Ann Hamilton Interview, Part 2 of 2

  • DT:Well, let's go on to the next, and maybe most recent, chapter in your life and that's your work as a grant maker. You've worn a number of hats. You've been a staff member at the Houston Endowment Grant Officer since 1991, probably involved in over 11-1200 grants of very large size. Houston Endowment's the largest foundation in Texas. And the grants were accordingly large. But you've also been a trustee for a number of years and now the vice-president of the Hershey Foundation, which is a family foundation that focuses exclusively on environmental giving largely. And then, you've also helped encourage other givers to be environmental in orientation through the Texas Environmental Grantmakers Group. So lots of different aspects of this. Can you maybe give us an idea of where this started? How you first came to work at the Endowment and walk us through that?
  • AH:Sure. Ever since I got involved in grant seeking and been being a fundraiser, I always wanted to be on the other side and it's something I aspired to and really wanted very badly to do, thinking that I could do it well.
  • And so, when I left Fossil Rim, I'd-I did not have a job. I came back to Houston and I knew that things were changing at Houston Endowment because I kept-I had friends here who kept me informed about it.
  • And before I even left, I had found out that-that there was going to be changes because the folks at Houston Endowment were getting older and we knew that there were going to be some major changes in the structure of the organization.
  • So, came back in, I believe it was May of '91, and through a lot of different avenues, threw my hat in the ring, knowing that they were-there had been a major-major investigation of Houston Endowment back in-in the winter of that year.
  • And the Attorney General had insisted that the-the foundation become more professional. Insisted that there be a-a larger variety of diversified board members. And so, I knew that there were changes in-in the works.
  • And so, I called down to Houston Endowment and said that I would do whatever it took to get my foot in the door and called in a lot of my friends and asked them if they would be references for me. And it took all summer, but I finally ended up being hired there.
  • And that-it was sort of the first job and it was in September of '91 and they called me, I think, a grant coordinator, or maybe it was a grant officer. I was hired with another woman and we were the first two professional outsiders that had got hired there in the grant making end of it.
  • There had been a-an administrator hired to-to work under the president and some people who would-managing money on that side of it, the finance side of it. But we were the first two grant officers to be hired and went to work and sort of were generalists.
  • There was another grant officer who had been elevated from being an assistant-administrative assistant to a grant officer position and she had already decided that she wanted to do arts and culture and so the left-the rest was left up to the two of us. And my colleague's name was Michelle Sabino and we were both from the nonprofit sector.
  • She had worked in education and I had worked at Fossil Rim and-and for, basically, public-private partnerships and I-I'm convinced that one of the reasons I was hired is because of my knowledge of government and how governments ran.
  • Because they didn't really know much about there and they were really looking for somebody that had some political savvy about governmental entities. And so, my knowledge of public-private partnerships really took me a long way.
  • The other skill that I think I had was-was the ability to synthesize information. That's very important in-in the grant making world. You've got to be able to look at reams of information and-and sift it down and get it down into very concise terms that-that your board is going to understand.
  • So we started and we kind of divvied up the education. At that time, there was no grant making in conservation to speak of. When I was at the Park Board, I was able to get a small grant for that project I talked about earlier, Parque de la Armistad andHidalgo Park. We got a-a little grant of 17,000 dollars to help buy tools for that project.
  • And we got that grant literally through a politician who knew somebody at Houston Endowment and had the inroad there. And it wasn't any of my skills who got this grant, it was the politician's skills who-who knew the president at the time.
  • So there was little or no-there was really no environmental grant making. They didn't even want to hear the word environment when I started there. So we-we became generalists, the three grant officers, although the one did want arts and cultures and that was fine to me-for me, because I really wasn't that interested in-in-in that area.
  • So we went to work and I took on higher education and Michelle took on secondary education and we kind of divvied up that way and then the other grant officer, Claudette Di Nal, got arts and culture. And then, we got, sort of, between the three of us, we were given the rest of it, human services and medical and all the other sort of-there was no term for them.It was just generic grants.
  • I'd never forget the first grant I reviewed. This is really kind of astounding because this will tell you how-how grants were run at that time and this is 1991. And, by the way, Houston Endowment didn't even have computers at the time and this was '91.
  • We were-we got computers after we got there. We were still working off card catalogs and in paper files. And we had a-had a lady there who-who sort of showed us the way through those-those reams of paper files and the card catalogs and how-how these little cards were kept with all the different grants that were given on them.
  • And-and at that time, it was-it was higher education and health care, which were the major-the major grantees. Some arts and culture, not-not a whole lot.
  • But so one of the first grants that I worked on for the environment was a grant in 1992, came through and it was assigned to-I was-it wasn't assigned to me, it was assigned to Claudette.
