Introducing the Tipp City Foundation

What is the Tipp City Foundation, and why does it matter?

In the debut episode of So Far, So Good, hosts Jim Ranft and Sarah Gillenwater are joined by Foundation President Richard Bender, Fund Development Director Heather Bailey, and producer Greg Enslen to introduce the mission behind the Tipp City Foundation—and the stories that inspired this podcast.

Learn how the Foundation connects donors with community needs, why every grant has a story, and how local philanthropy helps strengthen education, parks, arts, nonprofits, and quality of life throughout the Tipp City community.

The conversation also explores why the Foundation is embracing podcasting as a new way to reach future generations, increase transparency, and showcase the people and organizations making a difference every day.

In This Episode

• What the Tipp City Foundation is—and how it serves the community
• Why the Foundation launched So Far, So Good
• How grants create lasting local impact
• The importance of donors, volunteers, and community partnerships
• Why every grant has a story worth telling
• A preview of future episodes featuring grant recipients, fund holders, and community leaders

Featured Guests

• Richard Bender – President, Tipp City Foundation
• Heather Bailey – Fund Development Director, Tipp City Foundation
• Greg Enslen – Clock Tower Media / Tippecanoe Gazette

Thank you for listening to So Far, So Good. If you enjoy the episode, please subscribe, share it with a friend, and join us as we celebrate the people and stories shaping our community—one grant at a time.

New York may be nice.

Give me paradise.

Give me my own hometown.

Welcome to so Far so Good, a podcast from the Tipp City Foundation.

I'm Jim Ranft and I'm joined by my co host, Sarah Gillenwater.

Also with us today are Heather Bailey, our fund development director and past president, and we have our engineer and host, Greg Enslin from Clock Tower Media.

How's it going?

How's it going, Jim?

Good.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks for helping inspire this podcast for us.

So our hope with this podcast is to bring the stories of the people behind the philanthropy to the forefront and maybe inspire a few more people to become part of the story.

Thank you for joining our conversation.

Hope you'll join us for the rest of our podcasts.

This is our introductory.

I want to say broadcast, but it's podcast.

So, Heather, I was wondering if you could fill us in a little bit on why, even though we've had the annual report and had a great relationship with Greg and the TIP Gazette, why you think this podcast is the important next step for the foundation?

I think it's responsibility of a foundation in general, a community foundation, to look to the future of the community.

So a grant that we make is not paying for something that happened in the past.

It's paying for something that's going to help the community thrive, whatever it is.

Education, recreation, arts, culture.

So podcasting just feels like the future.

It's speaking to the next generation.

How do we capture the ears and eyes of people who don't know anything about us yet?

We have to find them where they are.

Gone are the days where they turn to one information source and we can communicate everything just through one source.

No, it's not just one press release anymore.

So here we are, we're talking to the people who we hope are going to be part of our future.

And so that's a great point.

Kind of the next generation.

Which brings Sarah into the conversation because she is our next generation of board members.

No pressure.

Yeah.

Who.

Who may be kind of old, I think.

Well, but more so prone to say, hey, I'm going for a run.

What.

What podcast can I find?

Or we're driving, you know, cross country.

So I think this is a way for us older board members to try to pull in this next generation.

Does that seem like it fits?

I would say yes, that's fair to say.

We are trying to just have a broader reach and use all of the avenues.

There are just so many communication av.

It's not just print, print Never died.

There's still print out there.

But, you know, we have social media, we have the podcast.

They're just.

The reach is huge.

So that's great to bring Greg in, because he's hopefully going to be able to benefit from this.

A podcaster, an editor of the newspaper.

How do you foresee all those things working together to create content for you?

Well, one of the reasons we started a podcast company is because we were doing so many interviews with people for the newspaper, and I found it interesting that you can read an article about someone who has been interviewed, but you really don't get a sense of them until you listen to them talk.

So that conversational part of it, we kind of pushed out into that and started doing the Newsmakers podcast for the newspaper.

And Heather kept coming on and talking about the foundation.

So we thought, wow, this is a good.

This is a good source of information.

And we also have a really good relationship with the foundation.

