Utah Foundation

Utah Foundation provides the kind of reliable, non-partisan analysis thats crucial to sound decisionmaking by legislators and other public officials.

Matthew Mendez, Josh Vega, Joseph Powers, Tyler Gardner

Outline of Presentation
Preface: About Our NPO
1. Identifying the Need
2. Research & Objectives
3. Writing the History
a. The Men
b. The Money
c. The Mission
4. Conclusion/Q&A

About Our NPO

Utah Foundation
Non partisan research about issues in Utah.

Taxes
Environment
Immigration
Poverty
Public Services
Education
Security

Economy
Healthcare
Government Spending
Social Issues
Transportation
Many more . . .

Pt. 1: Identifying the Need

A Waking & A Forgetting

70 years without a formal
history, but lots of
documentation
Our Job: To use source
documents to write a
history the foundation can
use at the upcoming
banquet

Anniversary Banquet
Fundraising opportunities
Audience will consist of
Utah Foundation Board
Members, subscribers, and
donors
Diverse group spanning
politics, industry, and
public service

Structure: Breaking it Down

Men-Money-Mission divide
Answers major questions about origin
Calibrated to address an audience that will
consist of important people, with money,
who are searching for a mission.

Pt. 2: Research & Objectives

(Early U.F. publication ca. 1945)

Picking up the Parlance

Organizations culture has remained steady
Language establishes attitudes that support foundations
mission and foster cooperation
An example from a UF document:
o a vital need for a reliable source of information concerning
government in Utah--an agency to stimulate wider interest in and
discussion of government fiscal policies and administration--a
research agency upon which public officials, the press, business and
trade organizations, civic groups, and the general public can rely for
facts relating to public revenues and public expenditures, and their
relation to the economy of Utah. (U.F., Articles of Incorp., 1945)

Fact vs Narcolepsy
Archived Reports
Meeting Minutes
Personal Correspondence
Newspaper Editorials
Report Summaries
Outdated,
uncontextualized, hard to
read

From policies regarding crime and

security to Utahs water supply and
everything in between, the foundation
takes a nonpartisan stance on issues
that affect Utahns daily lives. This
stance has its roots in the foundations
very beginnings back in the late
summer of 1945. For the last four
years, Utah had been devoted to the
struggle against fascism. Then, like a
one-two punch, the war was over: Nazi
Germany officially surrendered on
May 8 and Imperial Japan followed
suit on August 15. In less than six
months, the whole world had
changed.

Matching Style to Need

The mission of Utah Foundation is
to promote a thriving economy, a
well-prepared workforce, and a high
quality of life for Utahns by
performing thorough, well-supported
research that helps policymakers,
business and community leaders, and
citizens better understand complex
issues and providing practical, wellreasoned recommendations for policy
change.

In 1945, Utah Foundation

announced its birth with a
report titled Vital as an Atomic
Bomb. If anything, time has
proven the foundations
pronouncement to be
underwhelmingthe
importance of atomic bombs
has faded over the years, but
Utah Foundations work
continues to make a splash
even 70 years later.

Pt. 3A: Writing the History

A.The Men
B. The Money
C. The Mission

The Men

Goals

Why it matters:
The founders were
virtually unknown to
the foundation today.

Convey notable
members importance
without detracting
from the importance of
others.

No cohesive story
about how the founders
were united.

Write in a casually
professional way.

The Men
Listing names tends to
lessen reader interest, but
was important in this
document.
Hard to list cherry-picked
names without lowering
importance of non-listed
names.

They were all known and

important businessmen in
their communities, some
names being George S.
Eccles -- then the CEO of First
Security Corporation and the
co-founder of George S. and
Dolores Dore Eccles
Foundation, Harold B. Lee -the 11th president of The LDS
Church . . . .

The Men
CASUALLY PROFESSIONAL:
Audience is professional, but paper
takes the form of a more casual
story.
Narrative

Audience Lingo
Charm Audience
Develop character and fulfill narrative.

The next steps were to put together

an organization of officers that would
produce research reports. | The
search for a Research Director was the
most tasking, due to the amount of
experience and knowledge
required. | Post was an economist
for the State Department, and,
according to Vandegrift, had plenty of
research experience to fill the position.
After some communication and an
election by the committee, Post
acquired the job.

Pt. 3B: Writing the History

A. The Men

B.The Money
C. The Mission

The Money
A significant topic: How
the organization was, is,
and will be funded is
important.
A sensitive topic:
Donations can imply
influence or bias.

Rhetorical goal:
Consider audience, word
choice, and structure to
accurately convey
significant information
with sensitivity.

The Money
Excerpt from document:
Utah Foundation President Stephen J. Hershey Kroes
remarked that the unique mission of the foundation for 70
years has won the support of a wide and varied group of
people including members of finance, industry, politics,
school boards, and universities. With such wide ranging
support the foundation is uniquely able to approach issues
with the goal of fact finding free from partisanship or
special interests.

The Money
Word choices/phrasing focuses on
achievements of foundation
Positively addresses contributions of donors
over the years
Emphasizes non-partisan mission
Unique with broad appeal, not partisan

Pt. 3C: Writing the History

A. The Men
B. The Money

C.The Mission

The Mission
Why this is important:

Much of the public is unaware

of the foundations overall
mission and all of its success.
The foundation wants to
inform them.
No clear cataloging of how
success has been achieved.

Primary goals
Focus on specific examples
of the foundations success
and descriptions of their
overall goals, and how the
two are related.
Catch: Promote the
foundation without creating
what sounds like a sales
pitch.

The Mission
Providing specific dates and
legislation names can be useful.
Demonstrates foundations
involvement
Provides legitimacy
Involves the audience

In 2005, the foundation found that Utah

held the nations highest incomepercentage devoted to education funding,
but also the nations lowest per-pupil
spending; and to top it off, average test
scores were falling. So in response, Utahs
Chamber of Commerce created
Prosperity 2020 to increase the focus on
education and individual students, which
in turn would hopefully lead to higher
success rates among all students by the
year 2020. Then two years ago the
foundation--supported by the Chamber-wrote a plan for Utahs transportation
funding, which included a stabilization of
gas prices. This led to the passing of
Transportation Funding, earlier this
year.

The Mission

foundations
focus on
the public

as Utah progresses, the foundation and its members set goals for
themselves and for the future of the state. The Utah Foundation wants
to be seen not as an ideological think tank, but as an organization
with resident experts on various issues such as public health,
education, social economics [poverty], and many more. But most
importantly, the foundation wants to see more public decisions that are
based on genuine data and analyses that people can trust. The Utah
Foundation wants to be the driving force that provides that information.

Pt. 4: Conclusion/Q&A

Conclusion
Writing the history for the Utah Foundation
turned out to be a more complex task than
we initially expected.
We constructed a document using various
rhetorical strategies to accurately convey
the history while meeting the needs of the
Foundation and our audience.

Q&A
Thank you for your time!
Feel free to ask any questions...