counter

It’s the dead of night when the buzz of the engines of a series of Shahed-136 one-way attack drones breaks the silence. Carrying their lethal payloads the drones slip into the darkness with a distant supply base as their target. Tracking, identifying, and then destroying this swarm of drones is no easy task.

The unmanned aircraft system (UAS) threat environment is changing rapidly with an increasing variety of killer drones that demand differing methods of tracking and identification to engage and defeat them. Operational users are learning from rapidly-evolving- conflicts, and modern air defense methods increasingly rely on scalable, layered, and persistent sensing teams that can detect and track small, fast, low-altitude, and even swarming, aerial threats in all kinds of complex situations, on land or at sea.

Ray Bischoff served active-duty with the U.S. Army for nearly 25 years, and he’s now the senior director of business development at Leonardo DRS, specialising in evaluating tactical formations and defensive requirements at all operational levels throughout the Department of War and allied nations. He is particularly focused on emerging threats from drones..

Bischoff spoke at length with TWZ’s Jamie Hunter about the use of tactical radar systems as part of a layered counter-drone system that is sufficiently versatile to tackle the toughest drone problems now, and what may come in the near future.

JH: Can you set the scene with regards to how you see the counter-UAS mission right now from a sensing perspective.

RB: The counter-UAS environment is changing and advancing very quickly. At the top level, we need to employ a variety of sensor systems – in this particular case we’re talking about tactical radars – but there are many other types of sensors, and at the highest end of the threat level it’s about connecting these together into a networked architecture.

Layering different systems in depth is vital, both from a communications architecture perspective and physically layering them in different places to protect different routes or avenues of approach, or sensitive facilities.

Look at the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, which is a vast area, with a layered and networked system to maximize the depth of coverage. The primary reason for this is that the biggest enemy in many situations like these is time. That networked architecture and having sensors in depth really gains you time, which gives you opportunities to make a better decision, time to reposition, to better evaluate. You need time to evaluate what different things in space are doing, where they’re going or where they’re coming from.

JH: When you say layered, are you talking about different systems that can look in different ways over different distances and systems in different positions that help you with that time element? What does layered actually mean?

RB: You can layer different types of sensors. Think of baseball. If all your players are home-run hitters, you probably aren’t going to do very well. You need to have different skills across your team to succeed, and it’s the same thing here. Layering of radar sensing bands, different types of technology such as electro-optic and infra-red that “see” in long, short and midwave, acoustic sensors, electronic warfare sensors to look for signals and other types of energy. It’s also about physically layering them in space, or depth.

We often see large exquisite sensors that have a lot of range and cover a large area. But this makes them susceptible to being targeted and destroyed. Layering sensors gives you redundancy, retaining the ability to defend. So, this is layering both in physical location, and in different types of technology.

This way, if one of your sensors is taken down by any means – for example by electronic countermeasures – your other systems can theoretically continue to operate. Just think how you can see, smell, touch, taste – it’s the same concept with layering different types of technologies, which is exactly what we at Leonardo DRS do and we integrate them so we can interact and share information to maximize the benefits of this layered approach. A team ultimately makes the sensors more effective across networks and architectures.

JH: Presumably you get good indicators on developments from the current operations in Ukraine. You already mentioned the Strait of Hormuz as well. What are the big lessons that you’re getting here about different types and sizes of drones?

RB: Without going into the details of combat operations, the bottom line is you have to advance your technologies at the rate or as close to the rate of the advancement of the weapons systems that are being utilized. We’re seeing a mixture of things when it comes to the UASs; that’s larger craft that are getting faster and can carry heavier payloads, or smaller ones with longer ranges that can move through areas almost undetected. 

There’s been so much investment in UAS technology, and they are becoming cheaper and easier to manufacture. People can 3D-print these things in their houses now. So, looking at this from a sensing perspective, that layering is becoming increasingly important.

We are looking to do things to counter these developments, such as maybe elevate the sensors to “see” across the top of the trees or place a sensor down in a valley – so that adds layering in altitude or elevation to remove blind spots. Just like the military, if you’re setting-up a defensive position, you have to cover what we called “dead space” where you can’t see with eyes or sensors from ground level.

JH: Can we dig further into the role of tactical radars in counter-UAS, specifically Leonardo DRS’ 202 Expeditionary Skid, which I believe is based on your Extended Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radar [exMHR].

RB: Radars “see” things that are physically present in space and time, and that’s why they are such great tools in the counter-UAS kit bag of sensors. That said, some radars are affected by weather and other factors, some work better in particular environments.