With the stories that run in the paper regularly, we have one at least once a month, and they're really well written, really well researched, and we love getting the word out about what the foundation is doing.

But the more I looked at the foundation, the more I realized you guys were doing, and it got overwhelming to the point where I'm like, I don't have enough slots on the Newsmakers Podcast and the Downtown Lowdown.

You've been on there, too.

We just don't have enough slots to cover all the different things that you guys are doing.

So I pitched the idea of a dedicated official podcast for the foundation to Heather, and that's where we ended up.

Can I give a pat on the back to our board, though?

So it's easy to give away money?

No, actually, it's not easy to give away money.

But giving away money is a rather passive event.

You come into a room, you.

You've read, really, hundreds of pieces of paper to understand what you're voting on, and you're done in an hour and a half.

But then came the idea of, how do we propel the foundation forward?

Back to that idea of the future.

And it's really hats off to the 15 people in the room at our board level who said, and I'll just say, our oldest board member is 80 and our youngest is 40.

Maybe as a group, they just identified that that was a path that we could walk down.

How do we communicate better about our sponsors?

How do we communicate better about our.

Our nonprofits that we're supporting?

How, how, how?

And the common answer kept coming back to, oh, we just do a podcast, and they.

They all bought in because if they hadn't, we couldn't be here today.

Not that we're a, you know, we're majority rules, but we had no naysayers.

Everybody saw this as the future.

It was really interesting because that was actually my first meeting.

And I was like, how's this going to go?

Like, what?

How's this conversation going to go?

Because it is very diverse.

And I really thought it would be 50, 50.

I thought there would be at least half that.

Just didn't see the value in it.

I looked at Greg's proposal, and all I saw was work.

And I thought, oh, man, I don't even want to bring this up.

But then thought about it for a couple weeks, really, before I brought it forward.

And I kept thinking, this is the answer to so many things.

And when you brought it up to me, I said, that's a great idea.

I don't want to have anything to do with that.

Here I am, and look what happened.

How that happened.

How did that happen?

You look so good in those earphones.

You're a natural.

Well, you know, I wasn't necessarily looking to have anything more to do either, but when it came down to the end, if we all agreed it, it had to happen.

And so I'm like, okay, I'm.

I'm gonna do this maybe a year, maybe two, and get it started and see where it goes.

Because I. I just think it's incredibly important.

You also have a really dynamic voice for this, so good job.

Thank you.

That's my Wolfman Jack training.

There's a throwback to the older folks.

I get that joke.

Yeah.

So part of the format of this is not going to be just board members on here talking about, oh, we had a meeting the other day, and this is what we're going to do.

Our goal is to bring in folks who have received donations, because we want those 501c3 organizations to have another platform also.

So we'll be bringing them in to talk about, you know, why they applied, what's the impact of the grant for them?

Is this doing something new and unique for their organization that they would have never been able to do without our funding?

Examples of things we've maybe started that way that have just taken off on their own.

The one I always tend to go to is the schools several years ago came to us with the we want to have a home building class.

It's not in the curriculum, it's not in the budget, which is probably the most important Part.

And we were like, yeah, that sounds great.

We gave them some funding, they went out, found some funding, and now that's, as I understand, it, kind of a coveted class for the kids to get into.

Sarah, any of your.

My kids did not do it.

I mean, it's an elective, and TIP has actually a really great set of electives.

So there are a lot of things that they can choose from.

They didn't do it, but I do.

Our neighbor did it.

And how did they get the idea for that class?

Because that kind of feels like it's a thing that kind of comes out of nowhere.

Is that somebody who had an idea and then they're like, the school isn't going to fund that.

What do they call it?

The industrial arts teacher, I think, had a passion for it.

Really?

That's what they call it?

That's what.

When I was a kid, that's what they called it.

Shop.

They called it shop.

And you had.

Yeah, two fingers.

Two fingers, yeah.

It was Bob.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I loved shop class.

I love shop class even, you know, as an adult, you're like, oh, my gosh, I wish I'd have just taken all four years of that so that I could fix everything around my house.

Every time you write a check, you're like, oh, my God.