  • It was from Environmental Defense and they came in and asked for a small grant in our area of 50,000 dollars for a project-and I think it was to recycle trash in Houston or something. And they ended up getting it.
  • So we-we realized, at that point, that maybe the board was interested in some of this-some of these areas because, at that point, Environmental Defense-it was called Environmental Defense Fund and it was sort of really off the beaten path and never had they given anything in that area.
  • So we began to sort of realize that-that this could happen and-and so I got the word out to some of my park friends in town that, you know, maybe-maybe this could be an avenue for them.
  • And-and so, we began making some park grants. I think the first grant we made was to Friends of Herman Park for the park trails over there and there were some other areas of-in-in parks and open space.
  • But that's how it started and I spent most-I'd sp-I spent 75 percent of my time on higher education. And we-we had-we had scholarship grants at every little private college in Texas because we had-we had made endowed scholarships.
  • And I was going to tell you about one of the first grants I worked on and how things were run was literally a letter to our president asking for us to pick up the slack that wasn't raised that year for a major nonprofit organization, and I guess I could tell you, it was the American Red Cross.
  • The Galveston-Houston chapter of the American Red Cross literally-it was a bill. It was literally a bill and it was a-a man who knew Mister [Howard] Creekmore and it-it was-we have a-we-we are 470,000 dollarsshort of our fundraising goal this year and we will expect a check within the next two weeks.
  • And it astounded me-it just astounded me that-that this is how it was done. And so I went-I went to David Nelson who is my-who is my boss and still is my boss, a wonderful man-and said, David, this isn't how it's supposed to work, is it?And he said no, it isn't. Let's go do a visit.
  • So we went on our first site visit together and we-we asked lots and lots of questions about-about this and-and we told them that they really needed a formal proposal and we needed to get the 990's and all the financial statements and, you know, where does their money come from and what percentage of their money comes from the federal Red Cross and what comes from local and-and what percentage is designated for administrative and what is designated for disasters.
  • And we found out that the disaster fund literally is funded by the National Red Cross and-and all of this stuff that you hear when we have major floods is-is not-is not necessarily needed at the local level because that's covered at-at the federal level.
  • DT:Well, let's resume in talking about how grant making, grant applying, or proposal filing, has changed at the Endowment?
  • AH:Okay. Well, we-as I told you, we-we sort of got this bill and we went and did a site visit and-and got through and we came up after that, literally, we were all very new at this. I mean, things had not worked that way at Houston Endowment.
  • It was sort of who you knew. And, in many cases, I think that's still the way it is. It's who you know. But when you get a professional staff in, you-you can be more objective.
  • And so, we came up-the three of us, the five of us, really-came up with some grant guidelines and we used other foundations, other professionally run foundations for those grant guidelines. And-and so came up with-with a-some guidance for our grant seekers. And, you know, you can't blame them; that's the way it had been done.
  • And we-we didn't even ask for reporting. We just gave grants and it-it was not a big thing for the Endowment at that time because Mister Creekmore literally had to dispose of Mister Jones' assets.
  • You know, we were-we owned-we owned property, we owned buildings, we owned businesses, we owned the Houston Chronicle. Houston Endowment owned a lot of things and when the tax laws changed in 1968, it-we had to dispose of those.
  • And so Mister Creekmore was very busy disposing of the businesses and not very involved in grant making. And so, it was a-sort of a rubberstamp thing. I mean, he-he gave to the same groups over and over and then he would realize that he didn't have enough-he hadn't given away enough that year and so that's when we started making endowed scholarships to all these little private colleges all over because that was an easy way for Endowment to get rid of a-big chunks of money.
  • We were giving 5-100,000 to each school and I think there were 27 of them. Not asking for any reporting at all on how those funds were used. The only thing we requested was that it be put in endowmentfor scholarships.
  • So one of my first duties-and actually, I took it upon myself because I was concerned that there would-had been no reporting. I was to visit every one of those 27 private universities and so I went around-and it gave me a great opportunity to see the state.
  • I got to go way out west Texas and down into south Texas and up into east Texas and visit all these little private colleges whose-mainly religious based colleges. And so, that-it-it-that was a great experience to be able to travel and see the countryside, see the-and meet the people that were involved in these little schools.
  • So that's how I started sort of working on higher education and-and getting reporting institutionalized there and getting grant guidelines institutionalized and-and giving people s-something to go by when they-when they make a request.
  • And we used-again, we-we consulted with other foundations. Meadows, being the main one in Texas. We used Meadows a lot to-to help us through this because they had-they hadbeen through it and-and were very professional at the time.
  • So I worked on higher education, I guess, until probably 19-I'll say '97, '98. And as I moved along, I decided-I think, David, at this point-and he's responsible for assigning all the grants-realized that I was very involved in parks and open space and nature and environment and-and he began assigning me those grants that came in, as they trickled in.
