Philanthropy helped drive the revitalization of the city’s core, which included creating lots of green space.
Leaders of Columbus, Ohio, worry that their city is seen as so nondescript, so heartland bland that its charms are overlooked. Yet when Doug Ulman moved there from oh-so-hip Austin, Tex., he quickly discovered a Columbus hallmark: a corporate community bullish on philanthropy.
If federal Washington’s stew of partisanship and paralysis makes you worry about the country’s future, look instead to the American city, where nonprofits and foundations are acting as problem solvers in ways that go far beyond their traditional roles.
Ulman had spent more than a decade running Livestrong, the foundation of cycling hero-turned-scourge Lance Armstrong. In Columbus, as head of Pelotonia, which sponsors an annual cancer charity ride, he found businesses eager to sponsor his event. No one asked for exclusivity, no one quibbled about the visibility of the company brand. Corporate executives seemed more eager to help his and other charities grow than to advance their business interests.
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Andrew Spear/The New York Times/Redux
Philanthropy helped drive the revitalization of the city’s core, which included creating lots of green space.
Leaders of Columbus, Ohio, worry that their city is seen as so nondescript, so heartland bland that its charms are overlooked. Yet when Doug Ulman moved there from oh-so-hip Austin, Tex., he quickly discovered a Columbus hallmark: a corporate community bullish on philanthropy.
If federal Washington’s stew of partisanship and paralysis makes you worry about the country’s future, look instead to the American city, where nonprofits and foundations are acting as problem solvers in ways that go far beyond their traditional roles.
Ulman had spent more than a decade running Livestrong, the foundation of cycling hero-turned-scourge Lance Armstrong. In Columbus, as head of Pelotonia, which sponsors an annual cancer charity ride, he found businesses eager to sponsor his event. No one asked for exclusivity, no one quibbled about the visibility of the company brand. Corporate executives seemed more eager to help his and other charities grow than to advance their business interests.
“They were all in on Pelotonia, but they were all in on a lot of other things,” he says. “It was very genuine and authentic. It was clear that this was part of the DNA of the community.”
The Midwest has a long history of business leaders seeing themselves as stewards of their communities, but that tradition is fading with the rise of multinationals who view philanthropy as a strategic chit in the bid for market domination. Columbus is a throwback, with a host of companies that bankroll and direct the city’s evolution — sometimes with accompanying questions of whether they’re flexing too much muscle.
“Corporate leaders see community engagement as part of their day job,” says David Harrison, president of Columbus State Community College. “It’s not something that happens on the side of the desk.”
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Says Bishop Timothy Clarke, senior pastor of First Church of God and a civic leader: “I cannot think of any really pressing issue that the corporate community has not sought to be involved in and tried to be on the right side.”
Ante Up
Business backing over the past decade or so drove many developments that helped make Columbus a post-recession success story, with incomes and population growing at a fast clip. A couple dozen businesses and philanthropists chipped in half of the $44 million cost to redevelop downtown riverfront property now called the Scioto Mile, with recreation and green space. American Electric Power, a perennial on the Fortune 500 list, led that effort with a $10 million gift. The utility company also spearheaded a Columbus State program to offer credit and career certifications to high schoolers, saving families college tuition dollars and becoming a hailed model.
Robert Lehman
The Pelotonia bike ride to support cancer research enjoys tremendous corporate support. CEO Doug Ulman says sponsors don’t ask for exclusivity or quibble about the visibility of their brands.
Most recently, the Columbus Partnership — a civic group for CEOs of businesses and major nonprofits — mobilized to help Columbus raise $500 million to go along with a $40 million federal “smart cities” grant to improve its transportation system through high-tech solutions. The group netted $90 million in the grant competition’s last two months, a deal sweetener that helped the city beat out 77 others vying for the grant.
It’s notable that the smart-cities plan targets social needs, not just economic development, says Beth Blauer, executive director of the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University. Columbus’s grant proposal stood out for its promise to improve transportation and access to health care for low-income neighborhoods. “It was really an inclusive growth plan.”
Goldilocks Size
Columbus’s steady corporate commitment results in part from its Goldilocks, “just right” size as the 32nd-largest metro area in the country. “We’re big enough to be a city of 2 million people,” says Alex Fischer, head of the Columbus Partnership, “but still small enough to have this intimate set of relationships that hold one another accountable to be as good as we possibly can with community interests.”
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Columbus State Community College
High-school students are getting a jump on college and career certification in a program run by Columbus State Community College with corporate backing.
