Former Skillman, Flinn foundations leader Leonard Smith was 'determined,' 'gentle'

When attorney Daniel Goodenough died in the early 1970s, his law partner Leonard Smith inherited his clients, including a wealthy widow named Rose Skillman, whom Goodenough had helped to start a small foundation to contribute to children’s charities.

Then, with Skillman’s death in 1983, her $180 million estate fell into Leonard Smith’s lap.

Smith, who died on Jan. 21 at age 89, faced the daunting task of building a foundation with no staff while protecting and building the foundation’s assets.

When Smith retired from the Detroit-based Rose Skillman Foundation in 1999, the foundation’s assets had grown to $620 million, allowing it to make grants of more than $25 million a year to countless children’s charities.

“He was a lawyer. He had no financial background, but he really learned about endowments. He learned about investments to make sure he was an excellent steward of the Skillman assets,” said Andrea Cole, whom Smith hired at age 22 and who soon became Skillman’s chief financial officer.

One of his first decisions was to engage the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to claw back about $2 million in excessive fees charged to the Skillman estate by a law firm and the trust department of a local bank, money he added to the Foundation's assets.

“He was an astonishing man, a pure soul,” said former Michigan congressman William Brodhead, who was among the first trustees of the Skillman Foundation. Skillman’s “affairs were tangled up in litigation and its programs were unfocused. Leonard dedicated himself to putting the Foundation’s affairs in order, focusing its program on the Detroit area and on meeting the needs of children at risk. He was the patient, persistent, unassuming, determined but gentle leader the Foundation needed in the early days.”

Initially, Smith hired a handful of young professionals to establish procedures for grant making, managing the organization’s assets, and developing the Foundation’s mission to improve outcomes for needy children, particularly in Detroit.

“He took pains to get to know the people he worked with, and empowered people,” said Kari Isaacson, then Kari Schlachtenhaufen, who succeeded Smith as Skillman’s president. “On his watch, the Foundation’s board and staff became racially diverse. Many Skillman staff went on to leadership roles at other philanthropies.

“The Foundation’s impact on children and youth and on Detroit is directly attributable to his leadership. He saw needs and vacuums as opportunities for action. He used grant making as a way of bringing people and communities together — to plan and achieve goals,” Isaacson said.

At the time, Michigan had no advocacy organization for kids. Smith was the driving force behind creating Michigan’s Children to advocate for better public policies impacting children.

He also brought the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count project to Michigan, focusing Skillman grants on breaking down the statewide Kids Count report by county.

Smith focused the Foundation on three major initiatives: sports and recreation, school reform and parenting education.

In the 1990s, Smith brought together distrustful parties dealing with juvenile justice — juvenile court judges, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, the state Department of Social Services and the Wayne County Executive — to solve problems at the old, dangerous and overcrowded Wayne County Youth Home. The result was a new, state-of-the-art juvenile detention facility and a system of helping delinquent kids in their homes and communities.

After Skillman, Smith turned his full attention to the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation named for childless siblings who were heirs to their parents’ considerable estate built from timber and mining interests in Minnesota.

Smith convinced the younger Ethel (Peggy) Flinn in 1976 to establish a living trust and charitable foundation to combine various family trusts and philanthropy. Peggy died in 1994, leaving her younger brother as sole heir.

James Flinn Jr. had developed schizophrenia while in college and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric residential unit attached to St. Joseph Hospital in Ypsilanti. Smith and a legal guardian visited Jim Flinn frequently and kept him abreast of the trust assets. After Jim Flinn expressed regrets about being unable to travel any more, Smith and the facility's psychiatric staff approved financing Flinn’s trips to Florida accompanied by two or three nurses, the University of Michigan’s home football games, and even trips to the Rose Bowl to watch the Wolverines.

When he died in 2007, the sizable Flinn estate was transferred to the Foundation, increasing its assets considerably.

Smith was a savvy investor of those assets. Today, the Flinn Foundation’s endowment is about $65 million, allowing it to make grants of more than $2 million per year to improve mental health outcomes for children and adults in Michigan.

“He thought all kids should have a shot at being successful in life,” said Cole, who was recruited to the Flinn Foundation by Smith and who is now the foundation’s president and CEO. “I think he saw the impact of poverty and racism on kids who didn’t have the kind of resources that his own children had. I loved that about Leonard.”

Besides developing the Skillman and Flinn Foundations, Smith was a former board member of the Council of Michigan Foundations; Michigan’s Children; the Youth Sports and Recreation Commission of Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park; the Grosse Pointe Park Foundation; the Schools of the 21st Century Corporation; and a former member of the Detroit Youth Commission, Wayne State University’s Skillman Center for Children, New Detroit, Communities in Schools, the Community Leadership Council of United Way, and the investment committee of the Wayne State University Foundation.

In 1999, Smith described himself as an “avid sports fan and over-the-hill athlete.” He and his family skied regularly. He played squash and enjoyed in-line skating into his 60s. He had season tickets to the Detroit Red Wings and Michigan football games, and he also was a former president of Michigan Amateur Hockey.

Smith is survived by his wife of 63 years, Nancy; daughters, Deborah Smith, Susan Smith Geraghty and Elizabeth Smith; and four grandchildren. His son, Thompson Smith, died at age 35 in a 1999 car accident. A memorial reception will be held on Feb. 17 at the Country Club of Detroit, 220 Country Club Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms.

Asked in 1999 how a foundation can do more than simply give money away, Smith told the Free Press: “I think it’s a case where somebody has to be the glue so people will come to meetings. Somebody has to get out to the agencies, keep them focused on tasks, facilitate them moving toward an objective.”

Jack Kresnak is a former Detroit Free Press reporter. He was also the president and CEO of Michigan’s Children from 2008 to 2012 and has been a trustee at the Flinn Foundation since 2012.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Leonard Smith built up Skillman Foundation, created Flinn Foundation