Jay Linnehan and Chet Szablak, Greater Lowell Community Foundation
Jay Linnehan has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation (GLCF) since January 2016; he was born and raised in Lowell and worked at Middlesex Community College as executive vice president before joining the GLCF. Chet Szablak has been with the Foundation since 2015 and has served as the Board Chair since 2017. He was born in the Centerville neighborhood of Lowell and most recently worked at Enterprise Bank as Executive Vice President, Chief Sales, Community and Customer Relationship Officer. In this interview, they provide a brief history of the philanthropy that led to establishing community foundations and the creation of the Greater Lowell Foundation in 1997; they then discuss in greater detail how the Foundation operates within the community and some of the contemporary initiatives it supports. The GLCF is a non-profit, public agency that operates on the premise of identifying and addressing the needs of the community; or as stated by Linnehan, it keeps the wealth of the community for the benefit of the community. Richard K. Donahue Senior served as the founding president, followed by George Duncan who had an influential role in the Foundation’s development (see the Duncan interview), and within its first year it drew 300 charter members. The Foundation currently has financial assets of over $70 million.
The Interview
In the interview, Linnehan and Szablak identify several features of the Foundation that allow it to connect and respond to community needs. First, the Foundation includes five non-profits on its Board. Their presence enriches the discussion of what is happening in the community. Second, the creation of a discretionary fund has allowed the Foundation to take a leadership role in initiatives for the community. And third, the Foundation also serves as a convenor for various partnerships within the community. A number of pertinent examples centered on the Foundation’s role through the Covid pandemic. For both Linnehan and Szablak, social responsibility comes through civic engagement. While it might include making monetary donations, it rests on sharing your time and talents with the community and can simply begin with voting in local elections.