People need charity now more than ever.

In Alabama, the unemployment rate is 10.7 percent. Calhoun County saw an increase in foreclosures the third quarter of this year, according to information from the Probate Office.

With new voices, the cry of the poor has gotten louder. The people who hear it have their own fish-and-bread dilemma: how to help more people with less money.

The Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama, which recently changed its name from the Community Foundation of Calhoun County, knows the problem well.

It has seen its spending power shrink while the needs of the community it serves have increased. The same mechanism that makes it a powerful tool for giving — investing its considerable assets in the stock market — also shrank the foundation's value from $26 million to little more than $20 million, according to foundation President Wayne Carmello-Harper.

That has reduced the amount of grants and scholarships given out by the foundation from $1.7 million in fiscal 2008, to $1.2 million in fiscal 2009, he said. But, while the hands gripping the money are tighter, the eyes of the foundation are wider. The foundation now serves a nine-county area, and people continue to use it as a viable vehicle for giving. An increase in gifts from outside Calhoun County inspired the name change, Carmello-Harper said.

The foundation marks its 10th anniversary Thursday.

The foundation has been the angel on the community's shoulder, quietly steering it toward helping children and seniors, cleaning up the air residents breathe and countless other causes. But it is not a board without critics. Some in the community are still angry about how the board was formed, Carmello-Harper said.

Most of the board's work has gone unnoticed. The foundation keeps score of its accomplishments, but looks forward. Its work continues.

The community foundation grew from the seed of one woman's generosity. But there were also many tangles in those vines.

When Susie Parker Stringfellow died in 1920, she left specific instructions. Her east Anniston property would become a hospital. Its board would be made of 10 members. Five local churches would appoint one man and one woman.

The hospital opened in 1938, according to the hospital's Web site. The board members were selected from the men and women of St. Michael's Episcopal, Parker Memorial Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist and Grace Episcopal.

For more than 50 years, that's the way it was, Carmello-Harper said. Then things started to change at Stringfellow.

Carmello-Harper said in 1995 an act of Congress changed the way small hospitals operated, because they could no longer charge patients with insurance more to offset the cost of treating the poor.

"It decapitated a lot of small hospitals," he said.

Stringfellow could not survive under the new structure. In 1997, Florida-based Health Management Associates leased the hospital. The hospital's remaining assets were converted into a private trust.

The process involved the Alabama Attorney General, the Internal Revenue Service and the Calhoun County Circuit Court. The court reinterpreted Stringfellow's will and removed language regarding how appointments to the board would be made, Carmello-Harper said.

After Health Management Associates paid off the hospital's debt, there was roughly $13 million left over, Carmello-Harper said. That money was turned into the Stringfellow Health Trust.

As the board evolved so did its practices.

Good governance

"Before the community foundation was thought of, they said we need to follow good governance practices," Carmello-Harper said.

Rush Jordan, who died in February, was a member of the health trust board. He advocated turning the trust into a public foundation. He got the idea from a similar foundation in Cleveland, where he had lived.

"(The thought was) why not have another entity that others can participate in to replicate Mrs. Stringfellow's generosity?" Carmello-Harper said.

Carmello-Harper was hired as chief executive officer of the health trust in 1998. In 1999, the board became the Community Foundation of Calhoun County. The Stringfellow Health Fund is still the largest unit of the foundation. The entire foundation has 108 funds for various charitable causes that serve the nine-county area. The foundation holds the lease on the hospital, which generates $600,000 to $700,000 a year for the health fund, Carmello-Harper said.

Around 2001, the board again refined its approach, he said. It wanted to appoint trustees outside the five-church, Protestant system. Esta Spector, who is Jewish, said that was one of the reasons the board appointed her five years ago.

"Not all of the churches were on board with changing the membership process," Carmello-Harper said.

The 15-member board now elects its trustees with a heavy focus on diversity, Carmello-Harper said.

Juliette Doster, who has served on the hospital board since 1957 and continues to serve on an advisory board for Stringfellow, remains a vocal critic of the selection process. For the record, she says, the foundation has a fund in her name. Not that it matters.

To her, the changes were an affront to what Susie Stringfellow stood for.

"It worked well for 50 years," she said of the old board membership. "I believe the lady's will … if you leave considerable money, I don't see why people wouldn't follow the rules."

When asked about the more-than-$15 million in grants and scholarships the foundation has given out in its 10 years, Doster said the foundation's work was news to her.

According to Carmello-Harper, it's news to a lot of people.

Big three

In 2006, Calhoun County's three major cities — Anniston, Oxford and Jacksonville — took steps to curb smoking in restaurants. The changes came about because of a $50,000 grant the foundation gave to the local American Cancer Society.

Kristie Alderman, who was a health initiatives representative focused on local tobacco advocacy issues for the Cancer Society at the time, said the money went to hire a part-time staffer who worked to write the anti-smoking laws. They hired Farley Fink, whose husband, Jeff Fink, served on the Anniston City Council from 2000 to 2008.

