Missouri
‘Champion of nonprofits’: John Baker to retire from Community Foundation of Central Missouri
John Baker, executive director of the Community Foundation of Central Missouri, in 2010 was feeling pastoral burnout from his duties as senior pastor at First Baptist Church.
“This is difficult,” Baker said of his decision to leave the church at the time. “Because you have lots of friends, there’s a lot of investment in time and heart and love. Whenever you leave a congregation, there’s always some pain even though there are good things to come.”
He soon would transition, though, in 2011 to head up the relatively new foundation, which aims to “facilitate philanthropy … (making) charitable giving easy, fun, accessible, and having impact.” He took on the directorship following Roger Still, who was in the role for about year.
“He did a lot of the groundwork to get the bylaws done and get things filed,” Baker said about Still.
Baker has led the foundation for 13 years and he recently announced his retirement, set for mid-April.
For eight of Baker’s 13 years as director, Susan Hart has served on the foundation board, and is its chair. Baker is committed to philanthropy in the community and that is his main mission, she said.
“John has built a legacy with the community foundation during his 13 years of tenure. He has put together a strong foundation for us to continue that growth. He will be missed, but we wish him well on his well-deserved retirement,” Hart said.
The foundation board already has started the search for its next director, she added.
A new career
Baker and his wife, Judy, first moved to Columbia in 1997 for the job at First Baptist Church, another role he was in for 13 years, but his overall pastoral career spans 30 years.
“After 30 years, I was just ready to engage in a new career,” Baker said. “A lot of clergy have periods of burnout and that is what I was facing.”
Baker ended up being a match for the community foundation role because much of the work of a minister relates to money, he said, such as through fundraising and stewardship. Related interpersonal skills give a person objectivity when working with others, he added.
Baker’s transition from the church to the foundation was a smooth one, he said, having learned of the foundation after a phone call from a friend. A couple days after that conversation, he had a call from the board, and a couple weeks after that he had the job.
“The way I looked at my leadership of the church was trying to get people to not just stay in the building in the realm of thought, but to move beyond the building and take their compassion, while doing the work of the church, into the community,” Baker said. “I do the same kind of thing with the community foundation, but with funding and not necessarily with people, except for leaders of organizations.”
Founding the foundation
The foundation was established first by the City of Columbia following a vision process from 2008-09, but such an organization was under discussion for at least a decade prior, Baker said.
“The goal at that time was increasing revenue for local nonprofits and what would make donors want to give,” he said. “The community foundation is this perfect vehicle that works both with donors and a way to get revenue to the nonprofits. It was a perfect solution to what people were looking for over the years.”
The foundation officially was established June 2010 and announced by November. When Baker came on as director it would advance to a federally recognized, rather than just a state recognized nonprofit, and expanded its scope from Columbia to instead encompass the central Missouri region.
The foundation currently aids nonprofits in five area counties (Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper and Randolph), though its region is upward of 10 counties, Baker said. Additional counties include Adair, Audrain, Howard, Macon and Moniteau.
“Anything that we do here in Boone County, we can do for those other counties,” Baker said, adding while the foundation takes an objective approach to nonprofit support, it does not aid hate groups or illegal activities.
The 501(c)(3) nonprofit designation happened in 2012 and a year later the annual giving campaign, CoMoGives, was established in December 2013.
“We have been able to funnel lots of money into the local nonprofit sector,” Baker said about services offered by the foundation. “We can’t track every dollar that has stayed local. That is beyond our accounting abilities because our broad array of services.”
This includes donor-advised funds, which are invested over a longer term and then the foundation is told to which nonprofit the funds should go. For nonprofits or others seeking to establish philanthropic foundations, the community foundation can help those organizations or individuals do the necessary legwork and paperwork involved by establishing a fund through the community foundation. It takes some of that headache away.
“A family that has assets that wants to do something to create a legacy, they don’t necessarily have to create their own foundation. They can create a donor-advised fund with the community foundation and it will act as the charitable focus for that family,” Baker said.
Apart from nonprofits establishing funds with the foundation, it also can provide direct grants. In 2022 about $4.4 million was distributed and 2023 also has seen an impressive year, Baker said.
The direct granting window of community support grants or impact grants from the community foundation usually opens in June, closes in August and awards are provided afterward.
Post-retirement plans
In the initial two weeks following his official end date at the foundation, Baker plans to take it easy. After that, he already has many ways in which he can keep busy.
“I’m a hobbyist. I have lots of hobbies. … I’m kind of a scientist at heart and I like to learn things. What this has resulted in is a quest to do well at what I do and to learn. I’m a woodworker, a beekeeper, a beer brewer, a musician of sorts and an audiophile. I love to garden.
“I don’t think I’ll have any trouble filling my time.”
Baker and his wife, also plan to travel in May. Following that, he plans to explore volunteer opportunities or a part-time job he may want to undertake “to continue to contribute to the world around me,” Baker said.
Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.
Missouri
Missouri Lawmakers Weigh How To Spend Marijuana Revenues That Regulator Says Continue To ‘Outpace Expectations’
“The funds available for the ultimate beneficiaries of the cannabis regulatory program continue to outpace expectations.”
By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent
As Missouri lawmakers debate the $47.9 billion state budget, they are also deciding how to spend an unexpectedly large chunk of cash from sales taxes collected from marijuana dispensaries.