I took the typing class because it was full of ladies.

Ah, well played.

And I was the only guy in the typing class.

And that was great.

But anyway, I use it every day now for computers, so I use shop.

Class almost every day.

But most my.

I mean, I could have not taken it.

My dad still would have taught me and made me do everything.

Yeah, that's true.

So another kind of branch of this is to get our corporate sponsors in here.

We want them to get the exposure.

Let them explain to us why they felt the TIP foundation was an important organization to support.

And so we'll be inviting people like Matt Buer, JNL Wood Products, some of our other sponsors to come in and give their vision of the TIP City Foundation.

Oh, that was close.

Cost myself a dollar for not throwing the word city in there.

We should start up the Annie.

$10.

Oh, that's not good.

Give back.

Do you have any sponsors or donors that are like.

Would be a surprise to people that people would be like, oh, wow, I can't believe they're a supporter of the foundation.

Jackie Halderman, Really?

Jackie Halderman's reach is throughout the Miami Valley.

Yeah.

Her home is here.

She is local realtor.

She is a realtor.

I think she might Be involved with the newspaper also.

She's a quiet person.

She's.

She's a tiny human, but she has such a big, quiet presence.

And she just decided this is something that she could do.

That's nice.

Her family has been in the community for generations, also quietly.

And so I think people would be surprised about her because it's not such a big.

It's.

It's not splashy.

It's not splashy.

It's not.

It's just a thing that is splashy thing with the.

That's cool.

I did not know that well.

And John Skolnicki, who.

Maybe he still does a few people's taxes, but he's a retired cpa, used to be the township treasurer.

And he's.

Every year I can remember, decided to be a sponsor.

That's neat.

And every year, I think he increases his sponsorship by $10.

And he's keeping track of that, apparently.

He is probably just so sweet.

The thing I love about the corporate sponsors is that if you go to any business, no one doesn't think that it's important.

Everyone thinks that this work is important.

But what I love about the corporate sponsors is they think it's important enough to also be involved in.

Because it's easy to be a corporation and sit back and be like, oh, tip City foundation does good work.

Good for them.

Here's my money is a whole nother.

Here's my money.

I trust you to put it to work.

That's a whole step up from that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what's the difference between a corporate sponsor and a donor?

Donors like families and sponsor.

Corporate sponsors or businesses.

Is that how you categorize it?

Well, the.

The key part of the corporate sponsors is they allow us to do this.

They allow us to have a donor reception every year where we ask our donors not necessarily to give us money, but to just.

It's a thank you.

They help us with the annual report, which is unbelievable how it can have a kind of a ripple effect where somebody receives it every year in their mailbox.

We don't know them from Adam.

And all of a sudden, Heather gets a phone call that says, you know What?

I got $50,000 I want to give away.

And how'd you hear about us?

Well, I want my picture in that book.

So.

So our sponsors underwrite our marketing, if you will, when we ask them, would you be willing to help us simply tell our story?

That's who our sponsors are.

They.

Yes.

They allow the work to keep working.

Donors are the fund that.

Where the account I would say corporate sponsors allow the work to keep working.

So we have 69 unique pots of money endowment funds.

So donors pick one of those 69 funds to put money into or start their own or start their own sponsors just come at it, support us through a different angle.

Other guests will include.

Obviously, we are going to bring in our board members, both young and old and emeritus, and get their perspective and their history of the TIP foundation, how.

It got started and where it's headed.

So I.

Has it gone up $10 every year ever since?

We're well invested.

Well, if making an impact every time we have to add money into the CUS Fund in the middle of this,.

It's going to double.

It's going to double the amount of money you guys have.

Three.

We're just past $12 million.

Yeah.

It's remarkable.

A big jump was with Timmer family in the 80s.

$1 Million.

Yes.

Yeah.

So you're gonna have board members past and present.

And then you were talking about the recipients of the grants.

That seems like a very interesting conversation to have with people that have applied for a grant and then made it through the vetting process and then received the grant.

And then how is that impacting the community?

I think the recipients are probably what people think of when they think about the foundation.

They think about, oh, yeah, they paid for the bicycle library cart or fill in the blank.

