Powering Through Disruption

The year 2020 was a wild ride for all of us —a year of disruption we navigated with entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with adaptability, resilience, and heart. In the midst of this daunting year, a wonderful thing happened that connected us to the essence and early life of our founder, Burt Morgan (1916-2003). In July, Burt’s daughter Suzanne Morgan, offered us a remarkable gift—the red and white aquaplane that Burt designed as a teenager growing up in Evanston, Illinois. In the summer of 1937, Burt and his friends pulled the aquaplane behind Burt’s father’s boat on Lake Michigan, charging a dime per ride—one of Burt’s early entrepreneurial ventures.

The story of the aquaplane has intriguing messages to reveal. Aquaplaning was a precursor to the sport of waterskiing, although aquaplanes created in the early 1920s were really just flat platforms and rudimentary in design. Studying the construction of Burt’s design, we can see the advancements he incorporated—concave braces that hold the boards of the aquaplane together. His design was carefully engineered to be curved and therefore aqua-dynamic and maneuverable—demonstrating the seeds of his career as an engineer and inventor.

Burt moved on to study mechanical engineering at Purdue University, graduating in 1938. His aquaplane was left behind in Evanston until years later when he located it on the front porch of an old friend and arranged to have it shipped to him. Indeed, barely visible on the surface of the aquaplane is the handwritten address for Burt’s home in Hudson, Ohio. The fact that Burt found his creation decades later and had it shipped to him speaks to the meaning of the aquaplane as a pivotal moment in his life as an engineer and entrepreneur.

To our team in a year dominated by a pandemic, social unrest, and disruption, the arrival of the aquaplane signified a message from our founder—a message of perseverance, innovation, and vision. Even long-established ways of doing things can be changed or enhanced. In 2020, we changed virtually every aspect of our operation, initially thinking these would be temporary adaptations, but soon realizing we were finding better ways of accomplishing our goals. Burt’s bravado and entrepreneurial spirit continue to guide and inspire us. While Burt’s aquaplane created more than 80 years ago displays a chipped and worn patina, its design symbolizes to us the can-do spirit of our donor. This indomitable spirit was our beacon as we navigated the challenges and disruptions of 2020.

Deborah D. Hoover
President & CEO

Adaptability

If one skill was paramount in 2020, it was adaptability. It has been said that adaptation is the way we learn to thrive in the world, and while the pandemic tested our mettle, we survived and thrived as we tackled the disruptions of the year. Our partners at Young Entrepreneur Institute morphed our region’s 2020 K-12 Enspire conference to become an all virtual event attended by hundreds of educators seeking to instill entrepreneurial thinking in their students. Deshpande Symposium, planned as a live event in Cleveland, evolved to become a highly successful virtual conference attracting close to 800 attendees from around the globe. University-based entrepreneurship programs found ways to connect students to redesigned virtual programming like the summer Side Hustle offered by Entrepreneurship Education Consortium.

Scalerator NEO, an intensive cohort-based educational program for growing companies, relies on peer-to-peer learning as a core feature. The program nimbly revamped its curriculum delivery to virtual, keeping the essence intact and discovering advantages and innovations that have enhanced the experience for companies and faculty alike. Similarly, University of Akron Research Foundation STRIDE Accelerator, providing comprehensive programming to hard tech entrepreneurs in Greater Akron, found that virtual delivery created time savings and efficiencies for busy entrepreneurs.

Morgan Foundation flexed its adaptive grantmaking skills, supporting the efforts of grantees to pivot, innovate, and serve the needs of the region’s entrepreneurs through the disruptions of 2020.

Heart

The best grants are developed through reliance on both head and heart. As the pandemic took hold in the spring of 2020, it became clear that the impact of its wrath was falling unequally on citizens of Northeast Ohio.  Morgan Foundation as a citizen of the region recognized its responsibility to bolster nonprofits supporting the basic needs of residents and swiftly awarded grants totaling $150,000 to several pooled funds. The Foundation also provided grants of $10,000 each to Kent State University and Akron MakerSpace to create personal protective equipment for healthcare professionals in Ohio. Finally, as social unrest escalated across our nation, the Foundation took another step in its racial equity journey to award $250,000 in grants aimed at combatting racial inequities and social injustice. Of this amount, $50,000 was allocated to 26 organizations designing racial equity training and awareness opportunities for their boards and staff.

Our Foundation team deepened its own racial equity understanding through participation in a racial equity learning community with valued colleagues in the Entrepreneurship Funders Network. We also explored racial equity themes in literature with the Books@Work program, enhancing our ability to see, interpret, and dismantle systems that lead to racial inequalities.

As we shared in our blog published by Philanthropy Ohio in summer 2020, “Our journey continues looping back on itself reinforcing lessons from the past, shining a brighter light on persistent problems that undermine inclusion and energizing us to forge ahead in pursuit of a more equitable world with meaningful opportunities for all ignited by entrepreneurial thinking and doing.”

Resilience

Resilience is a strength that helps us tame the unexpected challenges thrown in our path. As the year rolled on and the challenges of the global health crisis mounted, our team drew upon reserves of stamina and tenacity to chart our path forward. We kept our eye on our goals in pursuit of the Foundation’s entrepreneurial vision.  We worked with grantees to support small businesses through grants and loans, and to help all aspiring and practicing entrepreneurs see 2020 as a time to develop new skills and power through the crisis. 

Grants totaling $252,500 were awarded to support the needs of small businesses struggling to stay afloat and keep employees on staff, including $100,000 allocated from Morgan Foundation’s Fasenmyer Fund, a special endowment established by Richard J. Fasenmyer Foundation in 2018. The MORTAR program at Bounce Innovation Hub was just getting underway in service of the ideas and ventures of women and entrepreneurs of color when the pandemic unfolded. Nevertheless, the program persevered and found a way forward, successfully serving its first cohort of startups and founders. Hebrew Free Loan Association received a $50,000 grant to deliver emergency loans to small businesses in Northeast Ohio. NEOLaunchNET program staff on five Northeast Ohio college and university campuses, already set up to operate virtually, redoubled efforts to serve student entrepreneurs and their businesses.

While we will always regret the toll the pandemic has exacted on our world, the disruption has generated opportunities to learn, grow, and experiment, yielding innovations we will keep and resilience we will tap to face future adversity.