Are you familiar with the phrase “force for generosity”? It’s a powerful concept. Simply put, you can make a real impact by strategically aligning your charitable giving with your cause interests. Debbie Wilkerson, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, was interviewed on KKFI 90.1 FM sharing how the Community Foundation works alongside our donors to achieve their giving goals. For Debbie, it’s genuinely about Kansas City’s generosity and their commitment to maximize their giving that’s most impressive. With this intentional mindset, anyone can become a force for generosity.
Hear the full conversation:
KKFI 90.1 FM Radio Active Magazine: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation
Transcript edited for length and clarity.
Spencer Graves Interviewer:
In 1978, I read that the Community Foundation’s founders passed a hat and collected $200 to help anyone willing to listen to be more effective with the money they gave to charities. Today, they’re managing over $5 billion; that’s a billion with a “b.” Their mission is to improve the quality of life in greater Kansas City by increasing charitable giving, educating and connecting donors to community needs they care about and leading on critical community issues. In 2022 alone, the Community Foundation and its donors gave away over $800 million in grants to thousands of nonprofits nationwide. So, Debbie, please correct any errors in that intro and add anything else you’d like.
Debbie Wilkerson:
I think you’ve got it right. Isn’t it amazing?
Interviewer:
Yes. It’s amazing, I admit. So, what are the most important things you’d like to communicate to Kansas City this evening?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Oh, it’s such a great time to be from Kansas City, isn’t it? For so many reasons and not the least of them is because this city is one of the most generous cities in the world. I think our people are kind and they give, and that’s what we’re here to help them do, to build infrastructure so that they can make the most of their charitable dollars.
Interviewer:
That’s great. So, do you give to individuals or only to organizations?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Well, when you say, ‘you,’ we’re talking about all these donors who have their funds with us. We help donors set up funds. We also help donors give to individuals, and we do that through scholarship funds. Those are very specific kinds of funds, and we’re so proud of the work some of our donors are doing. We’ve had some amazing years with donors, and they do it for all different types of reasons. Sometimes, they’re mourning the loss of somebody very special, and they want to remember them and their character in a scholarship fund. Others believe deeply that the way to help is through education. And they do that through scholarship funds. And in 2023, our donors gave out, through their funds, $4.8 million in scholarships to more than 2,300 students. Each one of those is such an important moment in their lives and in their future.
Interviewer:
I was a recipient of a scholarship as a freshman at Kansas State decades ago.
Debbie Wilkerson:
It just gives you hope, doesn’t it? That somebody believes in you.
Interviewer:
That’s exactly right. So, when you give to organizations, you only give to 501(c)(3) nonprofits?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Well, that’s an important piece to remember. We do all sorts of giving with our donors and their funds. As I mentioned, if you want to give to individuals, we can do that through scholarship funds. But every other type of giving through donor-advised funds is to 501(c)(3) organizations.
Interviewer:
Great. So, if somebody wants to create a charitable organization, what do they do?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Oh, that is a great question. Thank you for asking because lots of people have lots of ideas. They see need and they want to help. They are absolutely passionate. One thing about Kansas City is they just see it and they want to get it done. They want to take responsibility. It’s everything we love about our city. But in this one instance, I would just encourage people to take a minute. We’ve got some great organizations, Nonprofit Connect and Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, who are really great at helping organizations be the best they can be. Both are amazing organizations in our community and sometimes they can even help an organization get started. But what they would recommend and what we would recommend is to do a lot of research first. Because if there is a cause that you care about or something you’re worried about, something that makes you sad, something that brings you joy, something you want to share with others, I bet there is an organization in our community already doing it. And in doing some research, finding out, getting to know those organizations, maybe volunteering your time with them rather than going and creating a new organization.
Do you know how many nonprofits there are in this country?
Interviewer:
There are millions, I’m sure.
Debbie Wilkerson:
Not many people actually get that right. You said millions, and you’re correct about there being almost two million nonprofit organizations in the United States. And I guarantee many of them are doing some of the things you’re worried about.
Interviewer:
So, there would be thousands in Kansas City.
Debbie Wilkerson:
There are so many amazing organizations locally. And if you’re interested in finding out, you’re looking for places and asking, ‘Does this exist? I’m interested in this issue.’ We address this with our donors all the time. If they care about a particular cause and they want to address that issue. We have philanthropic advisors that work with our donors. But what we also have, if you don’t have a fund with the Community Foundation, we make this available on our website. You can do your own search. You can go to GrowYourGiving.org, and there’s a search where you can find nonprofits in our community. And it’s just a lot of great information. We try to give just enough.
The best thing you want to do is once you find an organization that you’re interested in call them, meet them, go to them and learn more about them in their own words.
Interviewer:
Right. So, you mentioned Nonprofit Connect, and you mentioned another organization. I know about Nonprofit Connect because I was previously on the board, and I received some training from Nonprofit Connect and so forth, but I hadn’t heard of the other organization you mentioned.
Debbie Wilkerson:
Yes, Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership. Both organizations have great resources and are designed to really help make our organizations, our nonprofit organizations in Kansas City thrive.
