The Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, a Baltimore-based philanthropic organization that for years aided high-profile causes in Israel and cultural institutions in the United States, has turned its focus to a problem closer to home: Baltimore's struggling middle class.
The organization's disbursements - currently at $5 million a year - will soon pay for better computer access at public libraries, improvements at city parks and college tuition for students from families with good jobs.
"The year 2009 is the one where we reset the clock," said Terry Meyerhoff Rubenstein, the funds' executive vice president and newly named director. "The needs of the middle class is an area that most funders don't think about."
The change in direction comes as the leadership of the organization passes to a new generation of heirs. Rubenstein's grandfather, Joseph Meyerhoff, who made a fortune in real estate development, established a gift-giving fund more than 50 years ago. Her father, Harvey "Bud" Meyerhoff, succeeded him and created additional foundations. He recently retired and handed the funds' direction to his four children, prompting the rethinking of the organization's priorities, Rubenstein said.
Among the causes the $100 million group of funds has supported in the past are the Holocaust Museum in Washington, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Baltimore's symphony hall, which bears the family's name.
Rubenstein said her new goal to keep working families in Baltimore. "We think it's terribly important to keep middle-class families living in Baltimore," she said. "Communities are fragile. There needs to be enough of a 'there' there."
Groups expected to reap the benefit of the funds' change of direction include those working to improve schools, parks and neighborhoods.
"It's a bold move," said Trude Jacobson, with the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Associations. "She is saying something that a lot of people have been talking about. We are now recognizing that the middle class [is] its own distressed community."
Jacobson also praised what she called the Meyerhoff generational change.
"Terry saw a real opportunity - how can we make a difference in these times. She had the strength of conviction to realize the successes her family fund had and to say that instead of looking more globally, maybe it's better to look more locally."
