The Roger Umbaugh Impact Investing Fund
A little history…
I’ve talked about my friend, Roger Umbaugh, a couple of times here. Roger was a past board member of on the Marshall County Community Foundation (MCCF). While on that board, he was also on the MCCF Investment Committee. When I joined the MCCF board, I also joined the MCCF Investment Committee.
One of Roger’s goals was to get MCCF into a better home. While the generosity of Key Bank was always appreciated, it was not always the best solution. On top of that, the Community Foundation had grown and needed more space than was available at Key Bank. When financing for the community pool project was under discussion, Roger found a way to finance it using New Market Tax Credits and to put MCCF in a position to facilitate this while also getting a new home as part of the deal.
Another of Roger’s goals was to see some of MCCF’s investment funds invested back into the community. He always thought it would serve two purposes… providing some income and doing good in the community. At the start, he didn’t know that there was a name for this: Impact Investing.
When the New Market Tax Credit project needed additional funding, Roger broached the subject of MCCF providing the funding gap as a loan. This resulted in $500k of Community Foundation funds be loaned to the project. This was a win-win for MCCF and project.
After Roger’s passing, I wanted to carry this forward for him. In his name, I championed designating the $500k as the start of an Impact Investing Fund. I also suggested that the fund be named the Roger Umbaugh Impact Investing Fund. The board voted to approve both measures. I have the feeling that this will be a draw to a different kind of donor for the Community Foundation. Another win-win.
This is still new. I have sat in on a seminar on Impact Investing. I have done a little research. There appears to be a lot of different ways we could approach this. At the last MCCF board meeting, I suggested that we should start this process by setting some goals which we’ll be doing in a future meeting. This seems to range from self-run scenarios to hands-off options where 95% of the heavy lifting is done using outside financial institutions.
So… I’m throwing this out here to see if there is any input from followers. This is your chance to add suggestions on how this new venture should be structured. Any ideas? Contact me by email (mail@easterdayconstruction.com) or feel free to use the comments.
More Stellar Signs
As I said in my previous post, I have been disappointed in the lost potential of the Stellar signs. At the time of that post, I hadn’t had the chance to see the signs in Bremen and Bourbon. I had the opportunity to see those signs the other day. While both of these seemed to be making better use of the opportunities and goals set for these signs, they are still under used.
Bremen is doing the best with use of it for town events. It had quite a few different local events listed, but there was still the ubiquitous Time & Date filler and “Welcome to Bremen”. Nothing was shown regarding the events outside of Bremen when I was there.
Bourbon wasn’t being used as much with the Time & Date filler prominent. Bourbon did make the move of including other local connections. They included screens with their town website address which I thought was an improvement and something the others should consider. (The sign was legible up close, but obviously not enough so for a picture.)
As I stated in the previous post, I realize there are limitations to the time municipal employees have to keep up with these things. Just this past week, I was please to see that Culver’s sign had shown some improvement, including advertising the “Paint Out” that was scheduled here this weekend. But events like the Paint Out should be showing up on all of these signs. The opportunity for cross-county tourism is a real one, plus the event would have been seen by travelers passing through those communities too. I’ll keep an eye on all of them for improvements. Time will tell. The opportunity is still there.
Stellar Signs – Wasted Potential
I drive by the “new” electronic sign at the corner of School Street and Hwy 10 in Culver every morning. I’m disappointed in the wasted potential. It is one of the Regional Message Boards that was proposed and funded through the Marshall County Stellar Region award. From the Marshall County Crossroads Stellar Strategic Action Plan (SIP) pg138: “This project recognizes the importance of marketing and communicating our regional work to the communities we live in, and recognizes the value in shaping our communities as destination places. By incorporating a consistent look and feel in the message boards, our rural communities will have one more method of marketing and communicating our regional plans by grouping them with local news and community events.” Yet, most of the time when I drive by the Culver sign, it is flashing the time & temperature or contains filler in the form of affirmations or admonishments to watch for school buses.
Culver has a plethora of events that could be promoted. If the sign were just used for the events on the Visitors Guide Magnet (See left), there would always be something of interest there. Travelers on the highway most likely know what day it is. If they’re not from Culver, they don’t know that the Gift of Warmth Film Festival was this past weekend. They don’t know that the Stories & Stones Cemetery Walk is coming in two weeks. They don’t know that Fall Fest is October 8th…
Granted, I don’t know how difficult this is to do. If it takes hours to put something up there, then that’s an issue, as most municipal staff has enough on their plate. So maybe the sign should point to the town’s website address, Facebook page or other source of local information. Though also from page 138 of the Stellar SIP: “This form of communication is especially important to those residents who are not actively engaged on social media.” While I am picking on Culver here, I do so because I see it daily. It’s not a Culver only problem. The signs in LaPaz suffer from the same wasted potential.
Another piece that is lacking is the Regional use of the signs. Again from page 138 of the Stellar SIP: “The electronic boards will also allow us opportunities to cross-promote our communities… Many of our communities no longer have a newspaper, and some have only weekly newspapers, so adding this communication tool would provide our citizens and visitors an important way to learn about what is going on locally in Marshall County.” Culver’s Lake Fest, Fall Fest and Holiday Hop should be appearing on our neighboring community signs. The Blueberry Festival and the Bremen Firemen’s Festival should be appearing on Culver’s sign.
