Taking Time Out for a Good Cause

After Tutoring by Friends, Thompsons Launch Charity

Monica Thompson will head the foundation established with her husband, Georgetown coach John Thompson III. (By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post)

Sometimes even coaches need coaches.

When Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson III and his wife, Monica, decided they wanted to create a family foundation, they did their homework. They turned to friends they trust and respect for advice. Alonzo Mourning. Darryl Green. Ted Leonsis. Sheila Johnson. Abe Pollin.

The advice they got was simple:

"John and his father have always been about providing the tools through education and other means for young adults to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get ahead in life," said Leonsis, vice chairman emeritus at AOL and a trustee of the university. "I said, 'Pick causes that are meaningful to you and are authentic to what you stand for.' "

Education, Monica Thompson said, was a natural cause for them, given her husband's upbringing in Washington and his commitment to Georgetown. As a breast cancer survivor, she also is interested in promoting better health care for at-risk women and families. And finally, they wanted to engage in a way that wasn't exclusively high-society.

So when the John Thompson III Foundation held its first fundraiser on a September weekend, it opened with a panel discussion at Georgetown University on the state of intercollegiate sports. The couple then hosted a block party and health fair at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center in Anacostia, followed by a $500-per-ticket black tie gala at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

The events made money, though Monica Thompson said the final tally is pending. The Thompsons assumed much of the administrative costs and will give the proceeds to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, Capital Breast Care Center, Southeast Tennis and Learning Center, and Washington Jesuit Academy.

"You see young kids who make mistakes because they don't know any better and how, if they don't have strong parental guidance to help them, how that makes it so much harder for them," she said. "But you take a child who is from a disadvantaged environment, if you give that child the proper skills and access to broaden their knowledge and be educated and go on to college, you then create the ability for that person to improve their circumstances and you create a productive person in society."

She will serve as the foundation's executive director and only staff member, and won't take any salary for the work. It's a good segue for her, since she was a fundraiser for Princeton University for six years, focusing on large endowments and gifts.

The number of family foundations in the D.C. area has risen dramatically, to about 975, as the concentration of wealth in the region has increased, said Barbara Harman, executive director of the Harman Family Foundation, which today will release its fifth annual Washington area Catalogue for Philanthropy, a list of local charities looking for donors. Some 500 of the 35,000 catalogs it is mailing out this year are going to smaller local family foundations, she said.

"For family foundations, there needs to be some hook that gets people coming to your events and getting interested in who you are and what you do," Harman said.

Coming off a Final Four appearance in the NCAA men's basketball playoffs this year, John Thompson's profile as Georgetown's coach may draw more support than would a less-known family foundation, said Eugene R. Tempel, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

"It may be new people are attracted to a philanthropy or a cause they never supported before because someone they admire or trust directed their attention to it," he said. "The question is whether people move from that to any long-term engagement. And that really depends on whether they believe in the cause. And that means organizations that benefit from these activities have to engage people more deeply."

Shining the spotlight on such organizations is the foundation's early mission, Monica Thompson said. "We want to help other nonprofits raise money, because there are a lot that are well-run, have great programs, but maybe can't afford a huge development staff where they have an event planner and a communications person and people who do the major gift fundraising."

The value of such charitable guidance, Tempel said, is that it may get new people involved in philanthropy and promote greater engagement in communities.

Thompson said she understands that people have busy lives -- she and her husband have three children, 4, 6 and 9 -- and may simply need a little direction in looking outside their own lives.

"Some people do it by giving their time, money or physically taking on a child and tutoring, mentoring them," she said. "But everyone should give back to their community in some way. I think it's an obligation we all have as a society."