  • And I got word out that we would look at-at-at things for people that I knew in the conservation area. And so we began making more and more as we moved along and I never wanted to-I never wanted to overstep my bounds, so to speak.
  • I want-they were always pretty modest grants. I-I'd say 100-200,000 were the top at that point. And then in '97, we hired another grant officer, George Granger, who came in as a-as a professional from the higher education area and so he took over higher education.
  • And that left me with-with the environment and conservation, public-private partnerships and-the-also the public-private partnership thing got to be a bigger and bigger and bigger as we moved through with the City of Houston. The City of Houston was asking us to help them with, oh, things like the Cotswall Project downtown, which is a revitalization of downtown.
  • More and more of those kinds of grant requests were coming through and there's a-there's a sort of balance there, too, because you-you want your grants to be... [Misc.]
  • AH:The public-private partnership grants started to come in and-and the one I remember most was-there was one called Renaissance Houston and it was to put more green space into the Fourth Ward and, as you know, the Fourth Ward has been extremely controversial.
  • Fourth Ward contains Freedman's Town, which is the oldest African American community in the city and it was basically started by freed slaves. And we had a gentleman come talk to us about Renaissance Houston, which is-was a group that was started to, sort of, gentrify that whole area and wanted us to buy green space for that area.
  • And-and yet, he could not tell us where the green space was going to be. He just wanted us to give a grant of, I believe, he-they were asking for about 750,000 dollars to buy four blocks within the Fourth Ward, but didn't tell us what four blocks.
  • And so, that's-you know, we're not going to do that. We've got to know where the land is and-and who owns the land and how much is the land valued at and-and we're just not going to hand over that kind of money to somebody without knowing more of the details.
  • So that's what I'm talking about, public-private partnerships. Who does it benefit? And that is very important to understand that the monies that we're giving away are-are literally charitable dollars and it-it has to benefit the greater public, not small, privately owned groups.
  • And so that's what you have to look at in public-private partnerships. Who-who is the beneficiary? Is it the public or is it a real estate developer? And-and-and is it going to enhance-is it going han-enhance the private sector, is it going to enhance the public?
  • So that's the-that's-that's the balance that you have to really understand and look for in these public-private partnership. Parks are easy because they are public parks.
  • Some of the grants, I'll be very honest with you, some of the grants that we've given to Nature Conservancy have been of a concern to our administrator-administration and some of our board members because they are privately held and the public is-is forbidden to go on them unless invited.
  • And so they-they look at those very carefully. And I've made the case that-that these are very pristine lands and that they need to be protected from human damage and they need to be protected for researchvalues and-and for science-scientific reasons.
  • And so that seems to have satisfied some of the board members that-that-that we can make some of our grants that will be held in-in private hand-or nonprofit hands, let me say. Not-not private, but nonprofit.
  • So that-that they're there for the critters, so to speak, and not for human consumption. But you-you have to ask that question and-and our board changes all the time and we have a-we have new board members now and we're-we're looking carefully at-at some of-some of the nuances of this new board and how they're going to look at things
  • and we have-we have issues now with regard to what the needs are. With the federal funding cuts, we've gotten to see a lot more human service needs and so, I worry a little about-about the grants in conservation and is that going to be of high priority?
  • And-and literally was asked this last year to kind of prioritize some of my grants in-because of that and should we be, you know, do we-it's hard. You have to balance. Is it-who is more important? Habitat for park-for wildlife or starving people?
  • And, you know, one of the first things that I was taught when I went in to Houston Endowment was by a very wise man named Marshall Wells, who was-I was so happy I was able to work under him for-for two years because he was so wise.
  • And he said to me don't ever try to compare, Ann. Don't ever try to compare an art museum to a public park. It's-it's impossible. You can't do it. And so I remembered that and-and that kind of keeps me focused on what I have to do is to convince my board and my-and my boss that-that this is important for the future and for the public good.
  • And so, we, I guess, need to get back to-to some-kind of how I evolved into this conservation program area. And I would call myself now the-the program officer for conservation, environment, public-private partnerships and some historic preservation, although I'm even getting away from that.
  • If it's on public land, for instance, if it's a-if it's a house on a-in a public park, then I'll work on it. But it's pure historic preservation of a-of a movie theatre, for instance, that goes to the grant officer that's in charge of arts and culture.
  • So-so I've really worked myself into the position that I wanted all along, which is to be able to make it possible for conservationists to do their work easier and provide them with the resources that is necessary to continue what I think is one of the most important things that Texas needs right now.
  • And that's-that's open space and-and clean air and clear water and plentiful recreational facilities for the future Texans.
  • DT:Can you give us some examples of grants that you've made over the years for, say, air quality or parks or water quality, water supply?