This is not meant to be a bash on any of the groups involved. Marshall County Crossroads is doing many good things. It’s just a bit of frustration on the lack of follow-thru. Things like this, which have so much potential, often fall apart in the execution. I readily admit that I’m speaking from my understanding of initial goals, which may well have changed. I readily admit to not knowing the logistics of implementing messages for the signs. My criticism comes from the perception of lost opportunities that I see with the Culver sign on an almost daily basis.
So I tell my employees, don’t come to me with problems without including potential solutions… Here are my three quick suggestions:
- Define what each community wants their sign to say about them. I doubt the message will be “It’s 12:30pm.”
- Find the right person in each community to manage the signs. If there is not a municipal employee available or capable, cast the net further. A set of rules can be established by the municipality (should be done anyway) and let a trusted individual run with it.
- Explore ways to turn the cross-promotion over to Marshall County Tourism. I realize their mission is to bring in people from outside the community, but Culver’s sign was placed to be visible to people that are crossing the County on State Highways. Isn’t getting some of them to stop, the point? A side issue here is that when I went to the Marshall County Tourism Calendar, there are no events in September. REALLY!?! Not even the Blueberry Festival… So maybe this isn’t a good suggestion.
As usual, this is me basically talking to myself and my small cadre of Lurkers. If offered this task, I would take it on, but I’m not in the mood to publicly push it, since lately my efforts to help have been poorly received in Culver… and I don’t feel connected enough to take this on regionally without support. This is just another rant, getting something off my chest that has been bugging me.
LaPaz Commons has Started
LaPaz Commons is the LaPaz component of the Riverside Commons IHCDA LIHTC project we are currently constructing. The eight units in LaPaz were always slated to be the last to come under construction. In the last week, site work has begun in preparation for building construction this Fall.
LaPaz has a effluent sewer system, where each residence or business has a septic tank associated with their sewer line. Only the liquid effluent from the septic tank enters the municipal lines and is ferried on for treatment. Most of the LaPaz system is gravity collection, but then the final leg pumps it to the Bremen sewer plan for treatment.
As part of this project, the Town of LaPaz will be improving Troyer Street. We wanted to get the sewer taps in place prior to the street improvements, so as not to disturb the new street construction. If you look closely, you can see the green sewer pipes stubbed up showing where the connections are ready to hook-up to the new townhouses. The taps are complete, the septic tanks are set and we’re ready to roll!
Thomas Excavating has done this work and you can see where they also have the building pad prepared. Hundt Concrete will begin excavation on footings and frostwalls here as soon as they complete the last two buildings in Plymouth. We’re pushing on this to get everything out of the ground before winter. We hope to get paving placed as well. That would make the site much more navigable this winter. We’re hoping the Farmer’s Almanac is wrong, but best to prepare for the worst!
Dance With The One That Brought You
This falls squarely in the Rant column here, so scroll on if that doesn’t interest you.
The other day I posted about the the READI grants we submitted. (here) The Water Street Townhomes project in Plymouth was part of an application that went in with the original READI call for projects in July of 2021. When I found out that Culver only had one small park project to submit, I asked if they would support a small housing project. I suggested 12 townhomes similar to those suggested for Water Street project. I was told a straw poll had 3 council members in favor and, “You be the lead if you don’t mind. I fully trust you.” This all came about last minute and I ended up spending a Saturday putting together a proforma and submitting an application. Spirit Townhomes in Culver was listed as part of the South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership (SBERP) READI application submitted to IEDC.
I grew up in Culver and even though I live outside of Culver now, I still consider it my home town, since my business is here and my parents still live here. Most of you know my track record for participation and dedication to helping move Culver forward. (I started to make a list, but it seemed self-serving.) That’s why I participated in Stellar and partnered with the Town on Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks, when no outside developers would. Both of those projects met or exceeded the goals the Town set for them. In the months leading up to the application deadline, I was told Culver wouldn’t be participating in READI. Then in the last couple weeks before the deadline, I was surprised by the Town of Culver’s decision to pursue a project with a different, out-of-town developer. I suggested submitting a version of the Spirit Townhomes too and was told there wasn’t time…
Dance With The One That Brought You…
This seems to be a pattern that is repeating. I don’t know if this is a conscious decision or just a careless oversight. In any case, it’s a noticeable departure from the stated goals of supporting local businesses. A couple other examples of which I’m aware:
There are two banks in town. The First National Bank of Monterey and First Farmers Bank & Trust have sponsored Town events, participated on committees, supported the Town by purchasing their bonds, cashing their checks and covered all the minor things such as providing change. The Town shopped their services, as they should, but in lieu of keeping the competition local, they went outside the town and ended up moving their money to Plymouth for minor advantages. Was it really worth it? Dance With The One That Brought You…
Good-To-Go brought in plans to the Culver TRC to demolish their existing building and put in a whole new service station which would have brought additional money to the TIF and improved the downtown. During that same time, an outside developer approached the Town about a new service station at the edge of town (outside the Town’s Comprehensive Plans stated goals), which would have damaged Good-To-Go’s business as well as that of the other convenience store in town. Their concerns were met with derision, including one council member chastising them about prices and telling them that they bought their gas in Plymouth. This was while Good-To-Go had a “Cavalier” pump set up with a portion of all sales from that pump going to the Culver Community Schools. Good-To-Go scaled their project back by half. The other developer’s project never came to fruition. Dance With The One That Brought You…
I’m sure some will read this as just “sour grapes” and maybe deservedly so. But with all three examples here, it’s a question of supporting those that support the Town, not with handouts, but yes, maybe with a little favoritism, in recognition of what local businesses do for the town on a day-to-day basis… As the saying goes, Amazon does not sponsor your little league team or have employees coaching it.
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