From a Mitt to a Mission: How a Small Partnership Can Grow into a Million-Dollar (soon a Two-Million Dollar) Idea

As the president of the California Masonic Foundation, I’m always on the lookout for ways to expand the impact of the charitable programs we support. At our foundation, which was founded in 1969 and is supported by the nearly 40,000 Masons in California, it’s important for us to make sure that every dollar we raise is being stretched as far as it can go.

One of my favorite programs is called Masons4Mitts. When it comes to Masons4Mitts, one of our most important and high-profile fundraising efforts, partnerships were the key to extending our reach—and sense of purpose.

Today, Masons4Mitts is among our most successful charitable efforts. But it started small. In 2008, during a round of golf with John Gumas, the former chairman of the Giants Community Fund board of directors, we started batting around an the idea for a philanthropic collaboration with a big-league partner.

Now, a decade and a half later, we’ve passed $1 million in fundraising for the Giants Community Fund—and we’ll likely pass $2 million this year in what has become a statewide effort involving four Major League Baseball charities.

So, how did we turn that little kernel of an idea—honestly just a thinking-out-loud brainstorm—into a statewide program affecting nearly 100,000 disadvantaged young people in four major markets, while simultaneously becoming one of our organization’s most eagerly anticipated annual campaigns? I think there are four key answers that can be useful to any philanthropic organization. But more on that later.

Let’s start with a little bit of background: When we were first teeing up what would eventually become Masons4Mitts, we knew we wanted to work with the Giants Community Fund, the charitable arm of the San Francisco Giants. Who wouldn’t? The Giants are a beloved local institution, and many of our members are already big baseball fans. We soon learned about the Community Fund’s signature effort, the Junior Giants, a series of free, noncompetitive youth baseball and softball leagues held throughout Northern California to serve 25,000 mostly disadvantaged kids each summer.

In addition, Junior Giants offers educational programs for kids who might not otherwise be able to participate in summer camps like many kids from better resourced communities can. Our historic support for public educational programs made this the perfect fit. In the end, the partnership just clicked. 

Of course, the Giants Community Fund was thrilled to welcome a new philanthropic partner to support the Junior Giants. But we wanted to go beyond simply writing a check. In true Masonic spirit, we wanted to know how we could best be of service. The answer to that has since become one of our members’ most galvanizing efforts.

When we first met Sue Petersen, Paul Giuliacci and Cassandra Hofman, the president and key leadership staff of the Giants Community Fund, they explained that more than half of the kids who show up for Junior Giants leagues don’t have the basic equipment to play the game. What they needed most were mitts. They shared that not having a mitt can stigmatize kids and leave them less likely to fully participate in their full range of life-changing programs. 

That’s all we needed to hear. By the start of the 2009 season, we had our pitch ready to go. For every $20 our members donated to the new campaign, we’d provide a young person in need with a brand-new, custom leather baseball mitt with the Masons of California’s insignia embossed on it. That first year, we raised just over $27,000 (mostly in $20 increments) simply by simply passing the hat at our members’ monthly lodge meetings. It was enough for 1,300 mitts. Two years later, we doubled that total. Two years after that, we nearly doubled it again.

 In 2015, we brought Masons4Mitts to Southern California, teaming up with the Nichol T. Whiteman and Tiffany Rubin at the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation Dream Team and Tom Seidler, Sarah Wiggins and Bill Johnston at the San Diego Padres’ Rookie League. Then, in 2018, we added David Smith and Los Angeles Angels’ RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner-Cities) leagues. Now we were having fun.

In 2022, we set fundraising records in each of our four MLB partner markets, raising more than $280,000 for kids in the four leagues. That September, we also passed $1 million in all-time gifts to Junior Giants, and as we finished the season, we stood at $1.8 million in gifts statewide—setting us up to cross the $2 million threshold early this season.

For us, those are significant numbers. We have become either the largest or among the largest annual supporters of these four important summer programs. Our gifts have translated into an opportunity to learn and play the game for nearly 100,000 kids.