The large number of homegrown businesses in Columbus are key to the significant corporate investment in the community. Three of the region’s four Fortune 500 companies were founded in the Columbus area — Cardinal Health, L Brands, and Nationwide insurance, along with a host of smaller national businesses, including Huntington bank and Donatos Pizza.
Jane Grote Abell, daughter of Donatos founder Jim Grote, remembers growing up behind her father’s first pizza shop, on the city’s south side. Her mother invited customers into the house each night to eat. “They became our friends and our family,” Abell remembers.
A few years ago, Abell joined with Tanny Crane — a third-generation leader of another family company started on the south side — to spearhead a drive to turn an old elementary school into a community center, restaurant, fresh-food market, and hub for 14 nonprofits focused on education and work force. The center was part of a broader private-public effort — born of a survey of residents — to lift up the neighborhood surrounding that first Donatos, where unemployment and poverty rates are now among the highest in the city.
“You have to have an asset that people can hold up as hope,” Abell says.
Billionaire retailer Les Wexner is arguably the model of the Columbus corporate citizen. The son of Russian immigrant shopkeepers, he opened a small clothing store in suburban Columbus in the 1960s called the Limited. A half-century later, that’s grown into the retail empire L Brands, which includes Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works and has spun off such brands as Abercrombie & Fitch.
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Wexner has donated hundreds of millions to local causes. His name adorns the medical school at Ohio State, his alma mater. An arts center on campus, known as the “Wex” is named for his father. This fall, the country’s first national military veterans’ memorial and museum opened in Columbus, an $82 million project to which Wexner contributed about half of the costs.
Wexner, who’s in his early 80s, is also the guiding light of the Columbus Partnership. The organization was started in 2002 by Wexner and the late John Wolfe, publisher of the Columbus Dispatch newspaper.
Ty Wright for the Wall Street Journal
Les Wexner, founder of the retail empire that includes Victoria’s Secret, is one of many homegrown business leaders invested in civic affairs and philanthropy.
In its early days and through the recession, the partnership focused chiefly on economic development. It was key to the Scioto Mile, which now features 33 acres of green space, a waterfront promenade, and a park that’s the site for concerts, July 4 festivities, and other hallmark events.
Over time, however, the group broadened its focus to the general well-being of the city. It now takes an annual retreat to Harvard, where it taps experts for conversations about how to improve Columbus.
Lisa Courtice, head of the United Way of Central Ohio, attended this fall’s retreat and participated in a discussion about how to make the area’s economy more inclusive. Her invitation, she says, “signals to us that they care about the United Way lens — that we’re here to advocate for the most vulnerable, the most marginalized in our community, and they want that voice in the room.”
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Self-Interest or Philanthropy?
2 million
Metro population
1.6
Nonprofits per 1,000 residents (Franklin County)
$1.2 billion
Itemized household charitable giving
Key Organizations: Ohio State University, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Batelle research
Key Philanthropies: Columbus Foundation ($2.3 billion in assets), American Electric Power Foundation ($92 million), Nationwide Foundation ($78 million)
Noteworthy Philanthropists: Les Wexner, founder of retail giant L Brands (Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works) and his wife, Abigail. Major gifts to Ohio State ($100 million in 2011)
“Corporate leaders see community engagement as part of their day job.”
Some Columbus observers caution that corporate investment in economic development doesn’t always live up to its social-good promises. The millions raised for the “smart cities” challenge will pay for a host of innovations — electric vehicle fleets, autonomous-vehicle research, and the like — that improve mobility and brand Columbus as a forward-thinking city, notes Ohio State city-planning scholar Amber Woodburn. But she says it’s unclear whether funds will be targeted to bring meaningful change to low-income neighborhoods.
“The city has successfully maintained a veneer of social issues while promoting their urban tech projects,” she says. “While I think many of the leaders in these initiatives have good intentions, it does not quite mean they are affecting social outcomes via philanthropy.”
Others say the city’s business leaders have ignored the fact that downtown’s renewal has led to gentrification that has pushed many low-income black families out of the city.
Harrison, the president of Columbus State, says the city’s business and civic leaders recognize that the benefits of growth weren’t shared by all. Issues such as health, infant mortality, early-childhood education, and affordable housing are moving to the forefront.
“We’ve done a lot of good things with regard to economic growth and per capita income and capital investment,” he says. “But everyone hasn’t been included in the rising tide of economic growth.”