On October 2, 2008, Northfield's Locally Grown blog reported on a meeting that St. Olaf College President David Anderson '74 held with the leaders of a number of local Northfield charities/non-profits on Wednesday, October 1, 2008. The article by Bonnie Obremski is titled "St. Olaf says no more money for other non-profits". And it looks like, despite the College's denials, St. Olaf's decision may have been impacted by the WCAL issue.
The article reported:
"It's ethically troubling in hard economic times, with rising costs of higher education, to take tuition money and capriciously gift that to other non-profits," Steve Blodgett, [St. Olaf College] Director of Marketing and Communications, said on Thursday
and.
"The decision reflects a philosophical or ethical point of principle," Blodgett said. "Students pay tuition and alumni give to St. Olaf for the express purpose of supporting the core educational mission of the college. Providing cash donations to a variety of other groups from college funds does not, in President Anderson's view, fit with that intent."
and
When asked if [the June 2008 Rice County District Court] ruling influenced the college's decision about non-profit funding Blodgett replied: "Very simply, No. The two subjects are many, many miles apart and one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
The non-profit decision by the president was not about finances. The sums involved are very, very minimal and St. Olaf is not in any budget cutting mode. It was specifically about principle; about writing out a check to other non-profits from money given to the college.
An analogy here is as if the Laura Baker Services Association were to ask their donors for money to sustain their operations and then turned around and wrote a check to the St. Olaf annual fund after seeking that support."
Well, then, it seems that St. Olaf's decision — despite the College's denials — might very well have something to do with the WCAL issue after all!
You see, charitable trusts and non-profits are supposed to use the funds they solicit only for the purposes for which they are solicited. That is exactly the point of SaveWCAL's efforts to protect the WCAL charitable trust. St. Olaf College solicited funds for the WCAL Charitable Trust for decades to run a public radio station — a public trust. In 2004, they destroyed that trust (by selling the essential and irreplaceable assets of the trust) so that they could "write a check" from the WCAL Trust fund to St. Olaf College and use the majority of the funds for purposes unrelated to the Trust.
We find it interesting that St. Olaf spokesperson Steve Blodgett first claims that the college had been using tuition dollars to fund the donations to local non-profits. Later, he seems to contradict himself by talking about using tuition dollars and donor gifts. We wonder if students and donors were aware that their monies were being used for these purposes?
Furthermore, it is interesting that the meeting took place and decision was announced just one week after SaveWCAL filed a Petition For Redress Of Breach Of Trust in Rice County District Court. In addition to reviewing how St. Olaf College dealt with the WCAL Charitable Trust by violating federal and state laws to sell essential and irreplacable assets, the Petition not only directly asks the Court void the sale of those assets, it also asks the Court to remove St. Olaf College as the Trustee of the WCAL Charitable Trust.
SaveWCAL also notes that October 1, 2008 is the date that St. Olaf College President David Anderson '74 sent a personal email to a SaveWCAL board member (and St. Olaf alumnus) informing him that the College would deny all Christmas Festival ticket requests from certain SaveWCAL supporters.
Contrary to the College's stance and Blodgett's public statements, SaveWCAL believes that St. Olaf's decision to cease giving money to local non-profits may be an indication that St. Olaf College may (finally!) be developing some very cautious behavior regarding its legal and ethical responsibilities toward its donors.
SaveWCAL also notes the respons of two Northfield non-profit leaders who were at the meeting with President David Anderson '74:
Ann Etter, interim Executive Director of the Northfield Arts Guild said Thursday she was not ready to talk about St. Olaf's decision. Daniel Freeman, also of the Guild, said he did not feel happy following the discussion.
SaveWCAL sincerely hopes that the experience of the leadership of the Northfield non-profits was nothing like what SaveWCAL representatives experienced in their September 2004 meeting with the then St. Olaf President Christopher Thomsforde and Vice President for College Relations Jan McDaniel.
SaveWCAL also sincerely hopes that members of the St. Olaf and Northfield communities will be able to meet the needs of the local non-profits in the same way that WCAL donors generously did for WCAL for more than 80 years. Donor support matters!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So Blodgett states:
"The decision reflects a philosophical or an ETHICAL point of principle…Alumni give to St. Olaf for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of supporting the core educational mission of the college. Providing cash donations to a variety of other groups from college funds does not FIT WITH THAT INTENT."
So NOW the college is sensitive to the intent of donors?? Is St. Olaf aware of the irony in this situation??
I don't believe many other institutions centrally donates to other nonprofits either.
What I do know is that some universities donate to a large array of nonprofits via something like the University of Minnesota's Community Fund Drive, which is when staff and faculty pledge to do so individually via payroll deduction, and then collectively the UofM disperses this to the agencies and organizations. If St. Olaf wished to donate to other organizations, that would be the proper way to do it.
And I would have to agree with Blodgett that if I donated money to the college, I wouldn't expect any of that gift to be dispersed to another nonprofit.
In fact, wouldn't that present a charitable trust issue, to some extent?
I was speaking with a active "townie" from Northfield this past weekend. He was saying that, when Anderson first arrived in Northfield, he said he wanted to bring St. Olaf closer to the town and community of Northfield. But, the townie said, Anderson's presidency has done anything *but* that and, in fact, St. Olaf is now further removed from the Northfield community than ever before. That's not what the townie considers to be "great town-gown" relationships. Makes me wonder who those Princeton Review people are talking to. http://fusion.stolaf.edu/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsDetails&id=4404