WHAT would you do if you had millions of dollars you didn't need to purchase a company, buy a home in a warm area of the world, or get a luxury car?
Well, if your last name is Moffat and you've just sold Winnipeg-based Moffat Communications for more than $700 million, you look at giving back to the community.
Especially since when you owned the company -- which included CKY, Videon, WTN and cable systems in Canada and the United States -- you made sure it had a strong commitment to philanthropy.
But what if you have several family members with differing ideas of who to help?
You get your family together and spend two days meeting, aided by a professional facilitator.
The culmination of that two-day meeting was an announcement on Dec. 13, 2001, that The Winnipeg Foundation was receiving a $100-million gift to create a donor-advised fund called the Moffat Family Fund.
Six years later, that gift is still the largest in the foundation's 86-year history and the largest to any of the dozens of community foundations across the country.
At the time of the donation, Chief Justice Richard Scott, then-chairman of the foundation, said the donation equalled all of the money ever contributed to it during its history, as well as all of the grants it had handed out.
During a candid recent interview with the normally reticent Randall Moffat, he said the company's sale offered the chance "to do something of a major commitment.
"Once we decided we wanted to do something, then it was how much and how do we do it," he said.
"We have our family council, with four people whose last name is Moffat -- myself, my wife, my two daughters and one son -- but we also have their two husbands and wife, so we have eight.
"You can imagine amongst that group that everybody had their own idea of philanthropy and what it means."
Moffat said from the original meeting, a vision and mission statement were created.
The conclusion was that the fund would direct its money to creating equal opportunities for disadvantaged children and families. They also decided to spend 80 per cent of the grants in Winnipeg and 20 per cent in the 12 other communities across the country where the company did business, from Vancouver to Hamilton.
"We really wanted to focus on an area where we could make a difference," Moffat said.
"If we had a wide focus or interest, like environment and health care, you'd end up writing a $50 cheque to thousands of organizations. We didn't want that.
"We wanted to make a difference."
Even so, Moffat says his family realizes that they'll never be able to fix all the woes many children face.
"We are comforted knowing that we are making an impact," he said.
"The whole essence of our commitment is that education is the way out of poverty."
Besides Randy, the family council currently consists of his wife, Laurie Stovel, his daughter, Christine Moffat, and her husband, Larry Smyth, his son, Craig Moffat, and his wife, Louisa Huband, and daughter, Pamela Moffat, and her husband, Shaheen Shojania.
Once they knew how much money they were going to work with and what areas interested them, the question became how to give out money in perpetuity, long after the current family members had passed on.
Enter The Winnipeg Foundation.
The Moffat family decides what projects will be helped by the family fund, but experts at The Winnipeg Foundation research and recommend many of the projects, and also invest the money to generate the interest given out each year.
Moffat admits he never really toyed with the idea of creating his own foundation, complete with staff and office space, because that would be taking away money that could be used for worthy projects. "I had just retired after 40 years," he said.
"You have The Winnipeg Foundation with everything in place. It has an investment area and a grants analysis area. And you have the community overview of where things fit.
"We would have just had to duplicate it and there was no reason why we should."
Moffat said an administrative fee is paid out of the family fund, "but it's nowhere near the cost it would have been. This is a more efficient approach."
Rick Frost, CEO of The Winnipeg Foundation, said he is pleased the Moffat family chose to give their gift to the foundation.
"It's a wonderful gift and a wonderful endorsement of our work," Frost said.
"The impact has been enormous. Literally hundreds of charities have benefited from the gift."
Frost said because the Moffat fund focuses on disadvantaged children and families, that allows The Winnipeg Foundation to hand out more money to benefit other areas.
The Moffat family holds five meetings throughout the year at the foundation's offices. It's also a time when the family gets together because none of them, except for the patriarch and matriarch, live in Winnipeg anymore.
"We have good discussions -- it is a democratic organization," Moffat said.
"We obviously try to be unanimous. Sometimes we aren't, so we can vote on it."
Since the fund began, 1,222 grants worth a total of $21 million have been handed out, with 858 of them in Winnipeg. Another $4 million, to be handed out before the end of the fiscal year next year, will bring the total to $25 million.
Through the first few years of the Moffat fund's existence:
* More than $500,000 has been given in grants to day cares to help early childhood development and expand the number of child care spaces.
* About 30 per cent of grants from the fund have helped arts education projects like the Dufferin School Fiddle Jig program, the standup improvisational theatre program for Métis children and Jazz on Wheels.
* Nine per cent of total grants have gone to the Teacher's Discretionary Fund, a program that gives hundreds of inner-city teachers $300 and almost two dozen inner-city principals $1,000 each to spend on their students and their school.
The most recent Moffat funding announcement was last month at John M. King School, when a grant of $675,000 was given to the Manitoba Council on Child Nutrition/Breakfast for Learning to pay for child nutrition programs during the next five years.
Moffat said his family is now exploring plans for adding more members to the family council.
"We have eight grandchildren. The oldest is 15 and it is time. Our meetings are meetings, but this has brought us closer together as a family."
Moffat was a broadcast mogul, but that's not how he wants to be remembered.
"If I got to choose, I would choose this fund as my legacy," he said.
"In the grand order of things, it is more important. But the business got us here."
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
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