The nearly $86 million paid by recreational cannabis users is constitutionally required to be divided up evenly between funds benefiting veterans, public defenders and programs that prevent substance use disorders.
“Due to a strong cannabis market and effective, efficient regulation of that market,” Amy Moore, director of the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation, told The Independent this week, “the funds available for the ultimate beneficiaries of the cannabis regulatory program continue to outpace expectations.”
In February, Moore told the House budget committee that each fund could receive $28.6 million in the various budget bills debated this spring.
So far, the full $28.6 million has made it into budget legislation for both veterans and substance use disorder programs. Part of it will help fund new partnerships with the state courts, public schools and other providers to support children’s mental health.
The Missouri Veterans Commission will receive an additional $13 million from medical marijuana money as well, and its total $41.6 million will go towards the operational needs and potential repairs for the state’s seven veterans homes.
However, the House has approved only $15.3 million for the public defenders system so far.
State lawmakers have the authority to decide whether to withhold the money, even though they can’t spend it anywhere else.
The public defender’s office, for example, had hoped to use some of the cannabis money to increase their attorneys’ starting pay from $65,000 per year to $70,000. That would align the salary with the attorney general’s office entry-level pay.
“There’s a huge cost to employee turnover,” said Mary Fox, director of the Office of Public Defender, during a budget committee hearing last month, “and where we see that employee turnover is in years one through three, which is why that is where I would like to bring them in line with the attorney general salary.”
That $2.5 million request was shot down in the House, despite the funds being available. During a budget committee hearing, she also asked for $4 million to hire 45 full-time social workers to expand the agency’s holistic defense program, which employs social workers to connect clients with community resources.
For several years, the system suffered from having long waitlists to get legal representation, which resulted in a successful lawsuit against the state.
State Rep. John Voss, a Republican from Cape Girardeau and a budget committee member, pushed to add $1.6 million for pay raises and $1.2 million to hire 20 social workers.
The $1.2 million was added, but the pay raises were not.
“These attorneys represent the poor in our state, and they deserve the best representation that we can provide to them,” said Voss, during a budget committee meeting last month. “In terms of the holistic defense mitigation specialists, I believe that we’re actually investing in ways to prevent people from becoming incarcerated again, and we will wind up saving money across the entire state budget.”
Overall, Voss said part of the reason the public defenders’ total allocation is less than the two other funds is because about $11.7 million was included in budget legislation that required the funds to be spent by June—and the public defenders weren’t poised to do that.
That money goes back to a fund in the Missouri Treasury to be appropriated to the public defenders in pending legislation, Senate Committee on Appropriations Chair Lincoln Hough told Independent last month.
“The money isn’t reallocated,” he said. “It stays dedicated to the public defender. The money is still sitting there and will be allocated in the operating bills.”
After the House votes to approve the bills, likely next week, Hough’s committee will debate them. While the House may not have included the public defenders’ requests for salary raises, the Senate has the ability to add more money back in before May.
“The public defender will be taken care of in the operating bills,” Hough said. “It generally takes right up until the constitutional deadline to get these things done. And so we’ll have plenty of discussion on this.”
This story was first published by Missouri Independent.
States Collected More Than $9.7 Billion In Marijuana Tax Revenue Since Mid-2021, Federal Census Bureau Reports
LEXINGTON, Mo. (KCTV) – A motorcycle driver is recovering in an area hospital after he sustained serious injuries when he ran into a deer on a highway just outside of Lexington.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol indicates that around 4:40 p.m. on Friday, March 28, emergency crews were called to the area of Missouri Highway 224 and Myrick Rd. with reports of a motorcycle crash.
When first responders arrived, they said they found a 20-year-old Odessa man had been headed west on a 2013 Suzuki motorcycle when he collided with a deer on the highway.
During the crash, State Troopers indicated that the driver had been thrown from the bike. He was taken to Centerpoint Regional Medical Center with serious injuries.
Investigators noted that it remains unknown if the driver was wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The bike was totaled as a result.
No further information has been released.
Copyright 2025 KCTV. All rights reserved.
Tony Hawk Hopes Enthusiasm for Vert Skating Can Bring it Back to Olympics
Rubio Says He Has Revoked 300 or More Visas in Trump’s Deportation Push
Ghosts in the Kinect
Trump threatens to bomb Iran unless they end nuclear weapons program and begin talks on new deal
Trump says Zelenskyy wants to back out of mineral deal, addresses 3rd term during gaggle
-
News1 week agoHow a Major Democratic Law Firm Ended Up Bowing to Trump
-
Education1 week agoICE Tells a Cornell Student Activist to Turn Himself In
-
News1 week agoWere the Kennedy Files a Bust? Not So Fast, Historians Say.
-
News1 week agoDismantling the Department of Education will strip resources from disabled children, parents and advocates say | CNN
-
News6 days agoWashington Bends to RFK Jr.’s ‘MAHA’ Agenda on Measles, Baby Formula and French Fries
-
Politics1 week agoStudent loans, Pell grants will continue despite Education Department downsizing, expert says
-
News4 days agoTrump Is Trying to Gain More Power Over Elections. Is His Effort Legal?
-
Politics1 week agoEXCLUSIVE: Groundbreaking new prayer book designed for demographic most targeted for abortion