Report misrepresents foundation’s work

12/30/2012

Your Dec. 13 article “Collins calls for public records on Navy Week; Councilman says city withholding information” misrepresented the work of the Toledo Community Foundation.

The foundation is proud to have assisted in bringing world-class attention to our community through Navy Week last August. The foundation provided the opportunity for individuals and businesses to support Navy Week activities by allowing donations to be made to a fund that the foundation established exclusively for this event.

Toledo Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to encourage philanthropy. We are equipped to handle and dispense money for such purposes as Navy Week. It made perfect sense for the foundation to work with the City of Toledo to bring these activities to our community.

The foundation doesn’t offer programming or services within the charitable community. Rather, it provides resources to organizations that carry out these programs and services.

As such, grants from funds at Toledo Community Foundation are awarded through a process to charitable organizations as defined by the Internal Revenue Service. Our funds are not disbursed to for-profit businesses, because this would be accounted for as an expense to the fund rather than a grant.

Toledo Community Foundation would never take any action simply to look charitable. All of our actions are charitable, and the foundation will continue to follow the letter of the law in this regard.

For Navy Week, we collected donations from individuals and businesses for the City of Toledo, and processed grants to assist in payments for the week’s activities. The foundation would be proud to provide support of this nature again.

KEITH BURWELL

President Toledo Community Foundation Inc.

Madison Avenue