  • AH:Well, the-one-the one I'm proudest-my proudest grant was, because it tied everything together for me, was-was the grant that we made for the Texas Living Waters initiative.
  • And that tied it together because, I guess-I guess it really started back in 1995, when-when Environmental Defense and-and Texas Center for Policy Studies and a couple of other nonprofit, but national organizations-statewide organizations came to us and said, you know, there's just not enough money going into environment and conservation in Texas.
  • And Houston Endowment really is the only one that's doing it with big bucks. And so, what-what would you think of us having a na-statewide conference for grant makers? And so we-we hosted, along with the-several others a-a statewide conference on environmental grant making.
  • And-and Environmental Defense brought in Teresa Heinz, who is the Heinz Foundation. And it was in Houston, here at the Warwick Hotel. And she came. Andy Sansom came. He was, at that time, Parks and Wildlife Director.
  • And we had about, oh, gosh, I guess at least 30 to 40 grant- making organizations come and listen and I think-I think things really began to turnaround there because that's when we created-afterwards, we all agreed.
  • And-and it was-doesn't-wasn't just the grant makers, but it was the grant seekers sort of came together and all agreed that we needed to form a-an organization that we could keep ourselves up to date on what was-what were the issues out there, with regard to-to the environment and-and meet and meet quarterly and talk about the issues and share information with one another.
  • And I think that's the magic. It came together as Texas Environmental Grantmakers Group, as you well know, and we've continued to meet, what, now for six, seven years. Seven years, I guess.
  • And-and because of that organization, one of the issues-well, that organization ended up bringing the National En-Environmental Grantmakers Association to Texas, here to Houston. As we said, we were going to bring them to the belly of the beast, which we did.
  • The petrochemicalcapital of the world and I do think they had their eyes opened because they get to do-at-go down and see the ship channel and visit some of the refineries and see what was going on with the energy sector here in Houston. And so that was important for them to-to-to see and those were national grant makers.
  • So they understood that Texas was a different sort of a place, but that we were involved in environment and so Texas Ag brought that group to Texas and then after that, we continued to meet.
  • And realized-well, at that-at that big conference that we had here in Houston, I was able to - I was asked and did give a plenary session-a speech at a plenary session called Your Hopes and Fears of the Future.
  • And I-I thought about that a lot and it took me a long time to put my thoughts together on that and I came up with the two issues that I think are-and still do think-are the most important issues facing Texas today. And that's population in growth and water issues.
  • And so, I spoke about that and my hope-those were myfears, that-that we wouldn't have enough water in the state to continue to replenish our streams and our bays, which are very beautiful. One of my favorite places to visit is-is the bay in the upper Texas coast. I think it's gorgeous.
  • I mean, the migrating birds and it's just a beautiful place and so I gave that talk and then afterwards we continued to meet as a-as a grant making group. And sometimes you get 12 people there and to-other times you get 25 or 30, but we always meet and talk about issues.
  • Well, one of the issues that we began to discuss really in depth was water. And National Wildlife Federation came and gave a talk to us in San Antonio. We met at the HEB [Groceries] Headquarters in San Antonio. It was a wonderful session.
  • And at that meeting, some of us just asked what would it take for-what-what can foundations do to make a difference in the water policy of the future? And because, at that time, we had passed Senate Bill 1, which wasthe water planning for the next 50, 100 years in Texas because we'd had this horrible drought.
  • And there were water-regional water groups put together. And one of the-one of the issues that NWF was talking about that day was that all these groups have been put together, but that there were nobo-there was nobody on them that really represented the environment and conservation.
  • Because, although they were mandated to do so, most of those water groups had been taken over by water developers, dam builders and pipeline builders and engineering firms and that sort of thing. So we asked the question, what can we do to get involved?
  • And they said well, at-we caught them totally off guard. They weren't sure what they could do, but they said they'd get back to us in two weeks. And-and they did and what they did was not just come in as one organization, but came in as four organizations, which really impressed us.
  • It-it impressed the-the ability for environmental groups to work together in this state is so important. So important. And they all do. What-if they're based in Austin, I think the national groups that are based in Austin really make an effort to work together, so it was-it was not just National Wildlife Federation, but it was the Texas Center for Policy Studies, it was the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club and it was the Environmental Defense and they all came to us together and said here's what-here's what we need to make a difference in water policy for the future.
  • And sustainable water polits-policy. In other words, keeping wa-water in the streams so that those streams get to the bays and those ba-bays continue to be fed. And we bought into it. We-it wa-it made all the sense in the world and it wasn't a lot of money.
  • It was-it was, I think, 3 million dollars or something and they asked us for 1.5 million and we did that. We gave them 500,000 a year over three years and they have really made a difference. And in-we also, at that time, encouraged the group to go to other foundations and they did.