The 202 Expeditionary Skid is a new system from Leonardo DRS that uses our long-range exMHR, which is a software-defined AESA [Active Electronically Scanned Array] pulse-Doppler radar. It operates in the S-Band and that’s a very reliable band for all weather conditions including strong performance in dust storms and rain. When you get into K, Ku, and X-bands, they typically have smaller beams and therefore greater accuracy, but they suffer in poor weather and can become extremely degraded. S-band radar suffers significantly less degradation in that environment.

The 202 Expeditionary Skid, also known as U-KIT-0091, has a single radar panel that has a search area of 90 degrees by 90 degrees, so we often mount them in groups of four to provide full 360-degree coverage. Each panel has a really fast scan rate, much faster than a traditional spinning radar set. Plus, having multiple radar faces to make up a complete system is much more survivable. They can also overlap their field of regard without impairing each other.

We have sought to provide a solution that marries an appropriate level of range, accuracy, capability, and performance, that can still be very flexible in its ability to relocate or change mission sets. This is designed to be extremely versatile, meaning that it operates in different environments quickly. U-KIT-0091 has been purposefully designed to be mobile in a compact system that can either be used by itself or networked and fused together with other systems. Back to the baseball analogy, this is the kind of guy you really want on your team because you can use them wherever you need them.

The radar or set of radars sit on a small skid system that can slide into the back of a pickup truck, into the back of a tactical vehicle, onto a trailer, you can set it just about anywhere and it occupies a four-by-four-feet position. It has its own power generation, its own positional information that works in denied environments, basically it’s capable of working by itself from the get-go. The best part is that it’s truly mobile – the operator doesn’t have to stop the vehicle to make it work. You can turn it on and set-off. It’s working. If you come to a stop, it’s still working. It can be mounted on a ship, it can be taken airborne by an aircraft, so it’s got land, sea, and air applications. We’ve installed these on all types of ground platforms, water-based platforms, on top of a building or some sort of structure and it’s already in service, but I can’t specify where. It tracks drones very well, but of course it can track just about anything that can exist in that space.

JH: So you could strategically locate several of your radars to look in different directions or be positioned to look in a certain direction if you knew the expected paths that the threats would use?

RB: The system is designed exactly for things like that. Instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket, you disperse your eggs, and focus on different avenues or approach angles so that you can then have sensors strategically located where they can pick up these things and then as long as they’re networked back into weapons systems that have the overlapping fields of fire or bubbles – coverage areas – then you can protect your area. 

Any time you can decouple a sensor from a weapon system or multiple types of sensors from each other, you stand a far greater chance of survivability and optimizing accuracy. If you put all your eggs in one basket, and if you lose that basket, you lose everything. In addition, if you separate sensors, you gain accuracy because you have different angles and you can leverage simple geometry.

JH: Could you depict what an end-to-end engagement might look like using your tactical radar.

RB: The radar sensors will typically be emitting energy as they search for objects in a particular space. If something is detected and determined to be a valid target then the data is sent from the radar to some type of a command and control system, which may well be receiving information from other complementary sensors too. It then fuses that data and passes it to an effector, whether that’s a non-kinetic or a kinetic system, for engagement.

Meanwhile, the radar continues to track and it can determine whether that object was removed or if its path changed, and so on and so forth. But you know, a lot of these radars operate in a way whereby they can be turned on or off by different sensors to avoid them having to constantly transmit energy, they’re very customizable to meet the requirements and the emissions that are needed, whether that’s air defense, counter-drone, etc.

They can operate independently too, maybe covering a small area that needs to be protected, and integrated with a localized weapon system, or, as I already explained, they can be networked into a much larger set-up, they are modular, open system architecture and easily incorporated.

Most customers tend to choose their own command and control systems, which is why the plug-and-play part of our system is so important. It really doesn’t matter what they want to partner it with, what we provide enables that very easily.

JH: To be clear, your tactical radars could be deployed to defend the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S., they could be positioned to defend an air base, or they could be used to defend a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

RB: The architecture can scale geographically through a distributed, networked sensor approach. The specific coverage area depends on factors including sensor density, the threat environment, command-and-control integration, and the available effectors.

Customers can deploy multiple radars and feed them into a single command-and-control system, positioning sensors to optimize coverage for the operational need. For example, one radar set could cover a valley vulnerable to low-flying drone ingress, while another positioned on higher ground provides longer-range surveillance. The key is a modular capability that enables users to tailor coverage and layer sensors where they are most needed – without relying on one large radar system to see everything from a single location.

