PhilanthroFiles

By Ted Donley, Donley Foundation

It took me 24 years to get involved in my family’s foundation.

Growing up, I didn’t really know what it was, nevertheless what a foundation was or what it meant. Luckily for my sisters and me, my dad and mom did instill philanthropy in us while we were young. They gave us $100 each. Sadly for us at the time, we didn’t get to keep the money. Instead, we were told to research a worthy cause in the small community of York, PA, to which we would donate it.

And you know what? In the end, giving the money away felt even better than keeping it.

In 1987, the year I was born, my grandparents started the Donley Foundation. For two decades, the board of directors included my grandparents, father, aunt, and uncle. I never understood what happened behind closed doors, other than my parents and grandparents gave money to libraries and stuff.

I also wasn’t in tune with what was going on when the third generation, my two siblings and seven cousins, reached an age to attend to the “meetings.” As a younger kid, I just remember it being an awesome time to hang out with my family from Chicago and New Hampshire.

As the years passed and other members of the third generation and I grew older, we were allowed to sit in on the meetings behind those doors. But, in my late teens, the discussions did not interest me, and I fell asleep as I witnessed my first board meeting in Allentown, PA.

My father and grandfather were not happy.

Then, in October 2011, my cousin Cara and I attended an ASF Next Generation Retreat. Months earlier, the Donley Foundation’s director, Daphne Rowe, emailed us about this interesting event in Chicago, where she thought we could learn a lot from other young adults in various foundations.

The retreat offered me the insight that there is much more to a foundation than giving money to libraries. I learned that other foundations have associate boards where people my age and younger (much younger) are seriously involved in the philanthropy. I learned that I could do site visits and see the benefits that my grandfather set forth in 1987. And most important, I met a whole lot of very proactive people who had the same questions and uncertainties that I did.

Today, I am a proud member of ASF’s Next Gen committee and an associate board member of the Donley Foundation. The other associate board members and I are going to make our first big decision soon about the areas of need in our individual communities.

It took me 24 years to get involved, but it feels really good.

Age 18–35, give or take, and preparing for involvement in your family’ s foundation? Attend ASF’s Next Generation Retreat at the 2012 National Conference, October 7–9 in San Francisco.