  • They went toMeadows and Meadows-I guess, a-not a lot of people know this, but foundations talk to one another a great deal and so we got calls from Meadows and-about this and we called them and-and said, you know, this is something that can make a difference in Texas for the next 100 years and maybe you need to think about being involved in it.
  • And-and they did. They-they came up with-with a million dollars and then Brown Foundation, here in Houston, ended up coming in a little bit later, but they came in with 750,000 dollars.
  • So-so it gave these four groups-and now it's three groups, because the Texas Center for Policy Studies, the-the-the main characters that were involved from that organization decided that they'd go under Environmental Defense-and so it's three organizations now really involved.
  • And they've-they've done incredible work educating the public about the need for conservation of water, about the need to keep streams flowing to the bay. About-they have worked with those local, regionalplanning groups and they have really worked hard to get more conservationists and environmentalists involved in those groups.
  • At one point, they even brought all those groups to Austin and had a weekend with them and-and talked to them and sort of did some training with them on how they can be more influential in-in their work at the regional level. They've had enormous amounts of conferences-local conferences, national-or statewide conferences.
  • I just finished going to one that was put on by the Sierra Club here in Houston for the Southeast Region. It was absolutely wonderful. I-I-I heard from a man from Austin-we heard from a man from Austin who does leak detection. It was wonderful.
  • They-they introduced him as having the best ears in Texas. He can hear when there's a leak underground in a pipe and that's where a lot ofwhere we're losing a lot of water in Texas because the pipes are leaking under-in our municipalities, in our urban centers.
  • There's-our-our infrastructure is getting very old and we're losing tons of water underground that you don't see. And so he goes around and finds these leaks and-and gets municipalities to fix them. That was, to me, is just fascinating.
  • And so, we convinced the board and-and that happened because-it would-just came about in such a good way because, at that time, our board decided to have a retreat and we were asked, as staff, to bring what we thought were some initiatives to the table.
  • And that's when I took the water initiative to the table and that's where a lot of questions got asked about how can we possibly make a difference in water policy in Texas. There were some real skeptics at the board level thinking, you know, this is so big, it cannot possibly-one foundation can't possibly-possibly make a difference.
  • And we were able to convince them that, yes, we could because it had to do-a lot of it had todo with water conservation and convincing the public that water was a finite resource and that just because we live in Houston, we have lots of rain and water, doesn't mean they do out in west Texas and we all need to kind of pitch in together.
  • And so, the board went along with that and I hope they will continue to because we've got another grant request from-from this group that's going to the meeting here in another three, four weeks. So that's one of the proudest grants that I've made and some of the background on it.
  • DT:Can you tell us about another-and maybe the largest grant that'll take the environmental program for Neches Bottom?
  • AH:Yes, yes. Well, that happened this last April. It was scheduled for the March agenda. The-I worked-well, let me put it this way. I went to a conference in Austin back in January and it was for looking at how we're going to fund public open space in-in Texas. And it was put on by the Texas Coalition for Conservation. George Bristol's group.
  • And they had legislators there and they brought in people from other states, talking about how, sort of, creative ways to finance acquisition of parks and open space. And, at that meeting was-were some national representatives from the Conservation Fund and we had worked with the Conservation Fund here in Texas for several years.
  • As a matter of fact, we gave the first money to s-seed their state office. And-but we'd never given them a large amount of money for land acquisition. We had given them, you know, 150-200,000 dollars to-for program support, to keep their operations going.
  • And that's sort of the evolution is-that's how we started-got started in this-in this conservation movement is we started funding national organizations to get groups started in Texas and helping in that way. We felt like that was one of the best ways-best uses of our money is to get-get it started and get it moving statewide.
  • So we met with the head of the-of the Conservation Fund at that-at that conference in January and they began to tell us about this tract of land up in east Texas on the Middle Neches River that was 33,000 acres. And, at that point, I thought, oh boy, that's a stretch. That's really a stretch.
  • That's a long way from Houston and it's just pure land acquisition. Well, it ended up it wasn't pure land acquisition. It ended up that it-that it is-it is going to create a mitigation fund that, hopefully, will be used in future years to buy more land within the region and, hopefully, statewide.
  • So-so they came in for five million dollars, which was a huge grant. It was the first grant that I'd gotten from-from a major national environmental group that was that big. And so we-we looked at it andresearched and had lots of talks back and forth and decided that-that we'd recommend it-a three million dollar grant.
  • Well, it went onto the March agenda and it was tabled. I-I will never, ever, ever leave town again when my board meets and I have a large grant on the table, but I had already scheduled a vacation with my family in Florida.
  • It just so happened that that grant was on the table on the day that I was with my family in Florida and-and the board because tabled it because they wanted to talk to me personally about it.
