By: David M. Foster, CFP®, CAP®

Hello, listeners, and welcome to the 16th episode of the Gateway Giving Podcast!

My guest today is Maxine Clark. You may or may not be familiar with her name, but, especially if you are from the St. Louis area, you are almost certainly familiar with her work. She is the founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop.

Since she stepped down from her role as Chief Executive Bear in 2013, she has been spending her time using her wealth and influence to improve the lives of others in the St. Louis region, primarily through the foundation she and her husband, Bob Fox, founded in 2004. In particular, right now she is focused on putting the finishing touches on the Delmar Divine; a mixed-use development for social innovators that will provide office space and shared resources for nonprofits, as well as approximately 150 affordable apartments designed for young, diverse professionals.

I wanted to have Maxine on the podcast, not only because I wanted to hear more about her work with the Delmar Divine, but also because I am fascinated by how people with significant wealth think about the opportunity and/or responsibility they have to use that wealth to give back to the community that helped create it in the first place. One of my missions in life is to convince people with excess wealth to give more of that wealth away to people who aren’t related to them, so I want to know how I can help to replicate Maxine’s attitude about philanthropy and the responsibility we all have to one another across our region and our country.

As you’ll hear in this interview, it's impossible to interact with Maxine and not come away from it feeling more optimistic about the future of St. Louis. This was a delightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

As always, if you have any questions, requests, or suggestions for people or organizations for me to interview, you can email me at david@gatewaywealthstl.com. Now, without further ado, here is my interview with Maxine Clark!

Links

• Clark-Fox Family Foundation
• 2018 IRS Form 990
• Delmar Divine
• Blueprint4SummerSTL
• Prosper Women's Capital
• St. Louis Magazine Feature
• Newswise Feature
• Wikipedia
• Maxine's Twitter