After seven years on the job, the leader of the state’s largest charity foundation is leaving to take a similar job in Delaware.
Stuart “Stu” Comstock-Gay, the president and chief executive officer of the Vermont Community Foundation in Middlebury, announced in a public letter Dec. 9 that he would work with the Delaware Community Foundation in Wilmington.
Comstock-Gay’s last day is Jan. 22. His first day in Delaware is in the beginning of February. He and his wife Lucy plan to visit Vermont in the summer of 2016 for his daughter’s wedding.
The Vermont Community Foundation is a collection of hundreds of different charities across Vermont. The foundation started in 1986 and gives out more than $12 million per year in grants, largely in Vermont, according to its website.
In 2013, the Vermont Community Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, had $162.6 million in assets, according to its 990 tax form, and made $23.3 million in total revenue. That was an increase from $88.6 million in total assets in 2009 and $15.8 million in revenue, according to the organization’s 990s.
“I am proud of many things we’ve worked on during my tenure here,” Comstock-Gay wrote in a letter. He cited work the Vermont Community Foundation has done with the Vermont Women’s Fund, the Samara Fund, the McClure Foundation, the High Meadows fund, the Permanent Fund, the Addison Community Athletics Foundation and the Northeast Kingdom Fund.
Comstock-Gay said the new job “presents me with an opportunity to work in a setting that includes diverse urban and rural communities, and the challenges that are inherent in those places.”
Comstock-Gay made $182,103 in base pay in 2013, according to the organization’s 990, and $31,972 in benefits. He and his wife started their careers in the mid-Atlantic region, and their grown daughters live in that area.
