Company Profile
Company Overview
Berks County Community Foundation was founded in 1994 to help individuals, families, organizations and businesses achieve their charitable objectives. Since that time, the foundation has grown to manage hundreds of charitable funds. Each year, those funds distribute scholarships and grants to support local students and nonprofit organizations and causes.
Company History
Berks County Community Foundation administers hundreds of charitable funds, and each year those funds distribute scholarships and grants to support local students and nonprofit organizations and causes. But just 15 years ago, a group of Berks County leaders were still trying to figure out what exactly a community foundation was. What would it do? How would it work? What role would it play in the community?
What is a Community Foundation?
The Council on Foundations defines community foundations as tax-exempt public charities serving thousands of people who share a common interest—improving the quality of life in their area.
Foundations invest and administer charitable funds established by people who want to help their region meet the unique challenges it faces. Volunteer boards made up of individuals who are interested in identifying those challenges oversee the foundations.
But community foundations do much more than administer donor-advised funds. They also identify emerging issues and use their resources to assert an important leadership role in their communities.
In the early 1990s, Berks Countians had no such organization. But that was about to change.
The Beginning
Hildegard “Boots” Ryals, a member of the board of the Wyomissing Foundation, also served on the board of a community foundation in North Carolina. She asked the Wyomissing Foundation’s board of directors why Berks County didn’t have a community foundation. The Wyomissing Foundation’s board was intrigued, and began to look into it.
Wyomissing Foundation volunteer Alfred Hemmerich was excited by the idea. He took it upon himself to explore how a community foundation worked and whether or not it would be possible to start one in Berks County.
“Alfred was a big man, as well as an energetic man,” said J. William Widing, III, who served as the Community Foundation’s attorney when it was created and is currently on its board of directors. “He was motivated by a vision, he was committed to it, and he pursued it with as much energy as I’ve seen anybody pursue anything.”
Hemmerich knew he couldn’t set up a foundation on his own. He employed the help of Eugene Struckhoff, a former president of the Council on Foundations. Hemmerich also relied on a steering committee made up of Widing and other community members who were interested in the formation of a community foundation in Berks County.
Former board member Sidney Kline said Hemmerich’s enthusiasm alone was enough to convince many people to join him.
“If Alfred asked you to get involved with something, you did it. Most people did,” he said.
Berks County Community Foundation’s articles of incorporation were filed June 7, 1994. Ten incorporators — all members of the steering committee — signed the document: Thomas A. Beaver, Nancy V. Giles, Alfred G. Hemmerich, Sidney D. Kline, Karen A. Rightmire, June A. Roedel, William K. Runyeon, David L. Thun, Donald van Roden and J. William Widing, III.
“The original vision was to establish a place where people could develop a foundation with some donor-advised funds, rather than developing their own personal family foundations,” said original board member Karen Rightmire. “So it was a really easy, good way for people who wanted to make gifts in perpetuity, or to make charitable gifts to do it through the foundation.”
Many of the Community Foundation’s first board members were also on the board of the Wyomissing Foundation, including Tom Beaver, who said the Wyomissing Foundation’s willingness to give the young community foundation $1 million in initial operating funds was one of the pivotal moments in the foundation’s history.
The Wyomissing Foundation wasn’t the only group helping the Community Foundation get on its feet. The United Way incubated the Community Foundation, said Rightmire, who recently retired as president of the United Way of Berks County.
“The Foundation’s staff lived in our offices for more than two years until they were ready to afford a space,” she said.
Rightmire said she was interested in being involved in the foundation because it had some of the same goals as the United Way, and she thought the two groups could get more done if they worked together.
Though the fledgling foundation received help from other groups, it needed to attract more money if it was going to start building a significant endowment fund.
A team of people approached corporations, banks and other resources in the area, and explained to them what the Community Foundation was and what its goals were, and solicited seed money from them to build up the foundation’s corpus, former board member Donald van Roden said.
“They weren’t large sums ... but they were meaningful, and it was amazing how many of these organizations were willing to participate,” he said.
Alfred Hemmerich passed away in 1999, but his legacy lives on through the foundation he worked so hard to create.
“I think he would be very proud of what has been accomplished, and justifiably so,” said Kline.
One of the first important decisions the Community Foundation’s board of directors made was hiring a president for the organization.