‘Champion’ Is a Verb
At Foellinger Foundation, we champion opportunity.
In 2022, we introduced “We Champion Opportunity” as the foundation of our brand identity, which continues to guide our operations. This succinct statement encapsulates our vision, mission, and strategic intent.
When we’re developing strategies that help us achieve our vision—when we’re working alongside our grantees and community partners on mission-centered work—you’ll find us championing opportunity for the citizens of Allen County.
For us, “champion” is not a title. It’s an action that is intrinsic to our way of working.
At Foellinger Foundation, “champion” is a verb.
Here, we support organizations, programming, and initiatives that create opportunities for Allen County residents to thrive.
On February 19, 1952, Helene Foellinger addressed the Parent-Teacher Association of her alma mater, South Side High School.
In her remarks, Helene said, “[We] have a responsibility to see that in giving aid, [we] are helping individuals to help themselves, that [we] are helping people to be independent, rather than dependent.”
Foellinger continued, “[We] have a greater obligation to provide individuals with ‘opportunity’ than with ‘security.’”
Helene’s remarks in this presentation—along with her professional and personal writing and speechmaking, her personal philanthropy, and the way she steered Foellinger Foundation’s giving strategy as its leader—continue to guide us today.
Helene’s perspective was that Allen County residents are “as a whole, a family,” and that “[each] individual has a duty and a responsibility to do [their] part in the family,” and to step into the breach if another member of the family—the community—is unable to do their part.
It is here that Foellinger Foundation’s vision was cast. That our residents should have the opportunity to move from needing help, to helping themselves, to ultimately helping one another.
“[We] have a greater obligation to provide individuals with ‘opportunity’ than with ‘security.’” –Helene Foellinger
It’s our grantees who do the good work of stepping into the breach to create these opportunities. We join and support them by providing funding, training opportunities, and spaces to convene.
If you look up “champion” in a thesaurus, you’ll find words like “defend,” “battle,” and “shield.”
At Foellinger Foundation, we’re not really invested in using “champion” as a metaphor of war to describe our work.
Like our founders, Helene and Esther Foellinger, we prefer to speak to the individual, on a human level—sharing stories of resilience and perseverance, stories of uplift and courage, stories of achievement and breakthroughs.
But now, please allow us to be crystal clear: when it comes to opportunity in Allen County, we’re fighting for the residents of this community.
And we always will.