Interviewer:
If you are looking at a nonprofit that you might want to give money to, what kind of research do you recommend people do before they start?
Debbie Wilkerson:
I might just back up because that sometimes is confusing to folks. We set up charitable giving accounts for people, and sometime in their life when they realize they want to start organizing their giving, or they may have enough to set some charitable dollars aside, they can put it into a donor-advised fund, and they get a tax deduction when they do that. Then they can start granting, and I’m going to get to your question here because they’re going to grant to organizations that they know about, they care about, but maybe they want to learn about. And so that’s where we can help them in that regard as well. And meanwhile, the best part about it is that we also have vehicles to help these donors invest their charitable assets.
So, those charitable dollars just keep growing while they’re in their account. So, by the time they are years into this fund, their assets have actually grown while they’re granting, and they just get to give so much more. Back to your question, how do you decide? Sometimes people will start with a simple question. They may be giving to all the causes. You would expect places where they were educated, places where they worship, places that took care of them when they were sick, or places that bring them joy or a particular experience that they may have had personally. In other instances, they come across a community issue that needs their help. Then everybody says, ‘Oh, I wish I could do more.’ And I say, every little bit matters. So, you’re leaning into an issue that you want. And we’ll help them explore those issues. We’ll help them even do some of that research and say, if you are interested in early childhood education, here are some of the organizations that are doing it in these populations or in these areas, and for these types of children. Those are the types of things we just like to understand—what are their passions, what their causes are, and what impact they want to have with their charitable dollars. And then from there, the possibilities are endless.
Interviewer:
If you’ve got two or three or four different charities and you’re wondering which one really seems to be making good use of the money, rather than spending 80% of their money on delivering services or on overhead. How do you figure that out?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Well, I do encourage people to think broadly about overhead, because sometimes that gets a bad rap, and I assume it’s not intentional, because there are many organizations that are running programs, they are part of the process. And so that overhead is actually the charitable mission in and of itself. And so people look at, well, ‘is somebody being paid too much?’ There are standards that all nonprofits adhere to make sure we have reasonable pay for the executives running it. For example, you may have a very grassroots organization that is just operating on very little money, maybe even on a volunteer basis. And that’s a fantastic thing. Those organizations may be operating in neighborhoods or directly with particular individuals, maybe a dozen people that they’re really supporting. Good things happen there. And that 990 will look very different from an international organization with tens of thousands of employees that requires incredibly talented executives to keep that humming. And so, a hundred dollars goes a long way for your grassroots organization, but it’s also critically important for those international or national organizations that have all of that infrastructure, and they need lots of hundred dollars as well.
You might think about the way you shop. I like to shop at my local farmer’s market with a farmer who is growing tomatoes. I get to buy tomatoes from her, but I also shop at Walmart. There’s a need for both.
Interviewer:
So, we are visiting with Debbie Wilkerson, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. Your website, GrowYourGiving.org, says the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation ranks in the top 1% of more than 900 community foundations in the country in terms of total assets, gifts, and grants. Talk about that.
Debbie Wilkerson:
Oh, isn’t that amazing? Kansas City has a lot to be proud of. We have a lot to be proud of being recognized as a ‘center for philanthropy’ right here in Kansas City.
Interviewer:
The Wikipedia article on the Community Foundation says that in 2014, you were the fourth largest community foundation in the U.S. in terms of total assets.
Debbie Wilkerson:
And some years we’re even third. So, it’s terrific. I have terrific community foundations counterparts all across the country. There’s over 800, maybe close to 900 community foundations across the country. But it is pretty cool that right here in Kansas City, we have probably the third largest in the whole country. And that just speaks to the generosity of this community.
Interviewer:
I haven’t talked about IRS form 990. Do you ever look at those?
Debbie Wilkerson:
I spent a lot of my life with the IRS Form 990. They are a wealth of information. The Community Foundation files its own. The interesting thing about the 990, one of the reasons so many folks will set up their charitable accounts–their donor-advised funds with us, is we make it easy to have an organized method of giving and a way to grow their assets and be intentional about their giving, but without all the administration. The Community Foundation files one 990, and we do that on behalf of all of the assets and all the donors that are under our umbrella. So, yes, we spend a lot of time thinking about our Form 990, but also looking at other 990s. There’s a wealth of information if you have the patience to go through it. Some organizations may tell you a lot about their mission on a Form 990. You’ll also get a sense about their finances. You’ll get a sense about contributions brought in and the way those are expended.
So, you were asking if organizations are appropriately staffed? There are questions about conflict policies and all sorts of things on the Form 990, but there’s also resources that can consolidate it. I don’t want people to get so bogged down in trying to look up 990s that they think it’s just too hard. It doesn’t have to be that way. We have great resources on our website that summarize what organizations are doing and give good insight. But then again, I just encourage everybody, if you really want to know what’s going on with an organization, go to their website, call them, ask to meet them. You’ll start to understand it firsthand. Most organizations would love to have you over to show you what they’re doing. And then you’ll start to understand and trust those organizations with your charitable dollars. And this is a two-way street. The organizations are hoping their donors trust them, and they want to trust their donors to be ongoing givers for them.
