Cummings Foundation in Woburn

The strong majority of all real estate managed by Cummings Properties in Woburn, not yet including TradeCenter 128, is beneficially owned by and is operated for the benefit of Cummings Foundation, Inc. (CFI). The Cummings family has also donated all of the Company’s land and buildings in Burlington, Marlborough, Medford, Somerville, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Wilmington, Massachusetts to CFI.

Cummings Foundation has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars (each) to the Woburn Boys and Girls Club, to Hospice Care Inc. of Woburn, to Supportive Living, Inc. of Woburn, and to the YMCA. It also provided $500,000 to Winchester Community Music School.

New Horizons at Choate

CFI invested $6.3 million in creating Woburn’s not-for-profit New Horizons at Choate assisted living community. In 2003, the Foundation built the $150,000 brick comfort station at Horn Pond, and every year its other very local gifts total hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

A million dollar teen center in Beverly honors Cummings Properties’ late executive vice president, Douglas Stephens. A major scholarship program honors the memory of James L. McKeown, a Woburn native, who was the late president of Cummings Properties. More than $2 million in scholarship funds have been distributed to employees and others since 1996, including more than $400,000 to Woburn High School students alone.

Beyond Woburn, the origanization has gradually invested more than $20 million to create and expand New Horizons in Marlborough assisted living community. In Grafton, MA the Foundation has committed $50 million to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

New Horizons at Marlborough

Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
at Tufts University

After earlier endowing the Cummings Family Chair in Business Entrepreneurship at Tufts University, CFI entered a very unique relationship in 2002 with the University through CFI's newest operating subsidiary, Veterinary School at Tufts, LLC (VST). Through VST, the Foundation has committed a minimum of $50 million in financial assistance to what is now the very prestigious Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. The first veterinarians to enter the School after its renaming, graduated in 2009.

Very shortly following Cummings Foundation's commitment in 2004, the University received a far larger grant from the Omidyar Foundation. In a stunning move, two other Tufts graduates, Pam and Pierre Omidyar, of eBay fame, contributed more than $100 million to the University in 2005. Through the Tufts University endowment fund, the Omidyar gift will support entrepreneurship in the form of microfinancial entrepreneurial investments in developing nations.

The thrust of the Omidyar gift, in support of worldwide entrepreneurship, was of great interest and was particularly pleasing to Cummings Foundation in view of its own efforts to nudge the University in the same direction with the Cummings Family Chair in Entrepreneurship.

Tufts President Lawrence Bacow and Cummings School's dean, Dr. Deborah Kochevar, serve on the Foundation board, while half of the Overseers of Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine are officially designated by Cummings Foundation. Other "outside" members of the Foundation's Board include Supreme Court Justice Margot Botsford, Richard Ockerbloom, retired president of the Boston Globe; former state representatives Carol Donovan and Paul Casey; Michael Pascavage, executive VP of Skanska, USA; Dr. Joseph Abate; and Professor Jason Z. Morris of Fordham University.

Although it is currently not active, the Foundation's fourth operating entity, Commonwealth Realty Foundation, LLC (CRF), is specifically organized to accept gifts of residential or commercial real estate. In this regard CRF primarily accepts donations of developed or undeveloped land either in cooperation with area hospitals and colleges, or other not-for-profit entities. It has also received real estate, the proceeds of which have been intended to benefit solely Cummings Foundation.

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Directly or otherwise, William S. and Joyce M. Cummings of Winchester, provided the Foundation's financial base. Joyce is a former hospital dietitian who graduated from the University of Alabama and completed her dietetic internship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Among other activities, she has been a director of VNA Hospice Care, Inc. and Winchester Community Music School, and president of ENKA Society of Winchester, as well as co-chair of Winchester Friends of VNA Hospice Care, Inc. She is also a former trustee of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and chaired the women's golf program at Winchester Country Club.

Bill founded Cummings Properties, LLC (CPL) and several dozen other Massachusetts commercial real estate firms, and is involved in numerous community activities. He is a 1958 graduate and a trustee emeritus of Tufts University, and was also an overseer of Tufts Medical School.

He has also served as an elected member and as chairman of the Winchester Planning Board, and as a director of Winchester Country Club, Winchester Hospital and Tanners National Bank. He is president of not-for-profit New Horizons at Choate and the much larger New Horizons at Marlborough retirement communities, and was founding publisher of three community newspapers. Bill is also president of Cummings Foundation, Inc., and in 2006 received an honorary Doctorate from Tufts University.

From its beginnings in 1969 in Woburn, Massachusetts, CPL has evolved into one of Boston's most prominent, full service commercial real estate development firms. CPL and Cummings Realty, LLC currently operate nearly 10 million square feet of Massachusetts office space in 10 metropolitan Boston communities. It is one of the most financially solid real estate firms in the country, employing more than 300 regular full time staff.

Although CFI does not currently consider grant applications, it anticipates that it will create a Massachusetts grant-making arm within the next few years. Its immediate $1 billion endowment objective suffered a major setback in 2008, but the Foundation remains hopeful of reaching that level about 2013. Its net assets as of April 2009 are about $800 million, consisting primarily of debt-free commercial real estate donated by the Cummings family.