That's their turn to idea.

If we've done our PR job and our press releases well enough, it's telling the story to the community of what's the evidence that we bring value to the community?

What have we done?

No, but I think when people think of the TIPP City foundation, they want to know what you guys do and how you do it.

And I think that's probably.

I think you're right.

That's probably the main thing people focus on is choosing the grant winners.

And I don't think people know about all of the work that goes ahead of that.

Yeah.

Kind of demystify.

Right.

You know, foundation just sounds so formal.

And.

You have to say, because when I first.

When Jackie called me and asked me to be on the board now, does.

She ask or is that More of a tell kind of thing.

That was kind of a tell.

Okay.

But I honestly, I was like, okay, what are they?

Because I didn't grow up in tip city, I was actually kind of stunned that not being a lifetime tipsidian that I was even being considered for it.

But you're part of the diversity.

There you go.

But you know, that's the cool thing now is our board is much fewer lifetime tips idans which reflects the community.

Another part of bringing in our recipients is to again give them a outlet to not only talk about their, their grant, but what they've got coming up.

You know, what's in their future.

You know, maybe we generate some funds for them outside of our money to help them continue to grow.

So like a match or something like that or what do you, what do you mean by that?

You know, they come on here and they tell us, okay, the, the parks need this or that.

And somebody says, oh well, the foundation doesn't need to pay for that.

I'll write them a check.

Because the, the 501C3 can express what their needs are, especially some of the smaller ones.

And I just think they don't get the press and the PR that the larger ones do that have professional grant writers and those kind of things.

Has that happened in the past for you guys where you have a grant request and you're like, that's not something we can help with.

But I know a guy or I know a lady over here who might be able to help you with something like that and then direct people in a different direction.

We try to maintain confidentiality.

We hear a lot of information from donors about what their passions are.

Oh, okay, that makes sense.

But they're sharing that with us somewhat confidentially.

No, that makes sense.

No, I meant more like the people who are asking for money and you're like, that's just not a good fit for us.

You give them feedback.

I don't recall that.

But kind of a twist on that is, I don't know how long it's been.

Five, six, seven years ago, Heather came to the board and said, hey, you know what?

We've got these donor advised funds and these are folks who can just say, hey, I like this.

We're going to give them money.

Okay.

We decided we were going to send.

So every quarter when we have a set of grant requests, they go to that donor advised group of folks first and they may decide to fund it in full.

And it's been a great help to our board because we can kind of cut down on the number of decisions we have to make oftentimes.

Right.

And they may have a passion for something that the full board would have said, yeah, that.

That doesn't work, but that's cool.

I like that a lot.

It makes sense.

The donor funds have a focus because it's a person or a family that has a particular interest.

So that's probably what they're going to be interested in supporting first if there's an opportunity.

Many of them don't necessarily even have a specified focus.

They.

They're almost like a mini version of our unrestricted, where they'll pick and choose a topic that comes up that they really are motivated by speaking from experience.

They're also able to just listen in the community to find a need and then say, we can supply the funds for that need if you apply.

Oh, that's a good point.

Yeah.

That people may not even know they can apply for something like that because they didn't even understand there's a possible funding mechanism.

Correct.

Donor advised funds can initiate an outbound grant at any time during the year.

They don't have to wait for a quarterly calendar.

And they can make that donation to any need that they see, not just in our community, but those gifts can go nationally as long as the recipient is a 501C3.

So there are so many fewer restrictions on a donor advised fund.

Think of it almost as your charitable checking account.

Yeah.

I think one of the strengths for folks out there listening of the foundation is you can make a donation, even if it's a $10 donation, that over time is going to touch all the different areas of service that the TIP foundation supports.

And we're not just looking for the $2.5 million, the 10,000 estate gift.

You know, every year we do fundraising, we send out mailings.

Actually this year we did one in July, kind of around the giving 250 on the fourth program.

We do another major mailing around the end of the year because that's when a lot of folks think about, you know, okay, here comes the tax bill, but we get donations, you know, 50, $100 oftentimes.

Some of those folks, though, it's been 50 or $100 for 40 years.

