John F. Kennedy was in the White House, Russia was amassing missiles in Cuba and Bob Dylan had just released his debut album. It was 1962, and Eugene Struckhoff was a young lawyer in Concord, New Hampshire who was about to change the world in his own quiet way.
“Struck” was one of the key founders of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Over the next four decades, he would play a lead role in the founding of 140 community foundations across the country and as far away as in England, Japan and Australia. The foundations that Struck nurtured would become change-agents in communities from Baltimore, Maryland to Tacoma, Washington to Silicon Valley — providing scholarships for tens of thousands of students, convening people from different political persuasions and professional sectors to solve community problems together, and supporting efforts in everything from public health to environmental protection and economic development.
Struck would become known as the “Johnny Appleseed of community foundations.” He would also serve as president of the Council on Foundations, executive director of the Baltimore Community Foundation and co-director of the York Community Foundation in Pennsylvania.
We’re proud to honor him during Community Foundations week, and to honor him every day by doing the work that is his legacy.
Community Foundation Week was created in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush to recognize the important work of community foundations and their collaborative and innovative approach to working with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.