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Helen M. Clabough Charitable Foundation
The Helen M. Clabough Charitable Foundation was established to preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources, drawing its capital from the Clabough...
Helen M. Clabough Charitable Foundation
The Helen M. Clabough Charitable Foundation was established to preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources, drawing its capital from the Clabough family wealth. Frank B. Gibb III serves as Director and Trustee alongside his role as legal counsel through the firm Gibb & Spainhour, P.C., where fellow trustee Carole Spainhour is a partner. The family connection runs deep — trustees Tom Clabough and Kathryn Taylor Clabough co-own Nancy P's Bakery & Specialty Produce, while Lila Taylor Clabough rounds out the five-member board. The foundation maintains its headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Grantmaking concentrates on two distinct geographic anchors: the North Carolina High Country and Oregon's Deschutes County. Programming spans environmental stewardship, education, arts and culture, and social services — a classic community-foundation mix, executed through a single-family philanthropic structure. The foundation's investment posture is conservative by design, with assets held in a corporate stock and bond portfolio alongside a two-story brick warehouse in Richmond — a direct real estate holding that supplements the liquid portfolio. No fund commitments or external manager relationships are publicly documented. The foundation operates without a disclosed professional investment staff, relying on its trustee board for both governance and capital allocation decisions. Tom Clabough maintains external ties through the Rotary Club of Rockford and donor support for the Natural Land Institute, connections that may inform the foundation's environmental grantmaking in its target geographies. The family's operating business — Nancy P's Bakery & Specialty Produce — sits adjacent to the philanthropic structure, though no formal integration between the foundation and the bakery's cash flows is publicly detailed. What distinguishes the Clabough Foundation structurally is its dual-geography mandate paired with direct real asset ownership — a foundation holding an industrial property outright, rather than outsourcing all assets to external managers. The trustee-as-legal-counsel arrangement, with Frank B. Gibb III and Carole Spainhour serving both governance and advisory roles through their law firm, further concentrates decision-making. This architecture keeps grantmaking tightly coupled to family oversight without the institutional layers typical of larger foundations.
General information
Firm type
Endowment / Foundation
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Richmond
Corporate office
Richmond, VA, United States
Principals
Frank B. Gibb III
Director and Trustee
Lila Taylor Clabough
Trustee
Carole Spainhour
Trustee
Tom Clabough
Trustee
Kathryn Taylor Clabough
Trustee
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment and grantmaking decisions at the Helen M. Clabough Charitable Foundation?
A five-member trustee board governs the foundation, consisting of Director Frank B. Gibb III and four trustees — Lila Taylor Clabough, Carole Spainhour, Tom Clabough, and Kathryn Taylor Clabough. Gibb and Spainhour are partners at the law firm Gibb & Spainhour, P.C., which provides legal counsel to the foundation. There is no publicly disclosed separate investment committee or professional investment staff.
Where does the Helen M. Clabough Charitable Foundation deploy its grants geographically?
The foundation concentrates its grantmaking in two distinct regions: the North Carolina High Country and Oregon's Deschutes County. These geographic anchors reflect the foundation's mission to preserve natural and cultural resources in specific communities rather than funding broadly across the United States.
What assets does the foundation hold?
The foundation's assets include a corporate stock and bond portfolio and a two-story brick warehouse property in Richmond, Virginia, held directly. No fund commitments, private equity holdings, or external manager relationships are publicly documented, suggesting a conservative investment posture managed internally by the trustee board.
Is the foundation connected to any operating businesses?
Two trustees, Tom Clabough and Kathryn Taylor Clabough, co-own Nancy P's Bakery & Specialty Produce. The bakery operates as a separate family business alongside the foundation, though no formal integration or funding pipeline between the two entities is publicly detailed.
What types of programs does the foundation typically fund?
Grantmaking spans environmental stewardship, education, arts and culture, social services, and community-based programs. The foundation prioritizes initiatives that create positive change within its two target geographies — North Carolina's High Country and Oregon's Deschutes County — rather than focusing on a single issue area.
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