In response to growing man-made and natural disasters around the country, the Community Foundation of St. Clair County wanted to be prepared to respond if and when a disaster impacted Michigan’s Thumb region.
In response to growing man-made and natural disasters around the country, the Community Foundation of St. Clair County wanted to be prepared to respond if and when a disaster impacted Michigan’s Thumb region.
The community foundation proactively launched its Disaster Response Fund in 2024 to provide support for any event that caused death and/or destruction on a scale that overwhelms the ability of the community’s resources to maintain stability, save lives and preserve property. A second generous gift from a donor advised fund (DAF) helped the fund reach its initial goal of $100,000 at the beginning of 2025.
“We wanted to be prepared to get funds out to victims and first responders within the first 24 hours,” Jackie Hanton, vice president, Community Foundation of St. Clair County said. “Through this fund, the community knows there’s one trustworthy, credible source to donate to, there will be transparency on the gifting end going immediately to victims, and we can tell them where those dollars went.”
The fund provides a map for both short and long-term financial support and is structured closely based on what the community foundation learned and benchmarked from other community foundations in Michigan and around the country that had faced disasters.
Randy Maiers, president and CEO of the community foundation, shared that another value of the fund was building new relationships with area departments, agencies and stakeholders.
“We don’t interact with the emergency management, local police and fire departments on a very regular basis. This initiative opened a whole new realm of trust, familiarity and understanding among those agencies, and increased their understanding for the role of philanthropy in a disaster,” Maiers said.
In January, just weeks after securing the second DAF gift, disaster struck. In the middle of a cold winter night, an apartment building in rural St. Clair County burned, displacing over 20 people. The Disaster Response Fund was activated within hours, providing immediate assistance to victims, and covering the cost of emergency needs including hotel rooms, food, clothing and personal items.
“The heroism of the responding police and fire departments saved lives,” Maiers said. “But many of the residents lost everything.”
The foundation followed its established protocols and procedures, and by the end of the first day, five foundation staff members were directly involved in supporting and coordinating the immediate needs of the victims. Other local nonprofits and the American Red Cross quickly began providing additional support.
“When disaster strikes you have to be prepared for a bit of chaos and confusion,” Maiers said. “So, our team needed to be centered on doing what’s right immediately and worry about paperwork and documentation later.”
The community foundation has a very decentralized decision-making process which served them well in responding to this disaster.
They also credit peer learning during their due diligence phase back in 2023 for the plan they put in place.
According to Hanton and Maiers, conversations around creating the Disaster Response Fund began two years ago during CMF’s 51st Annual Conference in Detroit with other CMF members who had first-hand experience with disasters impacting their communities.
During the conference, Maiers organized a sidebar conversation with Sharon Mortensen from the Midland Area Community Foundation and Dana Bensinger from the Otsego Community Foundation. Both had gone through their own disasters.
“They shared valuable lessons learned with us during that conversation. They certainly helped us shape our response plan,” Maiers said.
Maiers added that the community foundation prides itself on being at the forefront of anything important to its region.
“We have a powerful voice and the ability to gather flexible resources. Every placed-based foundation in America should be putting their own disaster response plan in place, today,” Maiers said.
Want more?
Learn more about the Community Foundation of St. Clair County’s Disaster Response Fund.
Read more about the community foundation’s response to the fire that impacted its community.