JH: I’m keen to know what you consider to be the most challenging drones to detect and track. Is the challenge the speed they’re traveling out at, maybe new low observable designs, or the fact they’re flying very low. What are the big issues you’re seeing?

RB: It’s really all of the above. The other really challenging problem is when something is flying very low to the ground. The lower they bring them in altitude, they are harder to track as an independent target.

The challenge with drone swarms isn’t detection – if you can see the drones, you can track them. The harder problem is managing those tracks, deciding which threats matter most, and assigning the right effector to each one.

If 100 drones are inbound, it’s not just about having 100 weapons available. It’s about coordinating a fast, cost-effective response across a large number of simultaneous threats.

Ultimately, pairing radars and electro-optical/infrared sensors together is the way to go, because each of those have their own strengths. One of those sensors is going to see the drone better than the other, plus you have the redundancy that at least a couple of them will “see” the threat and give you enough information in sufficient time to prosecute it. Fitting into that team, however it is constructed, is exactly how we position our 202 Expeditionary Skid U-KIT-0091 radar.

Contact the write: Jamie.Hunter@teamrecurrent.io

I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with a packed summer vacation edition of Tasting Notes.

On a roll

The sourdough-enhanced interior of the cinnamon bun at Daegens in Oslo, Norway.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Norway is not only the land of the Viking Row, one of the most captivating national fandom displays to emerge during this year’s World Cup — and certain to be seen when Erling Haaland and the Martin Ødegaard-led team battle five-time champs Brazil. Norway is also home to one of the world’s greatest cinnamon rolls.

Until I went to Oslo recently, the best cinnamon roll I’d ever eaten was in Chicago — at the venerable Swedish-American diner Ann Sather, where a milky sugar glaze used to be drizzled onto the still-warm, pillowy pastry right at the table. (These days the rolls are glazed in the kitchen after they’re baked.)

Los Angeles, of course, also has show-stopping cinnamon rolls. This spring, Food senior editor Danielle Dorsey, with help from Stephanie Breijo, Jenn Harris and Angela Osorio, put together a guide to 11 of L.A.’s most intriguing cinnamon rolls, including the hip-hop-inspired over-the-top creations at All About the Cinnamon, the sweet-savory buns with honey and sesame seeds at Modu and the tallboy “cinnamon goo”-filled rolls topped with caramel-toffee sauce from SweetBoy. Harris also recommends the especially decadent cinnamon roll served during brunch at Baltaire in Brentwood, where the cake-size roll is wheeled out on a cart and “slathered with frosting at the table.”

In Oslo, however, I discovered a cinnamon bun that stripped away the excess and let the essence of the spiced dough reveal itself.

Daegens, a tiny cafe and bakery hidden away in Oslo’s pretty Lilleborg neighborhood, is run by Anta Stinnerbom, a young entrepreneur who spent several months sharpening his coffee knowledge and barista skills at the acclaimed roastery Tim Wendelboe and is now deep into his explorations of sourdough baking. It’s the sourdough, in fact, that gives the Daegens cinnamon bun its character.

Baker and barista Anta Stinnerbom at his Daegens cafe in Oslo.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Even more than Stinnerbom’s cardamom bun — which some praise as the best in Oslo — the more elemental cinnamon notes, enhanced with lemon zest and juice, allow the sourdough’s multifaceted dimensions to come through. Not just tang, but the taste of time.

When you can’t decide between Anta Stinnerbom’s cardamom bun, front, or cinnamon bun at Daegens in Oslo … get both.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Daegens’ BMO (bolle med ost), which the Oslo bakery makes with a good seeded sourdough roll topped with fresh butter and cheese.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

The discovery of a great sourdough cinnamon bun is just one of the reasons I love to travel.

Lately, I’ve been absorbed in the world of Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard, both for his most recent novel, “The School of Night,” which features a grand-scale narcissist captured in a Faustian downfall, and for “So Much Longing in So Little Space,” which documents the author’s search for the meaning of art through his encounters with the work of Edvard Munch. At Oslo’s boldly vertical, 13-story Munch museum and Bergen’s more contemplative Munch collection at the Kode museum’s Rasmus Meyer galleries, I was able to see for myself the wild stylistic leaps taken by the artist before and after “The Scream,” including the paintings he did for the women’s cafeteria at Oslo’s Freia chocolate factory.

