YSU Foundation Presents New Strategic Plan
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Paul McFadden kicked the second game-winning field goal of his career as a Penguin Thursday as he hosted his first news conference as president of the Youngstown State University Foundation.
McFadden, Class of 1984, set or tied record after record as the place kicker on the YSU football teams of 1980 to 1983, including the longest field goal at 54 yards, but kicked only one game winner – in 1981 against Middle Tennessee State.
As the new chief executive of the YSU Foundation, McFadden kicked off the nonprofit corporation’s five-year strategic plan that has a revised mission statement, adds a vision statement and brings up to date its governance and financial policies and practices.
Unchanged is the foundation’s intent to remain independent of the university while maintaining close ties.
The foundation, established nearly 50 years ago when Youngstown University became YSU, is independent of the university but supports only the university, mostly through scholarships for students. This academic year it is providing nearly $5.2 million in scholarships to more than 2,500 students.
Under McFadden, it has expanded its support of YSU-related activities, said Millicent Counts, chairwoman of the task force on foundation mission, and the foundation’s relationship with the university, to include the Dana School of Music, YSU theater department and WYSU-FM public radio.
With $210 million in assets, the YSU Foundation is the largest such entity in northeastern Ohio, surpassing those of Kent State and Cleveland State universities and the University of Akron, Garry L. Mrozek, vice chairman of the foundation, announced. (Mrozek, who earned his MBA at YSU, is CEO of Hometown Pharmacy Solutions, Boardman.)
The foundation ranks among the top third of university endowments in the nation, McFadden noted.
One unusual aspect of the foundation is that it allows YSU undergraduates to manage a $600,000 portfolio that the students invest and reallocate as they see fit -- within guidelines.
One reason for holding yesterday’s news conference, McFadden emphasized, is the foundation’s determination to be even more transparent, to allow the university community and its friends to have greater confidence in how it’s governed and raises and disburses its funding. Many of its bylaws had not been revised in at least 20 years and it was time to ensure that it complied fully with the Ohio Revised Code.
In addition, even since Howard Jones, the first president of the university, established the foundation, it funded its activities solely through dividends paid on the securities it owns and interest earned. That has changed to “a total return” approach that is a percentage of the market value of the endowment, now 4%, as determined by the trustees. The hope is to increase the aid provided students in the form of merit scholarships.
Other changes in governance were raising the number of standing committees to seven from four, with each trustee serving on at least one committee. “Our housekeeping is in order,” McFadden said. “We have a good story to tell.”
In striving to remain up-to-date in having and adhering to best practices, attorney Bill Culbertson of the firm of Baker Hostetler in Cleveland advised the foundation, McFadden said. And Windrose Advisors of Boston and Graystone Consultants in Columbus, a business of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, will serve as investments consultants.
The foundation has also purchased software to keep better track of its list of donors and friends as part of improving its administration and governance.
The foundation will have more information forthcoming next month, McFadden says, when it will provide details on reaching its goals, one of which seems to be a timeline for reaching $300 million in assets and holding a fundraising campaign to coincide with its 50th anniversary in 2016.