  • So they tabled it to April and-and asked me at that same time-because we had-we had given a grant back in January to the Austin group, the-for the-I can't think of the name of it, David. Help me. [Misc.]
  • AH:We had made a grant back in January to the Texas Coalition-what-what's it called, George Cofer's group?
  • DT:Texas Coalition for Conservation?
  • AH:Is that it? For the-for the-for the land-there was a large farm up there above Barton Springs where we were helping them with protecting that water supply. And, anyway, we made-made a 750,000 grant to that.
  • And my board was a little nervous with-with these large grants coming down for land acquisition. After the 750,000 dollar one, I think we might have given something for another acquisition that was fairly large.
  • And we had already made some large land acquisition grants for the Buffalo Bayou Partnership in Houston. And that's closer to home and they like grants-big grants being closer to home, so to speak, Houston.
  • DT:Let me make you a correction. I think that the grant you're thinking of was for George Cofer's group, Hill Country Conservancy.
  • AH:It was the Hill Country Conservancy, I'm sorry. Yes, it was the Hill Country Conservancy for the-what's the name of the ranch?
  • DT:Strong Land?
  • AH:No. Strong.
  • DT:Storm.
  • AH:Storm Ranch. That's right. For the Storm Ranch. And so, the board was getting a little-and mind you, we have some new board members, too. So they weren't quite used to-to looking at these grants.
  • And we had a-had a new chair and a-and a new-a new board member and so the dynamics of the board had changed somewhat from-from 2002 to 2003. So when the three million dollar grant hit the-hit the board, they-they thought who is this person that's spending all our money.
  • So they tabled it and said they wanted to talk to me. Well, when I got back, not only did they want to talk to me, they wanted me to figure out, okay, how much had we given over the last five years and how much were I-was I planning to give for the rest of this year.
  • And I didn't know because I didn't know what-we take them as they come over the transom, so to speak.And so, I didn't know how much. But I guessed-I did a lot of guessing and some of the guesses were right on and others weren't.
  • I knew the Texas water people were coming back in, the Water-Texas Living Waters Initiative. They were coming back in, so I guessed on that one. And I guessed on one that had to do with air quality and-and I'll get to that in a minute.
  • But anyway, so we put together these charts, figuring out how much we had given and how much we were planning to give. Well, interestingly enough, it gave me a great opportunity to find out how-how high-how much we've come over the last five years.
  • And we've moved from giving about six percent of our grants all the way up to eight percent and, as I say to my boss, when we get into ten percent, maybe then, I'll retire. I do want to see us give at least ten percent of our monies toward conservation.
  • We give away 76 million dollars-around 70 million dollars a year and-and I don't think that's much to ask for what I feel is very important for the future ofTexas. So anyway, I made the case for the Middle Neches, after making many more calls, and it was one of the hardest summaries I've ever had to put together because it-it is-it was a very complex acquisition.
  • It re-it involved a timber company because they're going to continue to-to cut timber on it, but they're going to do it in a sustainable way. It involved anot-other foundations, so it invol-volved the private sector, it involved the-the-in-industry. And so, there were lots of footnotes.
  • There were like fourteen footnotes in this summary because we like to keep our summaries as concise as we possibly can. So we ended up-we got it. We got it. We got two million for this year and another million for next year and-and we helped buy the Middle Neches, 33,000 acres that connects to National Forest.
  • And-and it's, I'm told, one of the most important pristine habitats left in Texas. So I'm very proud of that-of that grant. And that's the largest grant we've given in the-in-to date to the environmental movement.
  • DT:Have you managed to visit there?
  • AH:I have not managed to visit there. I'd like to. The end of this month, I'm headed toward east Texas and I want to see if I can get over there and-and visit. I really do. I'm-I'm sad that-you know, and that's-that's really a mistake on my part. I should've gone up there and visited that-that place.
  • But my health-there were some health issues and it hadn't been great and I've had to take pretty good care of myself, so-so I'm not doing as many site visits as I once did, but I-I'm planning to go up there and see it. I am.
  • DT:Earlier, you touched on air quality issues.
  • AH:Right. DT:Did you want to mention anything about that?
  • AH:Well, we thought-we thought we wouldn't get involved in air quality issues in Houston because we thought that-that it was being handled by HGAC-the Houston-Galveston Area Council, by some other organizations. HARK had-had done some work on it.
  • HARK is Houston Advanced Research Center. There were others. The Greater Houston-the Greater Houston Partnership was involved in it. So we-we decided maybe we wouldn't-wouldn't tackle it, but I-you know, we work on the 64 thfloor of the Chase Tower, so you can see the air up there.
