Clark College Foundation

Clark College Foundation

Founded in 1973 and governed independently from Clark College, the Foundation funnels philanthropic capital into scholarships, campus infrastructure, and programmatic grants. Its core relationship is with the college itself, but named partners including the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Rivermark Community Credit Union, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and the Tod and Maxine McClaskey Family Foundation provide the donor base that drives distributions. CEO Calen D.B. Ouellette and CFO Daniel Rogers run day-to-day operations. CCF pursues a blended strategy spanning growth capital, venture fund commitments, buyouts, and secondaries. The endowment's real-asset footprint is unusually explicit for a community-college foundation: it owns the land under the Boschma Farms campus in Ridgefield, an Advanced Manufacturing Center there, commercial parcels at Fourth Plain and Fort Vancouver Way, a Columbia Tech Center facility in East Vancouver, and a residential property on 33rd Street. On the venture side, the Foundation participates in early-stage, seed, startup, and expansion-stage investments through both direct deals and fund-of-funds commitments. CCF participates in NACUBO-Commonfund endowment studies and is an active member of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The Foundation stewards several named philanthropic vehicles, including the Clark College Innovation Fund and the Clark College Student Success Fund. Its most visible campus asset is the McClaskey Culinary Institute, funded by the Tod and Maxine McClaskey Family Foundation, which operates alongside a Veterans Center of Excellence and a campus art collection that includes multiple installation works. The Foundation distinguishes itself by directly holding the commercial and mixed-use real estate that houses Clark College's satellite campuses. This hybrid endowment-operating company structure means CCF is a landlord to the institution it supports, giving it a dual posture rare among community-college foundations. The Boschma Farms land gift from Hank and Bernice Boschma exemplifies the model: the Foundation acquired the parcel, developed the campus, and now manages the asset while the college delivers programming.