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BATON ROUGE AREA ROUGE FOUNDATION BATON ANNUAL REPORT 2018 1 2 CONTENTS 05 Letter from the Chair 06 Year in Review 17 Governance 18 Advisory Committees 20 Supporting Organizations 21 Affiliated Community Foundations 23 New Funds 2018 25 Existing Funds 45 Grants 75 Members 80 Memorials and Honoraria John Gray and his band played jazz at the Foundation’s 2018 annual meeting, which was held at the new Center for Coastal and Deltaic Solutions on The Water Campus. 3 ABOUT THE FOUNDATION Since 1964, we have been making South Louisiana a little better each day. We do so in three ways. 1. The Foundation manages charitable accounts for fund donors. On behalf of them, we distributed more than $44 million to nonprofits in 2018. The grants list starts on page 46. 2. Our donors want the greatest return for the community, so the Foundation’s Strategic Consulting Services division helps nonprofits with strategy, capacity and fundraising. Nonprofits we’ve assisted include Companion Animal Alliance, SportsBR, Gaitway Therapeutic Horsemanship, Connections for Life and USS KIDD Veterans Museum. 3. The Foundation takes on civic projects to improve the quality of life in the region. Our Civic Leadership Initiatives staff partners on these long-term projects with residents, public agencies, nonprofits and elected officials. Projects include better services for children with developmental disabilities, improving K-12 education by helping to recruit the best school operators in the country, justice system reform, leading a master plan to save and enhance the City Park/University Lakes, starting bikeshare to offer more transportation choices, and advocating for inter-city rail between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. ASSET GROWTH OVER 5 YEARS KEY FACTS Grants include Baton Rouge Area INITIATED: 1964 Foundation and Affiliates ASSETS: $658 MILLION GRANTS SINCE INCEPTION: $554 MILLION SERVICE AREA POPULATION: 2 MILLION Rapides Avoyelles Vernon West Feliciana East St. Washington Feliciana Helena Evangeline Beauregard Allen Point Coupée East St. Landry Baton West Rouge Tangipahoa Baton St. Tammany Rouge Livingston Jefferson Acadia Davis Calcasieu St. Martin Iberville Ascension Lafayette St.John the Baptist St. Orleans James Vermilion Iberia Assumption St. Cameron Charles St. Martin St. Bernard St. Mary Lafourche Jefferson Plaquemines Terrebonne $551,000,000 $554,000,000 $619,000,000 $656,000,000 $658,000,000 Baton Rouge Area Foundation Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana 2017 2014 2015 2016 (Affiliate) 2018 Northshore Community Foundation (Affiliate) 4 LETTER FROM THE CHAIR William E. Balhoff t might have been easier for Bill O’Quin to set aside his sorrow and get on with his life. Bill’s son, David, had struggled with mental illness. Off his medication, he would experience a crisis. That crisis Iled him to the East Baton Rouge Parish prison, where he died. Bill told his story to the Foundation. He wanted other sons and daughters with mental illness to be spared the horrors of prison. They should get help, not punishment. After all, Bill said, a humane community should help sick people, suffering through no fault of their own. That was in 2013. Because the Foundation can take on long-term initiatives, we began a project to search for alternatives. We know that good things can only be accomplished through partnerships. We’ve learned that leaders in government and the community must join together from the beginning. With them, we wanted to find the best methods for taking care of people with mental illness and addictions. Together, we traveled to San Antonio to look at a model that could work for Baton Rouge. We crafted a master plan and a blueprint for financing. With our partners, we started an independent nonprofit called The Bridge Center for Hope to move the project forward. And last December, on our second try, 68% of voters agreed to tax themselves to help others. The people of our parish agreed with Bill O’Quin: sick people need care, not incarceration. This victory marked a major accomplishment in 2018—one among many. Through our fund donors, we raised $45 million and granted over $44 million to nonprofits. In September, we exceeded more than a half-billion dollars in grants since the Foundation started in 1964; more than half that amount was granted in the last decade alone. Other long-term projects, again advanced with local partners, were completed or continued to benefit the people of this region. Companion Animal Alliance’s $13 million shelter was among them. So was support for New Schools for Baton Rouge, which recruited top schools to open in our parish. We saw one of our more remarkable years in 2018, and we have our partners to thank for the accomplishments. We also thank our generous fund donors and Foundation members for their unfailing conviction that the people of our region want a better way of life for all. 5 6 