Dekko Foundation History

The Dekko Foundation was started by Chester E. (Chet) Dekko, an entrepreneur who made his home in northeast Indiana and did business in Alabama, Indiana and Iowa. In the early 1980’s Mr. Dekko realized that he could make a very positive impact on those communities by starting a charitable foundation. He set the Foundation’s enduring mission as: to foster economic freedom through education. The Dekko Foundation was incorporated on December 31, 1982.

Mr. Dekko was especially impressed by the good that could be done through small grants placed in the hands of grassroots people that were dedicated to their community. He was determined that the Dekko Foundation would help people in the small communities develop grassroots initiatives. It was important to him that the Foundation would help the communities help themselves—not do things for them.

The year 1992 was very significant in the life of the Dekko Foundation because Mr. Dekko passed away in September. Because he had planned for his business and financial assets to come to the Foundation upon his death, the Foundation entered a period of intense financial, staff and program growth Since his death, Mr. Dekko’s children (C.E. (Tad) Dekko, Lorene Dekko Salsbery and Erica Dekko) serve as the board of directors of the Foundation. The board determined that the Foundation would continue to work in the communities where Mr. Dekko did business during his lifetime. Those communities include:

  • In Alabama: Limestone County.
  • In Florida: Collier County.
  • In Indiana: DeKalb, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben and Whitley Counties.
  • In Iowa: Clarke, Decatur, Lucas, Ringgold, and Union Counties.
  • In Minnesota: The community of Ada.

Using their father’s mission as a guide, the board chose to focus the Foundation’s grantmaking on young people ages 0-18. They further focused the Foundation’s grantmaking in three targeted areas that they believed would be most likely to lay the groundwork for young people to develop economic freedom. Those areas were:

  • Quality early childhood education.
  • Child-centered education.
  • The sustainability of youth-serving asset building organizations.

. Significant among those charitable projects were:

  • Capital campaigns for libraries, YMCA’s and other organizations that serve young people.
  • Capital campaigns for community parks and recreation areas where families can go to spend quality, asset building time with their children.
  • Operating support for organizations that promote positive youth development
  • Materials, equipment and training for public and private schools..
  • Support to build the endowment of community foundations.

The Dekko Foundation is unique among young foundations in its choice to be proactive with its grantmaking very early in its existence. (Proactive grantmaking is when a foundation’s board or staff identifies a problem or opportunity within its grantmaking areas and uses grant funds strategically to address the situation). Key early proactive grants for the Dekko Foundation include:

In 1994 the Foundation launched a proactive initiative designed to teach young people to be volunteers and philanthropists in their communities. Now called Youth Pods, this initiative continues today with organizations in each of the counties that the Foundation serves and impacting more than 180 young people each year. To date, this program has served nearly 500 young people.
These young philanthropists use their skills as employees, volunteers and board members of nonprofit organizations in the communities where they live.

The Foundation began another important proactive and long-term program in 1996. This initiative was designed to improve the quality of early childhood education in its grantmaking areas. Now called the TriUMPH program, the Foundation invests in the sustainability of childcare centers and preschools and works to build the child dev elopement knowledge of their staffs. This program continues today in all of the Foundation’s grantmaking areas, setting the bar higher and higher for quality environments and interactions for our youngest citizens.

Ten years into this program the Foundation can point to better-run centers that have the financial ability to offer consistency and quality to the parents and children they serve. At this time, 7 centers have achieved accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Five additional centers expect to soon receive word of their accreditation. Hundreds of childcare teachers have completed the requirements for their Child Development Associate’s certificate—meaning that they understand how children develop and how to apply that learning in a childcare setting to promote a positive developmental environment.

In 2002 the Foundation began a formal program to help build the capacity of organizations that promote positive youth development. Called Grantmaking for Consulting and Technical Assistance, this program offers expert guidance and education for organizations that want to improve their sustainability and the effectiveness of their programs for children.

By year end 2005 the Dekko Foundations endowment totaled $238 million and grant investments reached $11.2 million. The Foundation staff had eight members. Looking into 2006 the Foundation had plans to launch Before5, one of its most important and ambitious initiatives to date. Before5 is a grassroots communication campaign aimed at helping parents understand how their 0-5 aged children develop. The Foundation’s goal in this program is to positively impact child development.