By KIRSTIN GUINN | Moonshine Ink
CharitySmith Founder Brooks Rohlen was seven months old when his father was killed in a plane crash in the winter of 1970 in Aspen, leaving his mother with four children under the age of 6, two still in diapers. In 1994, Rohlen started the Douglas F. Smith Memorial Foundation in his father’s name because he wanted his dad to be an active part of his life.
“I just wanted to say my dad’s name more often,” Rohlen said.
Starting a nonprofit is no easy feat, so when a friend asked for Rohlen’s help to start one in memory of his mother who had just passed away, Rohlen used his experience with the IRS, bankers, and lawyers to help him get started. In 2002, he started a fund in honor of the former head coach of the Squaw Valley Freestyle Team, Duke Peterson, Rohlen’s childhood coach who passed away at 33 after having a heart attack while coaching his son’s little league game.
From there “it just snowballed,” Rohlen said. “I helped out whoever asked.”
He took calls while in medical school from people who wanted to start funds. The operation grew to such an extent that the IRS required Rohlen to transition from a private charity to a public charity, and CharitySmith was officially created in 2002 in Utah. He wanted to keep the name Smith in the organization’s title in memory of his dad. Rohlen explained the concept of a CharitySmith “as one who works with charity in much the same way that a blacksmith works with iron or a goldsmith with gold.” In 2007, CharitySmith moved to California.
Gaining a Local Presence
Truckee-based CharitySmith currently administers 122 memorial funds in 32 states, a number that is growing by 15 to 20 funds each year. The organization has added 18 new funds already in 2015. Local funds include Clay’s Fund, in memory of Truckee High School graduate Clayton McDonnell, who committed suicide in 2013, and the Rocker Memorial Skatepark, in honor of Steve Anderson, who died in an avalanche in 2012. Since its inception, CharitySmith has helped raise more than $6.3 million, with more than half of that raised in the last three years.
CharitySmith handles all of the paperwork dealing with the IRS and banks, sets up an online collection tool, and writes the distribution checks. This frees friends and family of the deceased to focus on raising money in their loved one’s name, and deciding how to distribute the money. CharitySmith also helps with fundraising ideas, and can offer inspiration to organizations that may have run out of steam after a few years.
Diana Bell-Curtis, McDonnell’s mother who manages Clay’s Fund, said that after her son died she had money from the community that she wanted to do something with, but dealing with the start-up was overwhelming. She met Ashley Galleher, CharitySmith’s executive director, by chance.
“CharitySmith made it all so simple,” Bell-Curtis said. “I am very blessed to have CharitySmith in my life right now.”
In 2014, after Rohlen’s brother committed suicide, he used his father’s memorial fund to build a playfield at Discovery Preschool in Truckee in his brother’s memory.
“Death does not have to be only horrible,” Rohlen said. “I feel so much joy when I see that playfield. That’s what CharitySmith does for people.”
A Simple Operation
Rohlen, now a board member of the organization, believes the strength of CharitySmith as a nonprofit business lies in its simple operation. Rather than spend money on commercial office space, Galleher, along with Jennifer Little and Paulina Obolewicz, who handle the administrative duties, works out of an office that Rohlen created by converting two horse stalls in the barn in his Glenshire backyard.
“It is a powerful, efficient, and effective organization,” Rohlen said. “When you start a memorial fund with us, you can be assured that the money you raise is going straight out the door to support the causes you have designated.”
Galleher is also connected to the organization through the Adam Davis Galleher Memorial Fund, which Rohlen and his wife Rachel helped her start in honor of her brother, who passed away at the age of 26 from viral meningitis in 2013. The fund is in its third year of operation, and is based in Galleher’s hometown of Boone, N.C.
“The fund provided a small focus for my family after my brother’s death,” Galleher said. “You can only have so many casseroles after someone dies, so people started bringing checks instead. Everyone wanted to be involved because everyone was reaching for something. It was a positive light in the darkest time of my life. It gave me first-hand experience of the power of a memorial fund.”
Galleher, who had been working part-time in the CharitySmith office up until that point, stepped in to run the organization when the executive director went on maternity leave. This spring, she attended the Emily Johnson Play It Forward soccer tournament in Glenwood Springs, Colo., a fundraiser for one of CharitySmith’s largest memorial funds.
Emily Johnson was 16 when she was killed in an ATV accident in November 2008. She had just gotten her driver’s license and was an organ donor. Gallaher met a couple at the tournament whose name she recognized from the many donations they had made. She learned that the husband had received two of Emily’s organs.
“This man, who was alive and healthy and watching his daughters play in Emily’s soccer tournament, survived only because Emily had died,” Galleher said.
Galleher takes pride in the fact that CharitySmith can help bring people together and keep the memories alive of those who have passed on.
“Emily Johnson’s memorial fund is really getting to the heart of people helping people,” she said. “The world needs more stories like that.”
Info: charitysmith.org, (530) 579-5068, facebook.com/charitysmith