But it was only after the first of many good meals in Oslo that I started to get a feel for the city. As I wrote in the introduction to our new collection of summer vacation dining guides, traveling with an eater’s mindset gives us a deeper understanding of places we’ve read about in cookbooks and novels or seen in movies and paintings. Wandering markets, eating at food stalls, sitting among locals and fellow travelers at the restaurants that embody a city or its surrounding countryside … these are the ways we absorb the rhythm of a place. Its flavors and ways of living are revealed to us over dinner or even a simple morning coffee accompanied by a beautifully baked cinnamon bun.

If you go …

(Giacomo Bagnara / For The Times)

For those of us lucky enough to write about food for a living, each vacation is a chance to add one more spot on our individualized maps of the world’s great places to eat. And this year, we’re sharing our personal maps and notes on places we’ve loved during our wanderings with readers.

Restaurant critic Bill Addison explored Melbourne, whose “modern dining moment,” he says, “derives from the immigrant communities that have rooted in the city since its founding,” making it “innately familiar to Angelenos, and also something wholly distinct to experience.” Then he shared 25 Melbourne restaurants, coffee shops and bars that showed the ambition of its dining scene.

(Photo illustration by Los Angeles Times)

Addison, restaurant critic Jenn Harris, deputy food editor Betty Hallock and I shared a personal list of 33 Paris restaurants and bars we love. Reporter Stephanie Breijo and senior food editor Danielle Dorsey wrote about their 15 favorite London pubs, food halls and bake shops. Addison and Hallock detail 17 splendid Tokyo dining suggestions. I detail 9 reasons Michelin-ignored Lima is one of the world’s greatest restaurant cities and came back from Hong Kong with 10 great eating experiences. And food editor Daniel Hernandez filed three reports from Mexico: an updated guide to 17 new and old favorites in Mexico City, a to-do list for exploring often-overlooked Colima, Mexico’s smallest state, and a fascinating look at how palm wine from Colima is at the heart of “a flourishing culinary movement rooted in its 250 years of trade with the Philippines.”

Given that these suggestions are not meant to be definitive — they are our personal favorites — we know that there are many other worthy places to explore. We’d love to hear from you if you have your own personal picks. We’ve built a form for entering your favorites from around the world and will publish the results in the coming weeks.

And if you’re staying closer to home, check Danielle Dorsey and Stephanie Breijo’s guide to the 23 best new L.A. bars, Dorsey’s choices for the best new L.A. rooftops for drinking and eating and the entire food team’s picks for 50 essential L.A. dining experiences.

We’ve also introduced a new way to save your favorite recommendations and build your own custom guides. Times senior product manager Jeff Poirier explains the new feature, which includes maps and is as simple to use as hitting the “save” button on any individual entry.

Introducing …

Los Angeles Times cooking editor Cody Reiss

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times )

We are thrilled to introduce our new cooking editor Cody Reiss, who learned most of what he knows about cooking professionally at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley and did time behind the counter at Murray’s Cheese in New York. He also had a part in Eva Victor‘s “Sorry, Baby” and played himself in the very funny “narrative cooking short” “Breakfast for Liz.” Read more about Cody in his hello to readers, which describes the teaching approach he’s aiming for in the food videos he’ll be doing. And check out the videos he released this week on why you should throw away your salt shaker and how to cut a tomato. Finally, with Cody taking over our Cooking Newsletter — which is moving from Sundays to Fridays so that you can have more time to plan your weekend cooking — now is an excellent time to sign up for the free weekly dispatch if you’re not already a subscriber. This week, he provides two crucial lessons on salt and why you might be using it wrong.

Chilaquiles heaven

Chilaquiles, molletes and salsas at Taquearte in Pico Rivera.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Restaurant critic Jenn Harris’ latest review is about Pico Rivera’s Taquearte, which happens to be one of my favorite places to get chilaquiles and a loaded Mexico City-style taco campechano, which made our 101 Best L.A. Tacos list. I first heard about Taquearte from my mom and her friend Pablo. (She went to high school in Pico Rivera and lives in nearby Whittier.) Harris bookmarked the place when Eater’s Bill Esparza wrote about the chilaquiles as L.A.’s best. Harris wholeheartedly agrees and loved how “the chips … were noticeably thin, delicate but sturdy enough to retain their crunch. They hovered in a magical state of limbo between wet and dry, crisp and wilted.”