Farley Fink also educated every class of fifth-graders in the county on the dangers of tobacco use and organized volunteers in the community in support of the new laws.

"It would've been difficult for us to achieve as many accomplishments in two years without the foundation's assistance," Alderman said.

Fink was reluctant to take much of the credit but said she was surprised the Cancer Society got most of what it wanted.

In another one of those cases of a small idea becoming a big deal, the board decided early on to study how to help seniors with medications.

In the days before Medicare covered prescription drugs, seniors who could not afford medications had options for free medicine. But getting to those options required navigating a complicated maze of drug-company bureaucracy, Carmello-Harper said. Doctors did not have the resources to chase down the information.

In 2000, the board created a prescription drug task force to study the issue. The end result was a database of forms from different drug manufacturers compiled in one place. Now doctors could refer patients who could not afford medication to this service. Dr. Wesley Smith served on the task force.

"The other thing we knew is we had no business running this either," Smith said. "It's not something we wanted to take in house. We knew it was something that had a life of its own."

Randy Frost, director of senior services for the Area Agency on Aging, which is part of the East Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission, outsourced the service to Interfaith Ministries.

"It has evolved into a statewide program that we call the Senior RX program," Frost said. "They receive $2 million each year. There are 13 regional offices … that cover all 67 counties."

Lately, the foundation's focus has been on early childhood education. Having children ready to enter first grade has a direct effect on high school graduation rates, Carmello-Harper said.

Foundations from around the state put their heads together to study the issue. Gail Piggott, executive director of the Alabama Partnership for Children, said her nonprofit group received a $70,000 grant from the foundation. It used the money to bring groups together to study the most critical needs of families. Carmello-Harper and Piggott said the research produced by this initiative led the state to increase funding for pre-K programs.

Last year, the county had four pre-K programs, but the success comes with an asterisk. Calhoun County Schools Superintendent Judy Stiefel said at least two of the programs, one at Saks and one at Ohatchee elementary schools, were terminated this year because of state budget cuts.

A vehicle for giving

There are roughly 750 community foundations in the United States, according to the Virginia-based Council on Foundations, a national nonprofit association of approximately 2,000 grant-making foundations and corporations.

People leave money to such foundations in their wills or give money to establish scholarship funds in honor of deceased relatives, Carmello-Harper said. The foundation cuts down on overhead costs for donors who would otherwise start their own nonprofit foundations. The foundation invests the money to extend the life of the donation.

This strategy has its drawbacks. The Council on Foundations reported that more than 31 percent of community foundations have seen their assets decline during the recession. Linda Raybin, the managing director of community foundation services for the council, said foundations have stepped up to meet the challenge.

"More foundations than ever are emphasizing basic human needs because that's what needs to be focused on," she said. "Many have adjusted operating budgets, cut travel funds, cut conferences.

Some have laid off staff, frozen raises, reduced benefits. They have done all that they could to try to focus on the needs of their community during this very challenging time."

The Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama mirrors the national trend. The foundation has slashed its budget by $80,000 and is now operating with $320,000, 60 percent of which pays for three full-time employees and one part-timer. Carmello-Harper said the foundation has cut conferences, travel, publications and receptions for scholarship awards. If the foundation's assets decrease more, there are triggers that will necessitate employee furloughs and cutting benefits. If it gets too low, layoffs become an option, he said.

Foundations are also adjusting their spending to attack problems created by the recession.

Carmello-Harper said this year the foundation approved $150,000 in emergency grants. One grant of $25,000 went to the Calhoun Cleburne Children's Center to pay for a counselor after the center's funding was cut.

Carmello-Harper cautions against thinking the foundation is entirely dependent on money from investments. He noted a $3 million gift to the foundation is pending.

"We're living on the generosity of people making bequests to the foundation," Carmello-Harper said.

The stock market has rebounded by 20 percent, and Carmello-Harper is confident the foundation will continue. Raybin said that's not an uncommon thought among foundations.

"One of the mottos some use is 'For good. Forever' because the underlying intent is that a community foundation is the holder of the community's endowments," Raybin said.

Carmello-Harper shares the same sunny optimism. When asked how long the foundation would survive he responded:

"Whatever forever is. It's perpetual."

Trustees

Jack Swift, Southern States Bank

Cheryl Potts, retired logistician

Steven Folks, director of Anniston Parks and Recreation

Arthur Toole, retired physician

Esta Spector, retired Alfa insurance agent

James Mullis, physician

Leon Garrett, retired educator

Glenda Barker, community volunteer

Vikki Floyd, Star Medical Staffing, director of marketing and business development

Anne Carruth, community volunteer

Susan Gibbins, community volunteer

Ed Fowler, The Anniston Star, vice president of operations

Judy London, retired surgical nurse

Lewis Doggett, Anniston Pediatrics, pediatrician

Judy Gould, Northeast Regional Medical Center, vice president

On the Web: http://www.yourcommunityfirst.org/