Right.

And maybe at the end, their estate's given us 10,000.

Right.

So I kind of.

I always.

Maybe Richard Bender might get a little disappointed when I use the United Way comparison, but it's kind of the same concept locally is that you can give money to one organization and support a lot.

Yeah.

The money goes right back to work.

And I think that it's awesome to see how it works in the community.

It's not this ghost twerking.

Yeah.

And the difference, Richard always points out, is the United Way spends all of its money every year, whereas $10 to us should be there in perpetuity.

Right, Right.

We just spend the interest earned on our list of things that we know we're going to talk about in the future.

One of the things we have to remember is our legacy program.

We'll be introducing some of our legacy donors here to the podcast audience, and those are the people that have included us in their estate plan.

Right now, we have 28 of those individuals, and they have a variety of reasons for naming us.

Maybe it's a tax advantage, but maybe it's a passion for them.

And we'll find out what they're going to support after their lifetime, what the purposes are that are going to be addressed.

Is it going to be about dogs and cats?

Might be about dogs and cats.

Maybe it'll be unrestricted.

And those people are an important part of our future.

We just lost Gordon Honeyman in the community.

Yeah.

And he remembered us through an estate gift.

He had been on our board.

We're not even sure.

Was it 30 years?

Nobody knows.

I don't know.

It's a mystery.

We could do it.

We could figure out the math if we had to.

But what a wonderful surprise to learn that he had left his retirement plan to us.

We knew we were going to get something from Gordon because he had told us ahead of time.

And his retirement plan, something he worked at Merrill Lynch 50 years to save for, came right back to our community.

And it'll be unrestricted.

It'll go to whatever our community's evolution of needs will be.

And one of the neat things about Gordon is he decided he didn't want to wait.

He actually established an active fund before he passed because he wanted to make sure he got to see it in action.

Oh, I love that.

So, yeah, that was a very neat twist.

So an active fund is set up when a person's still alive so that they can, like, help direct it.

Is that how that works?

And then a legacy fund is funded by a posthumous grant, or how does that work?

A fund starts with.

And again, I'm.

I mentioned that we had 69 funds.

So we have 69 funds that started.

And those are, like buckets of money that.

And they all have different amounts in them, and they've all come from different companies or families, usually people.

And they start with a commitment of an initial gift of $25,000.

That's, that's what begins.

That's the first seed that gets the fund going.

And then the donor is who decides what the purpose is of the fund.

Okay, so those are directed.

They're, they're either.

So it could be a scholarship.

It can be something, I just feel something called field of interest, which is the whole like dogs and cats.

I know what my field of interest is.

It's that.

And that's kind of another group of things we'll be talking about.

Is that led that was part of a partnership with the Downtown Tip City Partnership because the businesses on Main street aren't 501 C3S.

So that became a matching grant program between us and the Downtown Tipp City Partnership and they basically administer that for us.

But in general, each fund starts with $25,000 and a purpose.

Great.

Love it.

That makes sense.

So we basically hope you've enjoyed this.

We hope you'll tune into our future podcasts.

Some of the folks on the schedule that we already know about.

We're going to have the Miami County Parks District coming to talk about a grant.

We provided them for their the Hug the Earth Festival and we, we helped pay for one of the components of that.

They'll also be talking about some of their needs and a levy they've got coming up.

We're going to have Matt Buer who's a sponsor, been one of actually probably our highest dollar amount sponsor for several years, but he's also a fund holder.

So we're looking forward to hear his perspective on kind of both of those paths.

We will be having episodes, we hope, with some of our broader involvement.

We're working on a program with the pbs so we're looking forward to that and many more.

So thank you for taking the time to listen to us today.

We want to thank Greg Enslin and Clock Tower Media for being our hosts.

Thanks, Sarah, Heather.

And this point we'll wrap it up again.

Our hope is to bring the stories of the people behind the philanthropy to the forefront, maybe inspire a few more people to become part of the story.

Thanks for joining our conversation.

We hope you'll join us for the next one.

So far so good.

It's really rather small.

Its buildings aren't so tall, but it's.

My own hometown Tip City.