The Knowlton's Ice Museum of North America and endowment fund may move to the Community Foundation of St. Clair County under the community foundation’s corporate umbrella according to The Times Herald in Port Huron.

The ice museum, located in downtown Port Huron, has one of the largest collections of ice tools in the U.S., depicting a time when most American households relied on ice delivery.

The Times Herald reported that the Knowlton family created their family foundation and museum in 2000 but now they’re working with the community foundation on making a transition.

“The community foundation is the right fit for our family’s charitable legacy,” Chuck Knowlton, Knowlton Family Private Foundation trustee told The Times Herald. “We have grown an endowment fund to be available to care for the ice museum collection in perpetuity and the foundation has the expertise, dedication and transparency we wanted as a family to be able to feel good about the transfer of not only millions in charitable assets but the museum collections as well.” 

Randy Maiers, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of St. Clair County told CMF this is another example of their approach to deepening donor relationships and their growing portfolio of place-based philanthropy.

“Our foundation long ago moved past the traditional mindset that we are here to create, manage and administer endowment funds. Placed-based philanthropy is so much more complex these days than just managing endowments,” Maiers said. “Today’s donors have complicated estates, assets and goals for carrying on their philanthropic legacy long after they are gone. Especially in more rural regions like ours, our foundation has often accepted the role of actively developing, owning and managing real property, buildings, land, etc., when we find it’s in the best long-term interests of our region’s growth and prosperity. We have a long history of blending arts, culture and placemaking into community and economic development strategies.”

Maiers shared that internally the community foundation does not advocate for annual fundraising or asset development goals or targets.

“We are a donor and community-centric organization; we never want donors or their advisors to feel like we are trying to close a deal and finalize a gift in order to meet arbitrary fundraising goals. This mindset leads to a more relaxed and genuine conversation and allows us to take our time to truly understand donor intent, as well as our own capacity to fulfill that donor intent before a contract is ever finalized.”

Maiers said that was the case with the Knowlton family. The community foundation began conversations with them in 2008, which led to them establishing endowment funds with the community foundation and opening the door to begin conversations about what to do with their assets in the future.

“Bringing the Knowlton Foundation and museum under our corporate umbrella is certainly a new challenge, yet our past experience owning a youth home, plaza courtyard, river walk and Art Studio 1219 gives us the confidence to accept this challenge,” Maiers said.