History of the Community Foundation of the Verdugos
In August 1956, as part of the City of Glendale's 50th Anniversary celebration, a number of women from the Glendale Tuesday Afternoon Club decided to create a local organization that would allow any citizen to become a philanthropist according to his or her individual means. Working together this group of forward-thinking community leaders established the Glendale Community Foundation. One of these leaders was Alice Moore, a Glendale attorney, who felt that if a person had no immediate family, or if provisions had been made in the will for the family, a tax-free legacy could be offered to the Community Foundation from which charitable, educational and civic betterment allocations could be made to help the Verdugos area indefinitely. The mission of the Foundation, therefore, was to offer financial stability for Verdugo area non-profit organizations not just for the present, but for decades to come. Such a gift for the community would also be an honored legacy for those who philanthropically supported the Foundation in this endeavor. The organizers created an initial fund of a few thousand dollars with the intent that this would grow in perpetuity through keen investment practices by the Foundation and through an indefinite number of donations and bequests from a wide variety of donors. Along with some initial gifts by area donors and a $3,000 gift by John Bruecker, the Foundation was off the ground with its first fund! Over the years the Foundation created additional funds which were invested in extremely safe investment instruments that kept the principal intact. Income from interest was drawn off and awarded to various charities through grants given out during the Foundation's distribution periods. Though growth was slow, the asset base had reached about $5,000 in 1960. Due to its role as a philanthropic leader in the Verdugo area, growth continued and began to gather momentum as more and more people realized the power of combining their giving efforts with the Foundation in order to benefit area organizations. By 1978, the Community Foundation administered nearly $100,000 in its asset base, and by its 25th anniversary in 1981, the funds had grown to more than a quarter of a million dollars. The late 1980s was a crucial turning-point as the Foundation's assets reached a milestone of $1 million. Much of this initial growth can be attributed to Don Packer, one of the most influential Board members of the Community Foundation during those early years. Packer, now deceased, was a local Studebaker dealer who took up the reins of the Community Foundation upon his retirement in the early 1970s. Through his efforts the organization increased its size from $25,000 when he came on board to well over $1 million by 1989. Later in 1992, Packer's estate left over $600,000 to the Community Foundation, pushing its assets above $2 million. Tom Miller was the executive director during this time and the Foundation's assets continued to grow to $5 million by 1999, and by 2006, at the time of Miller's passing after serving over 17 years with the Foundation, the assets had increased to $7 million. In 2008, after securing new leadership for the Foundation and sessions of strategic planning, the Board of Directors decided to implement a long-talked about name change: the Community Foundation of the Verdugos. The announcement of this change came in the fall of 2008 to better communicate to area residents, donors, and non-profits the geographic service territory of the Foundation. As the original founders had intended, the Community Foundation of the Verdugos would now clearly let the communities of the Verdugos know that the Foundation was here to serve all of them. Currently, that encompasses the cities of Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada-Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose and Verdugo City. Today, the Foundation continues to provide local donors with the easiest and most efficient way in which to implement their present and future charitable intentions with maximum tax advantages. Over the past five decades, the Community Foundation of the Verdugos has benefited hundreds of charitable organizations representing numerous areas of assistance from health and human services to arts, children, and even senior issues. The Community Foundation also offers scholarship and interest-free loans to local students who are preparing to attend college.