Senator Dole’s Mixed Role in His Charity

To the Editor:

As the first president of the Dole Foundation, I too felt a profound loss on seeing your article “Disability Groups Mourn Death of Dole Foundation” (July 16). In many ways I can say that Paul Hearne was the best thing that ever happened to the foundation; from the time I tapped him for the foundation’s Advisory Committee in 1984, it was clear he had a bigger contribution to make. Along with hundreds of others, I will also miss Paul’s friendship.

I have to admit I experienced some ambiguity regarding former Senator Robert Dole’s relationship to his foundation from the beginning. When he first diverted an honorarium of $10,000 to the foundation I thought we had tapped into a “cash cow,” but that was also the last gift we got from him during my tenure. He was willing to appear at events for the foundation, but he left it to me to ask. His involvement was cyclical, swinging between micromanagement and benign neglect.

On the other hand, I felt he set an early precedent that signaled his sincere commitment to the foundation’s purpose. He never suggested funding any pet projects of major contributors. The only “steering” he ever did was to ask that I try to find a worthy project in Kansas among the first round of grants we made, as a gesture of gratitude to his home community. He surely never needed that publicity to get re-elected.

It was hard slogging those first years, and I can attest to the special challenges of fund raising mentioned in your article. In addition to clarifying the political “firewall” and the lack of endowment, foundations and corporate givers had to be convinced that the Dole Foundation added value when compared to their giving directly to programs and projects.

Senator Dole was never easy to work for, but Paul had mastered the art of confrontation with him. Several times the Senator arbitrarily canceled board meetings on me, but Paul simply told him, “The meeting’s happening, and if you want to chair it, you’ll need to be there.”
Carl H. Rush
Family Health Foundation
San Antonio