NumbersCentral: “So what does the DRF do?”

One of the most frequent questions that I get is “What does the Danville Regional Foundation do with their money?” Unfortunately, a lot of people have a mindset that the DRF is a closed-door, good-ol’-boy cigar club that’s a secret society tossing out cash to the people who don’t really need it.

That’s not the case, folks. In today’s NumbersCentral, we’re going to take a look at where over $9,000,000 went in 2014 and then we’ll discuss some of the grants.

Here’s the official summary of the 2014 Danville Regional Foundation grants.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the ones there.

• $750,000 to the Community Foundation for the Dan River Region: That’s the DRF’s way of being able to “give back to the community”. They give the money to the CFDRR and in turn, the CFDRR invests the money and makes grants to their certified non-profit recipients.
• $190,500 to the Dan River Basin Association: They’ve got a physical office now on the Institute’s campus and are continuing their great work on riverkeeping.
• $300,000 to Danville Arts & Humanities: This was for five years of the River District Festival. The RDF continues to grow and is becoming one of the region’s best fall festivals. $60,000 a year helps them gets the better musical acts and expand their space.
• $24,999 to the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History: Now before any conspiracy theories get going (well, too late for that), this was well before any Confederate flag controversy came up. This was a grant for two inside displays for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. How many of you have been inside the museum to see them?
• $450,000 to the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber Foundation: The chamber foundation got this money and is giving it out in grant programs for local teachers’ projects. that’s 3 years of $150,000, and that goes a long way for the things that the school systems just don’t have the money for.
• $2,448,218 to the Danville Community College Educational Foundation, Inc. and $1,500,772 to the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research: Combine those two grants with $1,000,000 from Gene Haas and you’ve got the program that will be pumping out ready-to-go precision machinists very soon. That pipeline of certified professionals are guaranteed to get high-paying jobs and will also be a huge draw for companies looking to build industrial plants in the region. Yeah, that’s in the future. But without that pipeline, the region has only empty promises to give to potential industries.
• $669,100 to Pittsylvania County Schools: The DRF pretty much bought the old Woodlawn Academy for the county school system and seeded the path for the Pittsylvania County STEM Academy.

That’s just some of the items on the list above. If you want more of a BreakDown of them, let me know in the comments.

One final thing that may be a Painful Truth to some people: There’s the often-heard claim of “That’s Our Money! The Community Invested In Memorial Hospital!” Yep, you’re right. And Your Hospital Money has never been touched nor will it ever be. All of these grants are paid out by the DRF’s income from investing that $200,000,000 from the sale of the hospital. Karl Stauber told me that the DRF started with $200,000,000, has given out $70,000,000 and has a balance of $220,000,000 left. That’s some damned good investing, folks.

The DRF is completely open and transparent about where the money goes. Check out their website. Give them a call. They’ll be glad to tell you how it works.

I hope this NumbersCentral article has helped you learn more about the DRF.