More restaurants recommendations: 7 L.A. spots for bandeja paisa, Colombia’s classic lunch platter by Angela Osorio, 9 great places to try Midwest-style tavern pizza in L.A. by Kelly Dobkin and the best places to eat and drink in July, according to our Food writers.

The loss of two trailblazers

Chef Joshua Gil, pictured January 17, 2024.

(Tharini Shanmugarajah)

Joshua Gil, who “helped recontextualize and reimagine Mexican food in L.A.,” as reporter Stephanie Breijo wrote, died last week after a four-year fight with cancer.

Gil, who is credited with helping the late Joe Miller‘s now-closed Joe’s Restaurant in Venice gain a Michelin star, and went on to co-found the much-missed Tacos Punta Cabras and Hamburguesas Punta Cabras, as well as the pop-up Supper Liberation Front, established the Alta California restaurants Mírame in Beverly Hills, which closed in 2023, and the still-running Mírate in Los Feliz, which Gil left after a legal dispute. He also established the rooftop raw bar Mother of Pearl, which is closed at the moment, and the teppanyaki restaurant Maison Kasai, both at the downtown L.A. dining collection Level 8.

In an extensive story about Gil opening the now-closed Three Flames in the midst of cancer treatment and his drive to continue mentoring chefs, such as Macheen‘s Jonathan Perez, he told Breijo, “I’m a very stubborn a—. I like telling people, ‘I’m Mexican. I don’t know how to give up.’”

Chef Katsuya Uechi in 2016 at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Brentwood location of Katsuya.

(Michael Kovac / Getty Images for Katsuya)

Late last week, we also got word that Katsuya Uechi, the sushi master whose name has become synonymous with the global Katsuya brand, has died at the age of 67.

“The Okinawa-born chef altered the DNA of the L.A. sushi scene with his innovative, genre-bending creations,” writes Melody Xu of the chef who first came to prominence for many L.A. diners at Sushi Katsu-ya in Studio City, which he opened in 1997. “Spicy tuna crispy rice, which he debuted in the early 2000s, has since become a modern staple in sushi restaurants across the U.S.”

Also …

Amid the puestas of Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles.

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

• Many were hoping that the World Cup would provide an incentive for downtown Los Angeles’ city leaders and other stakeholders to invest in the area’s infrastructure. But it’s sobering to read reporter Angela Osorio’s look at the sad state of downtown’s once-bustling Olvera Street — with even taquito mecca Cielito Lindo facing a precarious financial situation that has left it shuttered … we hope only temporarily.
• Melody Xu talked with the owners of some of L.A.’s prominent Venezuelan restaurants about how they are connecting people and fundraising for survivors of the twin earthquakes. At publication time, the parents of Full Arepas’ Kelly Montano, writes Xu, “who were on vacation in La Guaira when the quakes happened, [were] among the more than 40,600 people still unaccounted for.”
• “For the first time in its history,” writes Stephanie Breijo, the Michelin Guide awarded a Mexican restaurant three stars.” That honor went to Val Cantú‘s Californios in San Francisco. Breijo has all of the news from the announcement of Michelin’s California guide, including the new two-star designation for Los Angeles’ Kato.
• More from Breijo: As the Boyle Heights fire burned, restaurants depended on which way the wind blew.
• The legal fight over who can sell a white nectarine variety, reports Claire Rush, led central California farmer Cesar Mora to give away more than 100,000 pounds of the fruit.
• And Hailey Branson-Potts has the story of the beer queen of Mendocino County, Lost Coast Brewery’s Barbara Groom, one of the country’s first female microbrew owners, who turns 80 this year.

NEW YORK — A nationwide network of charitable foundations is encouraging its members to emphasize their positive contributions to American life, a 250th anniversary campaign aimed at quelling what it calls the “greater intensity” of scrutiny felt from the federal government and populist movements.

Popular notions of philanthropy as merely a game for the ultrawealthy to fund partisan projects and commit fraud have left the sector vulnerable to political attacks, as the Council on Foundations sees it, influencing policies that hamper essential community services. The advocacy group, which represents about 1,000 nonprofits, hopes to overcome what CEO Kathleen Enright calls the sector’s “perception gap” with its “Generosity Builds” campaign, launched Monday.

Enright believes most Americans don’t recognize their reliance on the charitable sector. Just about 1 in 20 adults said they or anyone in their immediate family received nonprofit services in the past year, according to a 2023 Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy report.