  • You can literally see the air and you can see smog lines and you can sometimes see the monument, the San Jacinto Monument, and then there are days when you can't see the ship channel. I mean, it's really bad.
  • And so, we began to talk to some-some folks that are just on the ground, air quality people like Galveston-Houston Area Smog Prevention group; GHASP, they call themselves. And Mothers for Clean Air and-and Environmental Defense is doing some air quality stuff in Houston and see if we could sort of bring together a coalition of groups like we did with the Texas Living Waters Initiatives.
  • And that hadn't been easy.I don't know-it just-the groups-it's such a complex issue. I mean, water's complex, but air quality is really complex because you've got ozone and NOx and fine particulate matter and I'm just learning all of this.
  • And-and so we couldn't quite get the groups to-to gel and what we wanted to do was a public media kind of a thing and-like we did with Texas Living Waters, where, you know, we'd get the attention of the editorial boards and maybe even-maybe get smog and-and air quality put on the evening weather.
  • Every night, have the weather people talk about what the smog is like or going to be tomorrow or that sort of thing so people will know whether they can let their children out to play. I mean, it gets to that point sometimes, where literally, there are warnings out where you're not supposed to let your children out into the-into the outside.
  • They have to stay inside, it-and that's terrible. So-but it-it-so far, it hasn'thappened and-so what we do is we still continue to give little, small operating program support grants to these small organizations. And-and that's okay, too. I mean, you can do it both ways and if that's what they need.
  • What we-what we really want to do is-is-initiatives are hard because they take a lot of our time. I mean, you really have to monitor them fairly carefully unless you have an en-normous amount of trust for the organizations and, for the Texas Living Waters thing, I have an enormous amount of trust.
  • But, there's another one that I've got involved in this year called Blueprint Houston and it doesn't really have to do with-with-with conservation, but it has to do with quality of life. And-and it's a big grant and-and it has to do with comprehensive planning in Houston.
  • And-and so, I got very involved in that because it was a-it was a large-well, it was 350,000 dollar grant, but it was a big, risky grant, n-not knowing whether it was going to work or not. And so I stayed very involved on a weekly basis with that one. And so, to do too many initiatives, you just-you burn yourself out.
  • So, if the air quality thing continues through program support for small groups, that's-that's okay. That's okay. We want to give grantees what they need most and-and we-if they need program support most, then that's what we want to do. We try not to get too involved in the management of the organization.
  • You know, and-and telling people what to do with our money. I mean, there's an enormous amount of trust that has to be made in these relationships. And we've been stung. I mean, we've been stung.
  • We've given grants to organizations that say they're going to start a project and the project doesn't start and-and they sit on our money and we don't like that very much because we'd rather have our money invested in a large pot that can draw more interest than having them sit on our money.
  • So nowadays, we-if it's for a land acquisition, we say we'll give them the money, provided closing is imminent, that sort of thing. Of provided construction had commenced.
  • In other words, if we give a grant for a building, we don't give it until the building gets to be-ready to be built. That's just common sense, I think, and wanting to hang onto our money until we really have to give it away. [Misc.]
  • DT:Let's talk about one of your other grant making hats that you wear as the vice-president of the Jacob and Therese Hershey Foundation, I believe that is, which is a small foundation, but one that's almost exclusively focused on environmental giving.
  • AH:Right, right. Well, that was a-a joyful day in my life when Jake and Terry asked me to join their board. It-it is a small foundation, has about 3 ½ million in assets, will give away about 150-200,000 dollars a year. Mainly small grants, but small grants to very important organizations, mainly in Texas.
  • It's-it's-it's so different than what I do at Endowment because the-the amounts of money are so-there's such a-a difference in the amounts of money, but it-it's still an incredibly important organization and m-Mister Hershey, unfortunately, passed away in 2000, but Terry is still very much with us and still very much in control.
  • And she is a force to be reckoned with, as you know, and just a wonderful individual and a mentor of mine. I mean, she was one of the first persons I met when I came to Houston and-and I admire her and respect her tremendously. And so, it's her foundation and we kind of go along with her and-in what she wants to do.
  • And she likes to give lots of grants to lots of differentorganizations then. She had about, I think, between six and ten favorite organizations that she gives to, that I know about very well because we also give to them in Houston Endowment.
  • But she-she loves to be a part of a-of the larger picture and-and so we-we have as long of meetings as-as the Houston Endowment does because she's very serious about it. We-we-all of these grants come up twice a year and the lists are very long. I mean, in excess of 100 organizations and we talk about all of them.
  • And she has also made me head of the grant review committee and so I-I have a committee meeting before our board meetings and we talk about whether or not those grants fit under the umbrella-under the meaning of the-of the mission of the organization.
  • And decide whether or not they do and decided which ones, you know, might be a little more important than others with regard to our mission, but we don't make-we don't make recommendations. The board meets as a whole to do that.