COMPANION ANIMAL ALLIANCE In 2011, Companion Animal Alliance was formed. Too many homeless dogs and cats were not being adopted. The nonprofit boosted the number of animals saved and placed with families from 20% to 70%. In 2018, CAA opened one of the best animal shelters in the country, raising $13 million from people who believe we have a duty to take care of living creatures who can’t fend for themselves. The Foundation provided fundraising advice and support and granted $3 million for the shelter. Our fund donors gave millions more. 7 8 NEW SCHOOLS FOR BATON ROUGE We see hopeful days ahead for public education. In August, IDEA Schools and BASIS, two of the top education organizations in America, opened schools in Baton Rouge, with approval from EBR Public Schools. Hundreds of children are now attending them. BASIS has a waiting list, due in part to a rigorous curriculum that BASIS says has students two years ahead of their peers in math. To satisfy some of the growing demand, EBR’s school system has authorized a second BASIS school and has approved KIPP, the most established U.S. school network, to operate two schools in the parish. New Schools for Baton Rouge is behind this movement. A nonprofit started by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation with fund donors, NSBR is only recruiting schools that have shown results, and then holds them accountable through independent reviews. NSBR is being watched across the nation by foundations and philanthropists looking for something that works. It could be that a larger revolution in education is coming, beginning right here in Baton Rouge. 9 10 WATER CAMPUS PROGRESS Above flood stage for months, the rising Mississippi River stalled construction at the Water Campus. That’s not irony; it’s a lesson: the science of living with water amid an uncertain climate is a central concern for 40% of people living near coasts throughout the world. The Water Institute of the Gulf, started by the Foundation, pursued alliances with other science organizations from around the globe. In 2018, TWIG scientists hosted the first 10X Water Summit at the Water Campus. The collaboration between the Institute and Arizona State University gathered scientists, policymakers, engineers and thinkers to discuss how to live with too little and too much water, with knowledge from the conference shared around the world. The Foundation and our partner, Commercial Properties Realty Trust, are building more buildings on the Water Campus for researchers, along with an apartment building and a park. A water feature in the park will remind visitors that we must learn to live with water in an increasingly uncertain future. 11 BRIDGE CENTER FOR HOPE Police officers had two bad options when they encountered people in crisis from behavioral health challenges: jail or the emergency room. But in December 2018, the people of Baton Rouge chose a better alternative for folks who suffer the horrors of mental illness or addictions, often both. Sixty- eight percent of voters approved a modest property tax to open a mental health and substance abuse treatment center, a project spearheaded by the Foundation with partners in health care and the criminal justice system. The Foundation formed a stand-alone nonprofit named The Bridge Center for Hope, which the parish government selected to run the center. It will open next year, and people who are in crisis will have a chance to get treatment and the services they need to reclaim productive lives. 12 ALTERNATIVE MOBILITY The phenomenon is called “induced demand.” When the supply of something is increased, people want it even more. That’s why adding more lanes to a road usually makes traffic worse. At the Foundation, we started our New Mobility project to offer transportation alternatives, detouring away from induced demand. We advocated for carshare, rideshare and partnered to install electric car charging stations. In 2018, our bikeshare initiative was undertaken by the city-parish, which selected Gotcha to start service this year. With the Louisiana Department of Transportation and BREC, we also initiated a bike-and- pedestrian plan for Baton Rouge that will be released this summer. Cycling will be safer, and some traffic will shift from cars to two-wheelers. While traffic crawls along, alternatives race to the fore. 13 14 BUILD BATON ROUGE The revival of downtown is spreading to Mid City, with a share of the credit going to the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority, now known as Build Baton Rouge. Selected by BBR, Weinstein Nelson Development transformed the former Entergy buildings on Government Street into a gathering place with an entertainment venue, retail space, and apartments in the first phase. North of Florida Boulevard, BBR’s other high-profile development, Ardendale, welcomed a new career high school, run by EBR public schools. It opened next to the Baton Rouge Community College’s McKay Automotive Technology Center.