“This week, I got an MRI at Georgetown University Hospital, I participated in my church at St. Columba’s, my daughter was inducted into National Junior Honor Society. Four or five nonprofits have been instrumental in my life this week,” she said. “Folks just aren’t putting that tag on it.”

And that tag is growing increasingly important, Enright said. Last year, negotiations over President Trump’s tax and spending bill included proposals to levy new taxes on private foundations that Enright said would have taken resources from communities if they made it into the final law.

The battle over defining what nonprofits actually do has recently been amplified from the highest rungs of the Trump administration, which has upended decades of partnerships built with nonprofits. Trump froze, cut or threatened a sweeping range of social service grants characterized by the White House as “government largesse that’s often riddled with corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse.” More recently, the Department of Justice charged the Southern Poverty Law Center — a civil rights nonprofit accused by Republicans of targeting conservatives in its work tracking extremists — with defrauding donors through payments to informants.

Vice President JD Vance described the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Harvard University endowment as “cancers on American society” back as a 2021 U.S. Senate candidate, telling Tucker Carlson that “we are actively subsidizing the people who are destroying this country and they call it a charity.”

“All across our country, we have nonprofits — big foundations — that are effectively social-justice hedge funds,” he said in a talk that year on “woke capital.”

Narratives about nonprofits being “overly politicized” or wasteful are “extreme minority stories” that don’t reflect how philanthropy operates, according to Enright.

Across many surveys, trust in the nonprofit sector has remained higher than most others. But its impact is sometimes difficult to measure and explain. The sector hasn’t faced an environment this challenging in almost six decades, according to Kathryn Thomas, the vice president of communications for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan.

She cited the congressional effort to increases taxes on foundations’ investment incomes and acknowledged the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts.

“In an era when everything is under partisan attack and there’s so much polarization, we really have to do a better job of emphasizing why we exist,” Thomas said.

Enright said the story of philanthropy is not one where a rich person “saves the day.” She sees growing concerns about billionaires’ influence fueling suspicion about philanthropists’ motivations. Some argue the charitable sector allows moneyed interests to decide how tax dollars are spent rather than elected officials.

The campaign will emphasize that most donors “have just a little bit more than they need and therefore want to give back,” she said, especially at the local level.

“Money does not solve problems. It’s a tool that creative people and institutions inside communities use to solve problems,” she said. “The real heroes of most of these stories are nonprofit leaders, religious leaders, civic leaders who just roll up their sleeves and get something done — but do it with some financial underpinning by charitable foundations.”

That’s the story told by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation in Sarasota, Florida. A 10-apartment affordable housing complex for military veterans opened last year with the foundation’s support.

The area has an “embarrassingly high” number of veterans without housing, according to Jon Thaxton, the foundation’s director of policy and advocacy. Many are priced out in Sarasota, increasingly a luxury destination with high real estate prices.

Local donors had been trying to build a similar project when they approached the foundation in 2020 for help. Thaxton secured land already vested for affordable housing, corralled $2.2 million in donations, got $800,000 from the city and won the backing of their U.S. representatives.

The foundation’s leaders believe their track record made that possible. Phillip Lanham, the president and CEO, noted the project was completed across multiple election cycles and a pandemic, suggesting that community foundations are well situated to “play the long game.”

“Most people think that foundations like us deal with money and donors. We really don’t. We deal with relationships and trust,” Thaxton said. “That’s our commodity. That’s what we earn. That’s what we save. And that’s what we contribute back to the community.”

The Council on Foundations will also elevate examples of early, ordinary philanthropists as part of its case for philanthropy as an integral “part of the American story.” Enright credited a formerly enslaved man with donating land in North Carolina that became an African Methodist Episcopal church that endures as a pillar of the local community.

Lillian Kuri, the president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation, welcomed the focus on everyday philanthropists. The Cleveland Foundation is considered the first community foundation, established in 1914 by lawyer Frederick Harris Goff as a way to fund durable change in the city.

The foundation aims to find new ways to expand today’s tent of philanthropists dedicated to improving their surrounding areas. It announced new investments this week in a fund dedicated to turn vacant industrial land into job-ready work sites. They’ve also launched a fund that allows donors to invest in major Northeast Ohio companies, supporting local business growth while that money increases into a sizable amount that can be donated to nonprofits.

“Generosity cuts across everybody,” she said, adding that community foundations offer “a way for everyday people — not just the largest, wealthiest people — to participate in the change they want to see in their communities.”

Pollard writes for the Associated Press.