January 4, 2016
The Community Foundation of New Jersey mourns the loss of James C. Kellogg, whose extraordinary vision and diligent stewardship of the Foundation as its president from 1994 to 2003 fundamentally transformed our mission, expanded our reach, and deepened our impact.
Jim, as he was known to the many people who called him a friend, passed away on December 31st, having lived a full life of community giving and philanthropy.
Dynamic Leadership for the Community
We were pleased to recognize Jim at our 35th Anniversary Celebration in September 2015, when we shared the story of Jim’s hiring and initial years as president:
After tasking a search firm with identifying a new president, the Foundation hired Jim Kellogg, a practicing attorney in New York City whose term as a director at Prudential had just ended.
As Jim Kellogg remembers it, “it was a good time for me to think about another career that was closer to my home in Short Hills. And leading the Community Foundation was very desirable at the time given its obviously bright future.”
As president, Jim leveraged his background in finance to grow the Foundation’s assets, a signature achievement during his tenure. With favorable tax laws and a strong stock market, several key initiatives led to this increase in funds.
First, Jim encouraged people to contribute their appreciated stock through donor advised funds to save on the capital gains tax. A change in the federal tax laws at that time made private foundations less attractive for charitable giving; as a result, assets in CFNJ’s donor advised funds doubled in one year.
Next, Jim had CFNJ purchase at least one share of stock in each of the publicly held companies based in New Jersey. As a stockholder, Jim would appear on behalf of the Foundation at the companies’ annual meetings, and ask a question about – or more likely make a pitch for – donor advised funds, and how they may grow with one’s stock earnings.
Because of these and other revenue-generating efforts, Jim Kellogg increased the foundation’s assets during his first two years as president from $10 million to $25 million. When he retired, assets were more than $90 million.
Dedication to the City of Elizabeth
Among Jim’s many personal and professional achievements, he may be remembered most for his unwavering commitment and support for his beloved City of Elizabeth.
On December 9th, Jim joined CFNJ staff at the Jerome Dunn Academy, an Elizabeth public school, to see firsthand the science experiments of three teams of students competing for a spot for their experiments on the next space mission. More than 100 students participated in the overall science competition.
Jim’s generous support of the program not only renewed students’ enthusiasm for science, technology, engineering, and math, but also made it possible for one lucky team’s experiment to orbit the Earth.
Jim was in rare form that day in Elizabeth, recalled CFNJ staff who helped coordinate the event. He regaled students with a history of their shared hometown and challenged everyone present to seize every learning opportunity and work every day to make their community a better place.
After all, it’s what Jim did every day of his extraordinary life.