Keeping City Well-Endowed : Aide Patiently, Lovingly Garners Gifts of Money, Land

In a small one-bedroom house in Pacific Beach, Kevin Munnelly was talking business with an affluent widow. The talk was about how the woman’s clock could be fixed, how she was feeling and whether she needed anything.

Munnelly, the city’s designated gift seeker, was checking up on Florence Christman, one of his favorite donors. At 93, Christman enjoys his company. Social calls are how Munnelly does business.

“My that’s a gay tie,” she chides him. “You’re not getting a little belly on you?”

He smiles.

Munnelly set up the trust fund that gave the city title to her home. Upon her death, the proceeds from the sale of the property are to be used to benefit Balboa Park.

Munnelly is the city’s endowment officer, and it is his job to ferret out and arrange donations of money, land, art--even park benches. He was hired by the city about 15 years ago when the position was created.

“When I first got the job, the city manager at the time introduced me to the staff and said that over the years the city had received gifts like leaves coming off the trees,” Munnelly said in a recent interview. “He said: ‘Kevin’s job is to go out and shake the trees a little bit.’ ”

Munnelly, 51, has done a lot of shaking. During the past 15 years, the city has received three life estates worth about $5 million, land for parks and several historical sites. About 50 people have agreed to make provisions in their wills to benefit the city. The amount promised is estimated at more than $25 million.

The endowments are mutually beneficial--they provide lasting testaments for those who have no family or are looking for a good cause and are an extra source of income for the city.

Much of Munnelly’s success is because he goes out and meets people. He attends meetings, cocktail parties and sporting events.

“I’ve got no special secret, but I do know something about statistics,” he said. “Ninety percent of all charitable giving in this country is from people. Therefore, I should spend perhaps 90% of my time working with people rather than with foundations or corporations.”

The Marston House next to Balboa Park is one of the life-estate arrangements Munnelly has garnered for the city. When Mary Marston died last year--one week shy of her 108th birthday--the city took possession of her historic home and five acres next to the park.

“She was 95 years old when I was dealing with her,” Munnelly said. “When I met with her, it was more social than anything else. It was two or three times that I was over to the house and it was very nice. I went over with some people from the historical society, and we’d sit there and have tea. It was served by her kid sisters who were in their early 90s at the time.”

The city took title to the property in 1977, but Marston retained the right to live in the home until her death. The deal was one of Munnelly’s crowning achievements. Another was obtaining Cowles Mountain for the city.

The property was acquired about 12 years ago through a combination purchase and charitable gift. The mountain was appraised at $3.6 million but was purchased by the city for $2 million. The remainder was a gift. Munnelly calls the deal a “screwy” one.

City Had Eye on Property

“We got a phone call from an attorney saying ‘I represent a client; I can’t tell you who. If you do this and we do that, we’ll give you the top of the mountain,’ ” Munnelly said.

The city had had its eye on the property for some time, but the land was owned by a large amusement company in Los Angeles.

“They had owned this mountain for years and years,” he said. “They owned this land that they bought to make cowboy movies back in the 1920s.” After hard negotiating, the deal was made. Cowles Mountain has since become the focal point of Mission Trails Regional Park.

“That is probably the most critical piece of land that the city has gotten for parks in the longest time,” he said. “It was like a big piece of the puzzle. I see one day you’re going to have one of the most magnificent park systems around, and that’s a result of (acquiring) Cowles Mountain.”

Officials believe Mission Trails, which lies on the city’s eastern edge between Tierrasanta, Santee and San Carlos, is the largest urban reserve in the country.

But the biggest donation to the city is yet to come, Munnelly said. He won’t disclose the details other than to say that it will benefit the park system by $5 million.

“The will is nothing,” he said. “The will is a piece of paper. The only time it’s important is when somebody dies. All they have to do is change their mind and change their will. You have to wait for the will to mature, as they say.”

Most of Munnelly’s work is with the elderly, including the extremely wealthy, who are looking for a sizable tax deduction or a good cause. Sometimes, he’ll have to meet with a cantankerous prospect over coffee, dinner or drinks.

It is his job to sell the city. And then wait. The city won’t reap the rewards of Munnelly’s work for many years.

Christman met Munnelly when he used to have her autograph copies of a book she had written about Balboa Park. He would give the autographed books to people who arranged endowment funds with the city to benefit the park.

They have remained good friends over the years. Munnelly serves as a pseudo-financial adviser to the woman. When he showed her how much money she had made on one of her investments, she was amazed.

