Advocate Lays Foundation for Strong Families

It was a long way from the gritty streets of Atlantic City to the tree-lined boulevards of Thousand Oaks, but Kate McLean found some startling similarities.

In both cities, women were battered, families were riven by crises and the gap between rich and poor was increasing.

So when the former New Jersey parole officer arrived in California, she set about doing what she does best--she got involved and now sits atop a $56-million foundation that doles out money to worthy projects across the county.

That is the short story of McLean, director of the Ventura County Community Foundation.

The longer version begins in Long Branch, N.J., where the compact, earnest yet chatty woman was born. Later, she received a sociology degree and ended up tracking parolees in Atlantic City during the 1960s.

“It really shaped my passion for building community,” the 56-year-old McLean said. “It was the summer of the Watts riots; there were a lot of injustices done to the poor. People didn’t work together, they didn’t speak up. The whole city was burning.”

While in Atlantic City, she saw the ugly consequences of a fractured community: corrupt officials, mob-run businesses and the wholesale disenfranchisement of minorities.

Her world changed in 1971, when her husband took a job in Thousand Oaks and she followed.

“I came to Thousand Oaks and wondered how to get involved,” McLean said. “I picked up a local newspaper and looked for volunteer positions and saw an ad for hotline work. And I wanted to do that.”

Shortly after taking the job, she helped develop crisis intervention teams to go to the homes where families were in turmoil. She was soon hired full time and later helped start a battered women’s shelter.

“That was the beginning of Interface,” she said.

Interface Children Family Services--perhaps the most comprehensive social services agency in the county--was born in 1973, with McLean as its director. For more than 18 years, McLean presided over the nonprofit organization, which not only counseled troubled families but offered free medical services to poor children, held anger management classes and ran a battered women’s shelter.

By the time McLean left, the program had a $3-million budget and a staff of 60. It now has a $7-million budget, she said.

“Our mission was to build strong families and strong communities,” she said.

But McLean was lured to Ventura County Community Foundation in 1990 with the promise of building even stronger families and communities and on a much bigger scale.

The foundation had been established in 1987 by 10 county businesspeople who wanted to fund local arts, science, music, scholarship and social service projects. Each person started his or her own endowment.

Los Angeles and Santa Barbara had thriving community foundations, McLean said, but Ventura County was listed as the most “philanthropically poor” region of Southern California. Thus, estates worth millions of dollars went to other counties.

“We were the only county not served by a common foundation,” she said.

McLean instantly put her stamp on the foundation. She traveled the county, identifying areas of need and establishing funds and endowments in those categories.

There is the Women’s Legacy fund, which allocates money for teen pregnancy programs, domestic violence and welfare-to-work issues. Another fund gives money to those trying to reduce barriers--such as language limitations--to health care.

For the women’s fund, McLean raised the money the old-fashioned way--she asked for it. One hundred women were asked to give $1,000 each and 180 came forward with the cash.

She also targeted the Latino community with the Destino 2000 fund.

“She basically sets up each account herself,” said Joe Brown, former chairman of the foundation’s board of directors. “She has a real sense of inclusion. She tries to meet the needs of our county.”

The goal of the foundation was to have $40 million by 2000. It ended up with $30 million on hand and another $26 million on the way.

“I literally fell out of my chair when I saw that,” said McLean, who is now married to a retired appellate court justice, Steven Stone.

Those who know her seem stunned by her energy.

“It’s hard to capture the essence of Kate, she does so well at so many things,” Brown said. “To me, she is the epitome of the professional woman doing a job she loves.”

Another admirer and board member, Ron L. Hertel, said, “I don’t think we could find better. She has a great ability to bring together the right people at the right time.”

Supervisor Frank Schillo said McLean helped popularize a new word--one that illustrates what she sees as one of the county’s problems.

“She calls herself bigradal,” Schillo said. “She lives and works on opposite sides of the [Camarillo] grade.”

McLean--who lives in Thousand Oaks but works in Camarillo--says she can’t take credit for coining the term but uses it when referring to the divide between the east and west counties.

“That grade is not just a physical barrier but a cultural disconnect,” she said.

McLean spoke at a conference Friday on the need for greater regional unity. Without it, she said, it would be harder for the east and west sides of the county to work toward common goals.

In her spare time, McLean likes to spend weekends in Palm Springs, walk, hike and ride bikes. She and her husband have four grown children between them.

Despite her professional rise, all of McLean’s activities still come down to one thing--getting people together.

“I personally consider myself a community organizer, first and foremost,” she said. “And the foundation really wants to be part of the community.”