News Highlights

Tony Filipovitch, Greater Mankato Foundation work to improve community

2006-04-09

By Mark Fischenich, Free Press Staff Writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN]

Photo by John Cross

Tony Filipovitch is president of the Mankato Area Foundation. The fountain in the Blue Earth County Library was one of the foundation's first projects - one of the first in what is intended to be an endless list.

MANKATO — Tony Filipovitch was on a roll, talking about the things that really impress him about Mankato, the cooperation and teamwork that make Mankato a great little city, the amenities in Mankato that just don't exist in most cities of 50,000 people.

Suddenly, he stopped.

"It sounds like I'm a booster," he said.

There was a look of mild surprise on his face, and there may have been a momentary hint of dismay in his voice. Filipovitch - the college professor who grew up in Chicago and Detroit and took a job in Mankato in 1978 with the plan to be out of here in three years - not only hadn't left, he'd become a booster.

"Well, I guess I am," he said, continuing to sound surprised by the revelation. "But this is an incredible community."

There are a lot of reasons for that, but a list of people who served as president of the Greater Mankato Area Foundation tell part of the story, according to Filipovitch. Names like Arthur Ogle, Ogden Confer, Hap Halligan. ...

They established the foundation in 1974 and maintained it in the early years when the available money was minuscule and the dreams had to be long-term ones. Three decades later, the foundation has $2.5 million in assets - with plans to double that in the next five years - and put $109,000 into community grants and programs last year alone.

The foundation's fingerprints, in varying degrees, are on the Red Jacket Trail, the new Rapidan Dam park, Williams Nature Center, the playground at the Lincoln Community Center, the sunken gardens near the Hubbard House, the triangle park in Lincoln Park neighborhood and the Jane Rush Gathering Place at Minnesota State University.

Then there are the gateway signs welcoming people to Mankato and North Mankato, the new House of Hope, the Mankato Symphony, the Merely Players community theater group, the band shell at Sibley Park, the Winter Warrior sculpture near the library. All had some degree of assistance from the foundation.

But in reality, people hatched all of that, said Filipovitch, the latest foundation president.

"All we did is create the possibility and somebody else did it," he said. "... We created the opportunity for somebody else to realize a dream."

Still, building an endowment, where the principal is left alone and only the investment earnings are spent from year to year, is work that brings very delayed gratification. Even after 30 years, the foundation's community fund - the one that has no strings attached by donors as to how the money can be used - is just $500,000.

That now generates about $25,000 a year for programs and grants.

"A big grant for us is $5,000 right now, a really big grant," Filipovitch said.

Other assets are managed by the foundation but remain tied to the original donor's name and often have specific purposes established for the investment proceeds. In some cases, such as the $1 million donated by Thin Film Technology Corp., the donor continues to play a role in deciding where the proceeds are spent. The foundation's role is to do the bureaucratic work involved in setting up an endowment fund.

Other large contributors include Glen Taylor, Jane and Ogden Confer and the Kearney family. One of the more recent major contributions came from the late Al and Erla Fallentstein, a gift second in size only to the Thin Film donation. The Fallenstein bequest went partly into the Community Fund and was partly dedicated for projects in North Mankato, improvements in North Mankato parks and the betterment of the Sibley Park Zoo.

The foundation also serves as the adviser and treasurer for more temporary community fund-raising efforts.

For example: When local people wanted to raise money to help create the Red Jacket Trail, they went to the foundation.

"So the group doesn't have to go through all the administrative and start-up costs and hassles," said Filipovitch, a professor of urban and regional studies.

Serving on the foundation's board is not flashy work, but Filipovitch said it fits well with his skills. And he gets to see the results of the foundation's work.

When Peter Hutchinson visited Mankato and said he's never seen a community that works together the way this one does, Filipovitch thought of the foundation's leadership programs.

When Filipovitch is on the Red Jacket Trail and sees others enjoying it, he thinks of the foundation serving as the purse for the fund raising.

"Or every time I go to the library and the kids are climbing on the rock, and the librarians are trying to chase them off, I kind of grin," he said.

Average folks with good ideas and big dreams are connected to generous donors - both living and dead - by the foundation. The connection makes Mankato a better place, the kind of place that could grab hold of some otherwise transitory young academics on a detour from their urban destination.

"We really thought we were going to stay here three years and move, the way academic gypsies do," Filipovitch said. "We were big-city kids. ... But in those three years we found ourselves really falling in love with the community."

Filipovitch and his wife, Kathy Brynaert, raised their family in Mankato and felt the community gave them and their children a gift. Now it's time to give back.

"It's a blessing," he said of the opportunity to be president of the foundation. "I'm honored even to be able to be a part of this thing."

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