Honoring King Cummings' legacy
Downtown Skowhegan’s Run of River whitewater recreation area project received grants totaling $35,000 from the H. King and Jean Cummings Charitable Fund. The recreation area will include a whitewater park for paddling, tubing, bodyboarding, and other activities, as well as around 50 miles of trails on 300 acres, open year-round. Digital rendering by McLaughlin Whitewater Design Group
When King Cummings of Stratton died in 1989, he established, via a will, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation in his and his wife Jean’s name to mostly benefit the rural areas of Maine that they knew and loved. Thirty years and $7.3 million in charitable giving later, the fund will be closed, but it will continue to make a difference in rural Maine.
King Cummings, left, was president of the Guilford Woolen Mills and played a key role in early years of the Maine Community Foundation as its first board chair and one of its largest donors. In addition to the H. King and Jean Cummings Charitable Fund, he established three permanent endowments to support the Maine Community Foundation and its work – a major investment in the institution.
As his daughter Lee Cummings notes, her father believed in Maine and the community foundation. “At one point there was talk about moving Guilford Woolen Mills south, but Dad kept the mill in Maine because he thought the people of Maine were loyal, demonstrated a strong work ethic, and took pride in their work.” He entrusted the funds to Maine Community Foundation, she explains, “because he believed in its ability to improve the quality of life for all Maine people.”
Two years ago, the current fund advisors, Lee Cummings; King’s nephew, Warren Cook; Cooper Friend, a family friend; and Dr. Mike Lambke, a doctor from Skowhegan, decided to close out the fund, allowed by a provision in King Cummings’ will. “We found that finding advisors who knew our focus and priorities, had some connection to King or the family, and would commit the time needed was not easy,” Cook explains.
They looked to place endowment funds with organizations that would continue the work without their direction. They set up or added to the endowments of three organizations dear to King Cummings: Carrabassett Valley Academy, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and South Solon Meeting House. They established an endowment to benefit the towns of Skowhegan, East Madison, and Solon, and another to support King’s Kids, a program that helps make skiing affordable in Franklin and Somerset counties. Additional grants went to the Maine Ski Museum to honor King’s long connection to skiing in the state.
The advisors also created a donor-advised fund to support Maine Network Partners, an organization dedicated to building stronger, more effective networks across Maine, and a new unrestricted fund to be used at the foundation’s discretion. “The Cummings family of funds has played a major role in our growth and impact as a foundation,” says MaineCF President and CEO Steve Rowe. “Unrestricted assets allow us the flexibility to address critical issues in Maine, now and in the future.”
King Cummings believed in on-the-ground grantmaking in rural Maine. In his will he left $1 million to establish the Western Mountains Fund at MaineCF to support nonprofits in Franklin and Somerset counties. Over the years the Cummings committee added to that fund as well as the Washington, Piscataquis, and Penobscot county funds, all of which now have more than $1 million in assets.
“We believe that the donor’s intent has been and will continue to be met,” says Cook, “and that the payout and placement strategy will ensure continuity, honoring King’s legacy.” The Cummings Fund dollars and where they have been invested is significant, Cook notes, “but even more significant is that King helped establish the Maine Community Foundation to implement his vision and enable many others to do the same.”
