[A]s former Vermont Gov. James Douglas tells the story, David Rahr had worked four comfortable years as Middlebury College’s development director when a group of peers had the audacity to ask the school official to leave his job and lead the formation of a statewide charitable fund.
“I remember thinking, ‘A secure job at the college for a startup venture? Wow, he’s taking a risk.’”
Douglas wasn’t surprised when Rahr turned the resulting Vermont Community Foundation into the state’s largest philanthropic organization. But he did raise an eyebrow when, asking the fund to help with Addison County education efforts, Rahr responded by pulling out his own checkbook.
“He made a very generous personal commitment that was above and beyond the call of duty,” Douglas recalls. “I thought, ‘Gosh, if he does this with everyone, he’ll be impoverished.’”
Instead, Rahr found great payoff as the organization’s first executive director, friends recall. Rahr died last week at the age of 79.
“Dave’s story is one that really highlights the growth of an increasingly important philanthropic community in Vermont,” former colleague Glenn McRae says. “He certainly contributed a lasting legacy to the state and is an inspiration for so many who continue to do such work.”
Rahr, born in Illinois in 1938, came east to attend Princeton University, where he graduated in 1960 before going on to serve two decades in a series of administrative posts at the school. Bringing his skills to Middlebury College in 1982, he left five years later to help launch the foundation.
“We started from scratch,” Rahr recalled in a 2011 video retrospective. “We worked at desks of pieces of plywood between two-drawer file cabinets.”
Scraping together an initial $70,000 budget, Rahr went from serving as the foundation’s only full-time employee to signing on hundreds of charitable contributors who understood the potential of combining individual resources into a statewide collaborative.
“Dave helped support the efforts to strengthen nonprofits, from small history groups to significant human services, giving them access to tools and trainings,” says McRae, now a staffer at the University of Vermont. “He really empowered a lot of people to do a lot of good.”
By the time Rahr retired in 2003, the foundation had more than a dozen employees and assets of nearly $100 million — a figure that has grown to $250 million, allowing the organization to fund $12 million in local and state projects annually.
“In the 30-year history of the Vermont Community Foundation, no figure plays a more central role than David Rahr,” current leader Dan Smith wrote this past week in a web post titled “The Luminosity of a Founder.”
But when friends and colleagues are asked what they remember most about Rahr, they don’t cite professional facts or figures. Instead, they speak of his personal nature.
“Dave and I were not on the same ideological wavelength,” says Douglas, Republican governor from 2003 to 2011, “but he was someone I always respected a great deal because of his friendship, congeniality and down-to-earthness.”
Take the retired politician’s unsuccessful 1992 bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.
“After that I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Douglas recalls. “Dave probably didn’t vote for me, but he reached out to talk about possibilities. It felt good that he cared enough to brainstorm.”
Rahr also lightened the mood whenever he saw Douglas’ wife, a dental hygienist.
“She says he was fun because he always came in with a new joke,” says Douglas, who taught Rahr’s grandson this past term in his Middlebury College class “Vermont Government and Politics.” “Dave was just a good, decent guy.”
Rahr will be remembered April 28 with a celebration of life in Old Lyme, Conn., where he spent his last years. He’ll also be recognized Sept. 13 at the annual meeting of the foundation, which continued to benefit from his guidance.
Smith, for example, received an email from his predecessor when he took the helm of the Vermont Community Foundation in 2016.
“I remember my first day,” Rahr wrote. “To make sure the phone rang, I asked my wife to call me at least once a morning and again in the afternoon! I’m sure your day is a lot fuller, and that you are as charged I was with the opportunity to have a real and relevant impact on Vermont and its communities.”
“You,” Rahr added, “are in for a great ride.”