“How did I amass that?” she said.

“It’s because of two things: You live alone and you don’t spend any,” Munnelly said.

Christman has nothing but praise for Munnelly.

“To know Kevin is to become good friends with him,” she said. “He is so down to earth. You don’t have to hold anything back from him. That’s the wonderful thing about him--you can always be yourself around Kevin.”

The decision to set up an endowment fund with the city was not a difficult one for her.

“I’ve made enough money so that I’m comfortable,” she said. “I have no one in my family who needs it.”

So she established a permanent trust fund in the name of The Romance of Balboa Park, after the title of the book she had written about the park. Her home has been valued at $200,000.

Munnelly said that with more people choosing to have their ashes scattered at sea, their loved ones are left without a place to remember them. As a result, a loved one will donate a park bench to the city in a place where the husband or wife used to walk or in a place that faces the ocean.

“The city doesn’t make any money doing it, and perhaps they are in places we don’t need them as much, but we try to be nice to these people,” Munnelly said.

What makes an endowment to the city so attractive is its everlastingness, Munnelly said. The city and Balboa Park--a favorite for benefactors--will always be around, he said. And because the city is held publicly accountable, the money won’t be frittered away. The monies that come in to the park, for example, are meant to enhance what is already there.

In La Jolla, after three years of negotiations, Florence Riford gave San Diego the site for the new La Jolla Library. The land is valued at more than $2 million. She has also given $225,000 to purchase adjacent land and is considering a permanent endowment to benefit the library.

“People like her and others, they give because they have this deep sense of commitment to the community,” Munnelly said. “That was her motivation.”

Munnelly makes mental notes about what a person’s interests are.

“We had a woman who wanted to do something nice for her husband,” he said. “He liked libraries, and she liked flags. We told her about how any time the flag gets worn at the library we take it down and put up a new one. Maybe she could set up a trust fund for that. So she did.”

The flags are like a commemorative plaque, and it is something that will be done forever, he said.

Larry True, a recently retired trust executive with Security Pacific Bank, said such creativity is Munnelly’s trademark.

“I think he’s quite ingenious to tailor-make the gift,” True said. “I think he’s a rarity. Could you imagine someone giving money to the city? Most people want to get something from the city.”

Munnelly’s biggest assets are that he’s low-key and patient, True said.

He keeps his files in cardboard boxes on the floor of his modest office. Munnelly earns about $53,000 annually and first came to San Diego in the late ‘60s. He had been working with a large fund-raising firm in New York City.

He took a substantial pay cut when he accepted the job with the city but realized that he had an opportunity to create something. He had to find prospective donors from scratch.

“In a university, you know exactly who your prospects are--former graduates,” he said. “In a city, everybody’s a prospect and nobody’s a prospect. What I found myself doing was establishing a relationship with trust officials, attorneys and others involved with estate planning.”

Public Nature

He soon realized that a primary obstacle in dealing with wills and bequests to the city was the public nature of such sensitive arrangements.

“There had to be some way you could receive things,” Munnelly said. The city could do that themselves, but if we were to do that, everybody could read about that in the papers. The people who are doing these kinds of things (donations) don’t want to do it that way. Their wills and their estate planning is their own thing.”

A San Diego Community Foundation was eventually formed so that when sensitive estate planning matters come, they are usually negotiated through the foundation. Gifts of land still go before the City Council.

The foundation provides technical and legal assistance. Munnelly served on the foundation’s board for nine years and uses the group as a kind of committee.

For example, a friend who owned stock in a small company that got bought out was going to earn $200,000 cash from the deal but would have had to give up $40,000 in taxes. The man instead gave his shares to the community foundation with instructions that they sell the stock and use the proceeds to set up a charitable trust in his and his wife’s name.

“Instead of being a tax liability, it would have a tax deduction based on life expectancy,” Munnelly said. “The principal from the interest of that $200,000 goes to him and his wife. He would have an income for he and his wife while they were still alive.”

Upon their death, the park system would receive the monies.

Plans to Keep Post

Munnelly said he plans to continue as endowment officer for some time.

“About the time you think about retiring, that’s the time they start accepting you,” he said of the people who make provisions to give money away. “They are all in their 70s. If you don’t have a little bit of gray hair, they don’t want to talk to you.”

There is also a certain sense of satisfaction in what he has achieved.

“I look out my window--that’s my mountain, you know? It may belong to somebody else, but I made it happen. It’s mine in my own way.”