  • And it's a-it's a wonderful thing for me because of the Hershey family. There are still members of the Hershey family there on it. Jake's grandson, Jeffrey, is on the board and he's a wonderful youngman who works for Texas Parks and Wildlife and he brings a-incredible information to us about what's going on at Parks and Wildlife in Texas.
  • And, of course, Terry travels all the time and all over the place and she knows a lot. Olive is Jake's daughter and she's on the board and she brings to us a sort of a literary flavor to the board. And so, we have, what, three outsiders and three sort of family members, I would say, and it's a-it's an interesting mix of people.
  • There's some interesting dynamics that go on and I've enjoyed it very much and it will grow because of the-the Hershey's have decided that they want to leave it in perpetuity and they have left some of their land holdings to the foundation after-after they're gone. So it will become an-a large-larger foundation in years to come.
  • And it's been very rewarding. And some of it's been kind of hard, too. There's family-as you probably know, there's family dynamics that go on that-families don't always agree with one another and so there's that-that area to look at as well.
  • And it's been an interesting exercise. I've enjoyed it very much. And it's-it allows me to sort of provide some skill and expertise that I've learned over the years. If you send endowment to a smaller organization..... [Misc.]
  • DT:You mentioned that Terry Hershey is one of the people that you hold in high regard. I was wondering if you could describe who are the heroes and mentors that you have had as a grownup.
  • AH:Well, I-I started by talking about my mother. She's definitely one of them. I mean, she-she really imbued in me a sense of-of a love of the outdoors and of nature and of critters and wildlife, birds. We-we spent many, many wonderful summers going camping in a Woody, in one of those wooden station wagons, to the Great Smokey Mountain, to Sequoia, to the National Parks.
  • I mean, that's what we did when-when we were growing up in the-in the early 50's. And camping trips with my fa-family were just so special and that's really-those-my mother and father were mentors. My grandparents, to a certain degree.
  • Terry, definitely, my biggest mentor in Texas. In-in Colorado, I guess you'd have to say it was Governor Lamm. I mean, he really was-cared about the environment and I-I think, because of him, I became sort of an activist.And-and they're-my other mentors are those people that are out there working day in and day out.
  • I mean, I think about Molly Stevens at Environmental Defense and I remember something she said to me once. I was always using the word conservation and not environmental. A conservationist instead of environmentalist. And just straight out looked at me and said Ann, don't ever be embarrassed about being an environmentalist.
  • We need environmentalists and it's-it's a honor to be one. And I've-I've kept that in mind and-and I really appreciate people that'll say things like that to me and-and be forthright with me. And I am proud to be an environmentalist. I'm very proud of it.
  • That-it's not easy being one in Houston, because we are such a development city and a can do city and a-and a city that wants to make money. And sometimes you can't do that without destroying the earth and it's-it's hard. And I-I get discouraged and then Igo meet the Mary Kelly's and the Molly Stevens' and the David Todd's and the people out there that are just doing it everyday.
  • And this project, I just can't tell you how important this project is and, not because I'm being interviewed, but because of what you all have done with-with all of these people all over the state. It's going to-it's going to be an incredible, important tool for future environmentalists to be able to hear and listen to those who came before them.
  • It-it's just a stroke of genius that you've had to do this. I really mean that. And I'm really proud we're a part of it. [Misc.]
  • AH:I-I-I think the best thing that I could say to future conservationists and environmentalists is to be ever vigilant, especially now. What is happening now with the current administration is that they are turning back rules and regulations that have been made that are-that were meant to be-to have clean air, clean water, clear skies and-and some of these-timber in our forest, woods, our parks left pristine.
  • And, unfortunately, we've got a crowd in there that-that are big business people and they want to turn that back. And I-and so, I think we-for the next, I would say, at least, decade, we need to really work carefully and watch carefully and make sure that those rules and regulations stay enforced, if we can.
  • It's not easy, because a lot of times, these things happen without public knowledge. And that really, really concerns me a great deal. But I also will tell you that involved in-in citizen initiatives and citizenparticipation issues, I see more-more just Joe Schmo citizens wanting to be involved because they are not-they feel like they have not had a voice in the public dialog.
  • And this-this Blueprint Houston has brought that home to me very well. These people want a voice and we are, hopefully, going to give them a voice in planning what their communities can be like. And they want more trees. They want more parks. They want more open space.
  • And so, I think the big thing to do is-is be advocates for citizen participation and for people speaking out to talk about the quality of life that they want for themselves and their families for the future. I mean, it's really important and they-it's no time to be shy. It is no time to be shy or diplomatic. It is time to speak out and say how they feel about the natural world.
  • DT:Thanks for speaking out. I appreciate it.