Interviewer:
What’s the characteristic of a person who might come in and establish a fund with you?
Debbie Wilkerson:
I love that you ask that. I am always curious myself when donors walk in, and someone might say, ‘I am here to set up a fund.’ Sometimes they walk in as an individual. Meaning they’re giving on their own and want to set up their own charitable fund. I’ll give you some examples of why that may be. But sometimes they come in and we realize they want to make this a family event. They really want to make this a family legacy. They want this to involve their children, and they’re looking for this vehicle to do that, sort of like a private foundation, but easier on them and their family. Other times they walk in with their company hat on. They want to create a company foundation. They want to give in the name of their company. So, the characteristics are all over the board as to who comes in and how they want to appear in their giving. Sometimes they come in because they realize it’s just the most magical time. They realize after all this hard work, after all this time, they’re at a stage where they have assets they can dedicate permanently to charity. And that’s what we’re doing to help them.
Interviewer:
If someone is living hand to mouth and giving regularly to their local church or whatever, but they don’t necessarily have a positive net worth, you won’t be able to help them, right?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Well, I don’t want to say we can’t help them. I encourage them to continue doing what they’re already doing. They’re doing it perfectly. Thank you for keeping your family fed and still managing to give to the causes that you care about in whatever way you can. Whether on an individual or a daily basis or however you can. So no, we don’t want to interrupt any of the giving. We’re just talking about folks who have hit a particular stage in their life, and they realize they have resources that they’d like to set aside to give over time to charity, and this is the vehicle that can help them do that.
Interviewer:
Last year, Forbes Magazine named you one of the 50 over 50 women in the U.S., who reject the conventional wisdom that their best years are behind them. So, where do you go from here?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Yes, I was nominated for named 50 over 50. I like where I am right now. I love the work I’m doing with donors, and I think I’ll just stay right where I am.
Interviewer:
Okay. So, just backtracking, I read that the Kansas City Athletics baseball team moved to Los Angeles in 1968, and Kauffman put up the money to create a new major league baseball team here in Kansas City. I read that you got involved in the negotiations to keep the team in Kansas City under new owners after he passed. How did that happen?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Oh, well, let me clarify just a little bit. I happened to be working at the law firm that was representing Ewing Kauffman, and I was at the lowest level. So, I want to be really clear when I say I negotiated, no, I did not negotiate. I was the lowest level, youngest tax associate in the firm, but I had a front row seat. I watched some amazing partners try to do what Ewing Kauffman wanted. And that was to donate the Royals to this community so that the community could then sell it to a buyer who would keep the Royals in Kansas City. So, all these years later and all these joyous moments we’ve had with our Royals, and they are our Royals, and Ewing Kauffman believed that. That’s to his credit still to this day. So, yes, the Community Foundation was involved.
Interviewer:
You looked around and you found the Community Foundation?
Debbie Wilkerson:
The partners I worked for were brilliant partners, Stan Weiner and Sylvan Siegler. I was so lucky to have a front row seat to watch the charitable component of this happen. And so they worked with the Community Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation is just a stellar institution, but it wouldn’t work for a lot of tax reasons. I don’t have time to get into the nuances of contributing to a private foundation. But I’ll share that working through the Community Foundation, which is a public charity, he was able to accomplish his dream.
Interviewer:
And not only that, but they thought, “wow, this Debbie Wilkerson, we need her”.
Debbie Wilkerson:
Well, that’s also a story that probably got flipped around. I fell in love with the Community Foundation while working on that project, not necessarily the other way around. And so, I must admit, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how much I loved this work so much. I loved the strategy. I loved the complexity of what could be done through donor-advised funds at the Community Foundation. So, I just set my sights on them. I jokingly said that I stalked the Community Foundation for a job for a year or two until they finally agreed to hire me.
Interviewer:
Yeah, I know how that works. So, what do you rank as the biggest accomplishment of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation?
Debbie Wilkerson:
That’s a really great question. There are a lot of them. We have this really talented staff. And even today, I was just thinking of all the things that they’re accomplishing and the infrastructure they’re building for donors. It’s very exciting to see what will come for donors in the future who are working through the Community Foundation. But I think maybe the biggest accomplishment is with all the funds we have accumulated. Earlier you shared our history — from $200 to $5 billion dollars plus. Yes, a billion with a ‘b’. The most amazing part, and what is so important to us, are the relationships we have with these donors and that every one of them could pick up the phone and someone would answer their call. They could ask us for our help. And we want to be their partner in this work. We pick up the phone for everybody, and we want to make sure one donor at a time is able to accomplish what they want to accomplish.
Interviewer:
We’re pretty close to time. Any final words for our audience?
Debbie Wilkerson:
Oh, just thanks for being generous, Kansas City. Whether you, as you mentioned, have extra resources and you’re able to put some permanently aside for charity, that’s a great thing. But if you’re just being great neighbors in this community and taking care of the people next to you, thanks for doing that as well.