Hershey Garner

Fayetteville, AR

We were talking about the misperception that philanthropy in Northwest Arkansas comes from three or four major family foundations and it really doesn't. It comes from people that are in this room, that are working people. The family foundations here don't have to give anything, but we do get crumbs from the table. This notion that Northwest Arkansas is flooded with funds for the things we need from the large major corporate and family foundations just doesn't happen. You see...you see some major gifts, major matching gifts, but they are targeted to things like the arts, university, higher education, charter schools. In terms of poverty, homelessness, healthcare we don't get...get the benefit that we should be able to get. We should be able to run pilot programs here, to be, as she mentioned, a Petri dish. We should be able to create a template that would work and fund that, but the people you see in this room, they're the ones that account for the philanthropy.