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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > May > 15
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Editorial: Gifts to Dayton take on new significance
The Dayton community has gotten some nice gifts of late.
Even though the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is not going to get one of the three soon-to-be retired space shuttles, Lockheed Martin has committed to giving the museum $1 million a year for the next 10 years.
Boeing Co. announced in February it would give $5 million over three years toward the new building the museum plans to construct.
Corporate promises of this magnitude don’t happen on the spur of the moment. Discussions undoubtedly have been going on for some time. Regardless, though, of how long insiders have known about the defense contractors’ intentions, the promises were publicly announced at a good time.
Now the museum’s foundation is $13 million away from its $47 million goal.
Meanwhile, the University of Dayton recently announced that Tipp City’s Ron Morton, and Fiore Talarico, an alum, have given $2.1 million and $1 million, respectively, to the university. The former donation is for scholarships, the latter is for the Center for Professional Selling.
And philanthropist John N. Taylor Jr., former owner and retired CEO of Kurz-Kasch, just gave $1 million to help jump start the Montgomery County Ohio College Promise that targets needy eighth-graders with promises of college scholarships. The initiative’s partners include Wright State University and Sinclair Community College.
It would be overstating things to say that community institutions have struck gold, but the gifts are a positive sign — that the economy is picking up, that philanthropic giving is coming back, that people inside and outside of Dayton believe the community has assets and initiatives worthy of investing in.
When the economy collapsed in the fall of 2008, charitable giving dropped steeply. The numbers are starting to come back up, and experts are hopeful that the uptick will continue in 2011.
Besides the fact that people are feeling more confident about the economy, another trend is that a group of people who were prodigious savers are dying and leaving large sums of wealth to others. One estimate is that, between 2007 and 2017, $14.5 billion is going to be transferred in the wake of deaths in Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Warren, Darke and Preble counties.
On average, about 5 percent of the value of estates is given to charity. If that number can be increased even a little, that would represent a significant infusion.
Mike Parks, president of the Dayton Foundation, said, “We absolutely are already seeing that,” referring to unanticipated donations from people who’ve spent their lives saving and living conservative financial lives.
That phenomenon would be incredibly welcome. Though charities will never be able to replace governments when it comes to providing a safety net, the ability of government to look out for the poor and provide money to make communities better places is being checked. The “resetting” of expectations about what the public sector can and should do is a national, state and local phenomenon.
There isn’t a government around that isn’t having to re-think the extent of its mission.
Based on the Dayton community’s history and the long line of individuals, some known, some not, who’ve given so generously to the community, it would be shocking if the region didn’t benefit from what the experts say is a national tide.
It’s something to plan for and to react to — because there’s no question that every institution that depends on the generosity of others is being asked to do more.
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