But it’s actually bigger than that. For those kids, it’s not just about bats and balls. It’s about having an enriching summer experience during a time when many kids—particularly those in disadvantaged communities— can experience an academic “summer slide.” These programs teach more than baseball. The Junior Giants, for instance, has grown to include programming about anti-bullying, literacy, sportsmanship, nutrition, health, and education. The Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation' DREAMTEAM program even includes an emphasis on health and vision testing, and college readiness.

That “bigger than baseball” idea was never clearer than in 2020, when COVID-19 forced the cancelation of many youth sports seasons. Rather than sit back and wait it out, we were able to bring our favorite charitable partners together to create a new program. Working with our four MLB partners and the children’s literacy nonprofit, Raising A Reader, led by CEO Michelle Torgerson, we funded more than 7,000 Super Summer Book Bag giveaways, full of expert-vetted, age-appropriate reading and education materials sourced from Raising a Reader and distributed through all four Major League Baseball youth leagues.

It’s been a rare “win-win-win.” For kids, Masons4Mitts is an incredible resource that allows them access to wonderful programs and life lessons. For our members, Masons4Mitts (and the head-to-head team fundraising competition it fosters) is a rallying cry that animates us each summer. And for our foundation, it’s a chance to make our impact felt more broadly, identify and recruit new leaders from our members’ ranks, and align ourselves with larger and trusted mission-driven organizations.

OK, now for the part you can steal.

When most organizations are looking to launch a new program, the natural first question is: “What do we want to do?” The “what” very often becomes the foundation from which all other conversations flow. In this case, instead of starting with “what” we wanted to do, we reverse-engineered our process to bring our “why” and “who” to the forefront.

In developing the Masons4Mitts program, we followed four very simple steps, which now guide how we approach all impact-based programs and partnerships.

1)   Establish Your “Why” & Key Area of Impact: Our very first step was to establish with great clarity what we valued as the California Masonic Foundation. We examined our core principles and identified areas where we wanted to make a difference. In this instance, that area was support for disadvantaged youth.

2)   Find Like-Minded Organizations: From there, we needed to identify our who: other organizations who could help us to build a powerful network to increase access to educational opportunity. We needed to find organizations that were looking for ways to leverage their existing infrastructure to make an impact in the same areas we were. We also wanted a partner where our support would make a meaningful difference. Ultimately, that search led us to the Giants Community Fund and Junior Giants - then eventually three more Major League Baseball charities in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County.

 3)   Find Synergies: Our partnership started with a very simple conversation about core principles, existing programs, needs, and potential areas for alignment. Then and only then did we recognize the opportunity that existed within the Junior Giants program. We loved that Junior Giants provided a way for kids to learn, stay healthy, and develop literacy skills in a fun and engaging environment. And as an organization that values equitable education, we were eager to eliminate any barriers that might stand in the way of participation.

 4)   Have Fun! Why is this important? Because programs like this, which depend so heavily on volunteer passion, can run their course if they are not carefully stewarded, graciously acknowledged… and fun to do! Simply put, we have had a lot of fun. We also have great relationships with our MLB partners, who care about the same things we do. In the end, however, what keeps us going are smiles on kids’ faces, the thrill of the competition, and the knowledge that we are making a difference in the lives of kids across the state. Our success with these four partners has also opened the door to more programs and initiatives, such as the Johnny Ritchey Scholarship partnership with the Padres Foundation and our local college success partner, Reality Changers, led by Tamara Y. Craver.

Some may say this could be a case study for designing successful CSR programs, or for rallying key donors around a central cause. But we believe the most important lesson to be learned here is the power of identifying and creating partnerships built on common goals and core values. We appreciate our partners a great deal. Their success is our success.

Learn more about Masons4Mitts at masonicfoundation.org or Freemasonry at freemason.org

#philanthropy #fundraising #education #childdevelopment #partnerships #sportsbusiness #sports