgan from our roster of trustees. 1970s: Nancy Berry, an early director of the Oklaho- After serving for twenty-five years, Anne decided ma City Community Foundation, Marilyn Myers of to step down from our board to begin enjoying the Kirkpatrick Foundation, Martha Jo Sturm at the her retirement. Anne is straightforward and strong. Oklahoma Zoological Society, Mary Ann Hallibur- Indeed, she was a great friend of my grandparents, ton at the Kirkpatrick Center—all were empowered but she fondly remembers “heated discussions”as it by him to succeed and take philanthropic projects related to shaping the early days of philanthropy in forward. Best of all? They did it! They were extreme- Oklahoma with my granddad, John Kirkpatrick. ly successful and effective women. Anne’s involvement with the foundation was always The results of this year’s presidential election voluntary. As she warmly recalled later in life, “By were divisive. For some, the election was personal, not working for John, I could tell him the truth almost a ballot for the acceptance and validation about our projects...and no matter how angry he of women. At the Kirkpatrick Foundation, women became, he couldn’t fire me!” have assumed key leadership roles since our found- Working together, John and Anne provided ing in 1955. This might have seemed progressive a strong foundation and intelligent missions for for the time, but looking back, our foundation the Conference of Southwest Foundations (now has always been a place where women have held Philanthropy Southwest), Oklahoma City Com- important and powerful roles. For that, I’m very munity Foundation, Kirkpatrick Foundation, and proud and very grateful. Kirkpatrick Family Fund. Anne is well known Sincerely, as a great historian, scholar, and authority on CHRISTIAN KEESEE 2 KIRKPATRICK FOUNDATION Jorge Méndez Blake of Guadalajara, Mexico, has been featured in ArtDesk, and his work will be on view at Marfa Contemporary in 2017. This piece is titled All of Dickinson’s Hyphens II (Poems 351-711). 2016 ANNUAL REPORT 3 From the Director SAFE & HUMANE 2032: AN UPDATE n 2012, the Kirkpatrick Foundation estab- to the discussion. We are proud to have provided I lished a bold and compelling vision for ani- fact-based assessments of the issues at stake, and mal wellbeing: “To make Oklahoma the safest we see SQ777 as a policy proposal in which facts and most humane place to be an animal by the mattered more than rhetoric. As a 501c3 private year 2032.” Early in this vision, we funded the foundation, we hew very closely to established re- Joan Kirkpatrick Hospital at the Oklahoma strictions, and that includes a faithful observance City Zoo, established the Oklahoma Round- of the IRS rule that we not lobby or issue a call to table for Animal Welfare and the Oklahoma action to legislators. Link Coalition, and created and hosted the Meanwhile, when we established the Oklaho- triennial ANIMAL Conference. ma Roundtable for Animal Welfare, we included Then, in 2016, we published The Oklahoma An- agencies, organizations, and industry groups imal Study, a comprehensive, landmark look at the whose missions involved animals in Oklahoma. conditions of every class of animal in the state. As its Through the run-up to the election in 2016, editor, I presented the report outside of Oklahoma many of these participants were at odds; some to groups in Omaha, Minneapolis, and Denver. identified more with corporate profits than with Here in state, principal investigator and co-author animal wellbeing and environmental health. Our Kristy Wicker and Manda Shank presented it to nu- research last year calculated the cost of such a pol- merous civic and social groups. Shank then attended icy, pointing out how industrial animal agricul- a Harvard University symposium celebrating the ture has impacted farm jobs, the state economy, Animal Welfare Act’s fiftieth anniversary. and our natural resources, creating twice the level Our experiences have given us a solid rep- of harm experienced in the Dust Bowl. Abuse, we utation of expertise on the subject of animal discovered, is an equal-opportunity offender. welfare, which became even more significant last Despite this pronounced division over core year with the presence of State Question 777 on values, we believe there will be a time in the not- the ballot. We supplemented our broad factual too-distant future when these groups can come understanding with non-partisan research to ad- together on like-minded issues, including the dress claims related to the conditions of animals controversial subject of dangerous exotic animals in industrial farm settings and how they could in private possession. That subject, however, is be affected by public policy. We also looked at for another day. Until then, I’ll repeat our office how those conditions have been influenced by mantras, clichéd perhaps but guiding principles policy and legislation in other states. nonetheless: Think global, act local; be kind to Our findings separated fact from fiction and animals; and support local art. established non-partisan analyses of the proposed Best personal regards, question. Other groups soon added their voices LOUISA McCUNE 4 KIRKPATRICK FOUNDATION Of Peace and Contentment (2015), by James Andrew Smith of Tulsa, appeared in ArtDesk. 2016 ANNUAL REPORT 5 “To create change, and make an impact, you have to have a focus.” —ANNE MORGAN Steadiness of Hand AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE, DR. ANNE MORGAN RETIRES FROM THE KIRKPATRICK FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES. AM AN HISTORIAN,” says Anne Morgan proudly. a leader in Oklahoma’s philanthropic community Given every other title she’s held in her for more than three decades. She was the founding brilliant career—author, public servant, chair of the Women’s Foundation of Oklahoma consultant, researcher, educator, administrator, and remains dedicated to its work of serving single Imentor, philanthropist—it can be easy to overlook mothers on the state’s college campuses. her early dedication to the study of the past. To She’s been a trustee of the Kirkpatrick Family do this would be to miss a critical point: that the Fund since it was created in 1989 and says she is steadiness of hand she’s brought to the Kirkpatrick deeply gratified for its work on teen-pregnancy pre- Foundation, and a host of other entities and causes, vention. And she’s been a trustee of the Kirkpatrick is informed by a strong sense of history—the type Foundation since 1991. of skill, by the way, that a person cannot simply “Anne Morgan has served as a mentor to hun- possess, but one, rather, that must be worked at. dreds of philanthropists,” says Louisa McCune, the And Anne Morgan has worked at it. foundation’s director. “She certainly has influenced She was already a woman of distinction when she the Kirkpatrick Foundation in ways that will be felt began her study of history in earnest. A legislative for generations.” aide to U.S. Senator John Tower of Texas by the age The Kirkpatrick Foundation board chairman of twenty-three, she was appointed coordinator for Christian Keesee echoes these sentiments. “Anne is a the Congressional Research Service at the Library of good friend,” he says, “who helps us understand that Congress at twenty-seven, then left that post—one philanthropy—when executed properly—can be an which for many academics would have been a career art form unto itself.” capstone—and returned to Texas to finish her Ph.D. But art, like history, cannot be made with mere Her thesis—on U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr of good intentions or by generosity of spirit alone— Oklahoma—was published as a book (Robert S. philanthropy, love for humanity, is never enough by Kerr: The Senate Years). The Kerr family took note of itself. It takes persistence, patience, and focus.

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