McGregor Foundation

MCGREGOR FOUNDATION

The McGregor Foundation, established in 2002 as a private grant making foundation, evolved from a history of more than 140 years of providing distinguished care for seniors through The McGregor Home.

The McGregor Foundation carries McGregor’s mission of supporting seniors in need and those who serve them Throughout all of Cuyahoga County, beyond the organization’s East Cleveland campus.

Our History

The history of McGregor dates back to one of Cleveland’s first private rest homes, the Home for Aged Women, The Amasa Stone House endowed in 1877.  Tootie McGregor, established The A.M. McGregor home in 1904 to honor her late husband Ambrose, a close associate of John D. Rockefeller.  The vision of The Gardens originated with the merger of these two fine institutions.  Construction started in 2001 and continued until February 2004 when the staff and residents of the two legacy facilities moved in.

Life at McGregor is safe, comfortable and convenient.  It’s a place to make memories.  So come and discover for yourself why so many love to call McGregor home.

The McGregor Foundation, established in 2002 as a private grant making foundation, evolved from a history of more than 125 years of providing distinguished care for seniors at the A. M. McGregor Home in East Cleveland and the Amasa Stone House in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland.

Tootie McGregor Terry founded The A.M. McGregor Home (McGregor) in 1904 in honor of her late husband, Ambrose, as a rest home for gentlewomen who could no longer care for themselves. Ambrose McGregor, a close associate of John D. Rockefeller, had served as president of Standard Oil of Ohio. In establishing the organization, Mrs. Terry donated the land owned by the McGregor family that now anchors the organization’s 32-acre East Cleveland campus and funded construction of the first Home. She also created a generous endowment to ensure continued longevity and success.

In 1987, The A.M. McGregor Home merged with another distinguished long-term facility, the Amasa Stone House, established by Mr. and Mrs. Amasa B. Stone in 1877. In February 2004, the residents and staff of the McGregor Home and the Amasa Stone House finally came together in a beautiful new nursing facility on the McGregor campus, The Gardens of McGregor & Amasa Stone.

In 1999, the McGregor Board of Directors adopted a new strategic direction for the organization to specifically focus on supporting seniors in need and those who serve them. The McGregor Foundation, with a separate Board and endowment, carries McGregor’s mission to all of Cuyahoga County beyond the organization’s East Cleveland campus. In addition, The A.M. McGregor Home will continue to own and operate senior housing and care facilities appropriate to the needs and means of the communities that they serve.

Affordable Housing

Central to McGregor’s mission is the commitment to support programs that allow older adults to age in place in their home.

Workforce Development

As the number of older adults in Cuyahoga County swells, it is vital to promote educational and training opportunities for professionals and paraprofessionals engaged in direct care of this special population.

Total Quality of Life

The human spirit is an integral part of healthy aging. The McGregor Foundation has a strong history of funding organizations that promote engagement in, and enjoyment of, art forms and recreation.

Community Projects

The ability to promote the interests of vulnerable seniors is central to McGregor’s mission.

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 Additional Information

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Dedicated to Supporting Cleveland’s Elders

The Foundation is an outgrowth of its parent program, The A.M. McGregor Home, a nonprofit provider of aging services and residential care and housing across the entire continuum of need. It has served vulnerable seniors in greater Cleveland for more than a century.

The Home began in 1877, when legendary Cleveland philanthropist Amasa Stone, an early supporter of John D. Rockefeller and the founders of Standard Oil, and his wife, Julia, built and endowed one of the first private organizations in Cleveland specifically for the care of seniors - the Home for Aged Women. The generosity of Ambrose M. McGregor, Rockefeller’s first employee, and his wife Tootie fueled subsequent growth.

From Service Provider to Foundation

The idea of creating a foundation began with a growing awareness among McGregor Board members that the McGregor Home could leverage its substantial endowment by expanding beyond the array of services the Home provided directly and funding other organization that shared McGregor’s mission. That idea was included in a new strategic plan developed in 1999.

Rob Hilton, president and chief executive officer of The A.M. McGregor Group, was board chairman at the time, and accepted the board’s invitation to lead the newly restructured and expanded organization. He has served in that capacity ever since.

The McGregor Foundation made its first grant in May 2002. Early on, much of its funding went toward research into affordable housing for seniors, and especially to support Robyn Stone’s work at the Leading Age Center for Applied Research, headquartered in Washington, DC.

In the 12 years since then Says Hilton, we’ve given more than $11 million in about 400 grants, most in the $1,000 to $50,000 range, and we continue to do that at a rate of $700,000 to $1 million per year. At the same time, we’ve nearly quintupled our direct care operations separate from our grant making.

Housing, Workforce, and Quality of Life

The Foundation’s grant making focuses on:

•    Helping provide economically disadvantaged and/or frail older adults with home and community-based care, primarily by building out the infrastructure and services to support affordable senior housing;
•    Encouraging workforce development through educational and training opportunities; and
•    Developing quality of life programming, primarily in the arts, for seniors in all settings.

Grantmaking in community-based care includes support for building affordable senior housing units through pre-development grants and program-related-investments (PRIs), as well as services that range from transportation, clinical, wellness, chore services, and cultural programs to the whole range of healthy housing concerns, such as asbestos and lead abatement and the installation of fire alarms, stair rails, bathroom grab-bars, and more.

In education and professional training, McGregor grants fund curriculum development in geriatric medicine, nursing, and social work, but also unique, innovative programs such as one that outfitted specialized classrooms for training in various aspects of gerontology. We outfitted a van as a dentist's office for Case Western University School of Dentistry Hilton says. They send this van into neighborhoods with high concentrations of low income seniors, and provide basic dental services. The van is staffed by several dental students and professors.

Quality of life grants have gone to programs such as the Cleveland TOPS Swingband Foundation for its community outreach; and Music and Performing Arts at Trinity Cathedral, Inc., for its Brownbag Concert Series at Trinity Cathedral; among many others.