John & Katie Penner

 "I was born in Ukraine, raised just by my mother and I had three sisters, so when it comes to knowing need, I had experience,” recalls John Penner, a founding member of Mennonite Foundation of Canada. "It’s very important to give when you can and we were all thankful that we could give.”

The idea of creating a donor-advised foundation that would act as a pipeline for related charities began in 1967. John recalls a meeting with members of the Mennonite Conference of Ontario, General Conference Mennonite Church, and the Western Ontario Mennonite Conference where, "We were all agreed that we weren’t going to have any programs – that we were just going to be operating to
support churches and other institutions. It took us a whole year from that point to negotiate and see how we would form with the different conferences.”

The early days were very lean. All board members were required to find $1,000 a year to add to the assets under management. John’s wife, Katie, fondly remembers hosting staff and board members in their home. "People were always welcome.”

"At the beginning,” says John, "we had no funds, and then one day a woman from Leamington brought $50,000 to MFC.” At that point, he dreamed that someday the Foundation would reach $15 million to $20 million in assets under management. He never imagined that it would grow to manage over $100 million, as it does today.

Many of the principles upon which MFC was built were ahead of their time. John speaks of being intentional about avoiding investments that involved alcohol, drugs and weapons. That was socially responsible investing before it was named as such. Those who worked to establish MFC also pioneered the concept of being donor-advised – making distributions to charities based on donor recommendations. Many other foundations are following MFC’s lead today.

"We never wanted to be the biggest, but we wanted to be honest. That has always done well. MFC has always remembered that all of our assets are the Lord’s.”