18 May 2015

Eleven years after Joan Kroc’s historic $1.5 billion bequest to The Salvation Army, 26 Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers ¬are now open, providing a variety of cultural, educational, fitness and social programs in neighborhoods that historically have lacked them. In a study commissioned by The Salvation Army, researchers at Partners for Sacred Places and McClanahan Associates, Inc. quantified the annual positive social and economic impact these centers are creating for and in their communities, totaling $258,178,776 (based on 2014 data).

The Kroc Centers are state-of-the-art venues typically located in underserved communities, where children and families can be exposed to a variety of people, activities and arts that would otherwise be beyond their reach. The Centers enhance quality of life by providing a safe environment with an emphasis on fitness and health, the arts and opportunities to build social connections. The study included 25 centers that had been open for at least six months by the end of 2014.

Researchers looked at six areas:

• Direct spending by the centers to hire full-time and part-time staff, and to buy local goods and services
• Various catalyzing or leveraging economic values for center users including membership subsidies, scholarships, space and in-kind support to individuals and community-serving programs
• The value of people getting and staying healthier
• Magnet effect of induced spending in the local community by center visitors
• The value of day care that allows parents to work
• Outdoor recreation space

Separately, the study measures the one-time impact of construction-related spending, and the number of jobs created.

The study does not include quantitative measures of impact related to individual counseling that helped keep families together, taught social values and skills, helped people find jobs, and more. While real and effective in their impact, insufficient economic valuation models led the researchers to exclude these activities from the overall total.

“Between the one-time impact of construction and the ongoing impact of operations, we are extremely pleased to confirm that our Kroc Center has already in effect surpassed the our share of this amazing gift and will keep on giving through annual impact in those communities,” said Major Benton Markham, Director of the Kroc Center in Coeur d’Alene, ID. “We thank our donors, volunteers and community partners for the critical role they play in ensuring that these community benefits continue and grow year after year.”

About the Kroc Centers

In January 2004, The Salvation Army announced that Mrs. Kroc, widow of the McDonald’s franchise founder Ray Kroc, had bequeathed $1.5 billion to be separated equally among the organization’s four U.S. territories. The gift remains the largest individual philanthropic bequest ever made in the United States.

Mrs. Kroc specifically directed The Salvation Army to use part of the money for endowments to help support the centers she envisioned across the United States, similar to the first Kroc Center she helped build in her hometown of San Diego with a gift of $90 million. That center continues to thrive, 13 years after its opening in a neighborhood that serves more than two dozen distinct ethnic groups.

Today, 26 Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers operate in communities across the United States and Puerto Rico. For more information on the Coeur d’Alene Kroc Center, visit cdakroc.org The national report is available HERE.

Want To Know More? View and download the report in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format by clicking HERE.