Cook: Under trees we did not plant: the lessons of Pete Cooper

Pete Cooper, left, and Alison Burke discuss issues in the Chattanooga community in this 2010 file photo.
Pete Cooper, left, and Alison Burke discuss issues in the Chattanooga community in this 2010 file photo.

Back in the late '80s, Pete Cooper was on his way to the top. He was a senior vice president for a local bank, with a corner office, and barely older than 40.

So he did the obvious.

He walked away from it all.

"I left for less money to take over a foundation with no office or telephone," Cooper said.

Now, 25 years later, the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga has become a cornerstone of our city, having given away, by some estimates, upward of $250 million to various causes since its inception. (In the last 10 years, the foundation has awarded $161 million). It puts Cooper at the center of a marvelous marriage between local money and compassion, between those with plenty and those trying to survive.

It also reaffirms the hunch he had some 25 years ago about what life is really about.

"People," he said, "more than prestige."

photo David Cook

Cooper will retire in December. A few weeks ago, he took out a yellow legal pad and began writing down some of the lessons he's learned over the years as president of the Community Foundation.

So far, he's at 23 lessons.

Here are some of them:

* Be like Scotty Probasco.

"He was a cheerful giver, beyond belief," Cooper said. "He was the model of how to get joy from philanthropy."

* Great wealth can cut both ways. It can isolate and burn, making a person bitter, inward or angry.

"Or you can use it to be gracious, kind, generous and supportive to others," he said.

* A new form of philanthropy is emerging. Instead of the old model of philanthropy existing as a small group of multimillionaires, the future philanthropists will be more younger, more digitized, and more interested in both global and local issues.

"The next generation of givers won't just be the 50- and 60-year-olds, but the 30-year-olds," Cooper said.

* Philanthropy should be holistic.

If you're working to reduce truancy in the 12th grade, you have to go to the roots of the problem. In other words, affecting 12th-grade truancy may mean introducing a reading program in elementary school.

"Don't look at things myopically," Cooper said. "Have a big understanding of the problem."

* Good philanthropists should be three things.

"Compassionate, honest and thankful," Cooper said.

Thankful for whom?

"Thankful for all the people who make it work. Not just big donors or this staff who work religiously, but the grandmother in East Chattanooga who opens her living room every afternoon for kids to come do homework," he said.

* Wisdom comes from all sectors of society.

* And don't make decisions on behalf of people you've never met. Talk to people. Real people. About what they need, not what you think they need.

"None of us are insightful enough to know everything about every level of society. We have to rely on the wisdom of others," he said.

* More important than a strong leader, nonprofits need a strong board.

"The single strongest factor in determining the success of any nonprofit is the strength and engagement of the board," he said.

* Society is more fragile than we realize.

"Most families are one paycheck away from insolvency," Cooper said.

A sickness. A car wreck. One moment can bring down the entire financial structure of a family, which also mirrors our national fragility; imagine, Cooper said, what would happen if a cyberattack took down servers across the nation?

We are more fragile than we realize.

Which means we are more dependent on one another than we realize.

Which leads us to my favorite Cooper lesson of all.

* We are all philanthropists to one another.

"Philanthropy is not just people who write million-dollar checks," he said. "It is people who give what they have, where they are, to make the world better."

Over the years, Cooper has witnessed thousands of acts of generosity; he has seen the flesh and bones of the old truth: it is better to give than receive. Wherever he goes, he sees what many of us don't.

"We all sit under trees we did not plant," he said.

Years ago, he was teaching a Sunday school class to teenagers. He took them out to hike along a wooded trail. The trail was sturdy, clear, beautiful.

He asked them: what do you see?

Birds, and trees, they said. The creek.

There's more, he answered.

"The [Works Progress Administration] came through here in the 1930s and built this trail," he told them. "It was all built by people who came before you. Every day, you walk on trails you did not build and probably don't even notice. Your schools. Your churches. We are all blessed in so many ways. If you look for it, you'll see it."

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCook TFP.

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