History
The Zeist Foundation was established in 1989 by Dr. George and Mrs. Jean Brumley. For Dr. and Mrs. Brumley, there were two primary objectives for the creating of the Zeist Foundation: to teach their five children the importance of sharing their gifts with the broader community, and to give their children and future generations an enduring way to continue the Brumley family’s philanthropic legacy.
The Founders
Jean Stanback Brumley grew up in Salisbury, NC. She graduated from Duke University in 1958, married George, and worked as an elementary school teacher before becoming a full-time mother. Jean was an active community volunteer who served on the advisory boards and board of directors for Trinity Early Learning Center, Trinity Presbyterian Church, the Southeastern Flower Show, Families First, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She also sat on the Program Allocations and the Arts Loan Fund committees as a Board member of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta. Jean helped her husband, George, create the Whitefoord Community Program, a nonprofit community development project supporting an underserved neighborhood in Southeast Atlanta with a school health clinic and a pre-school early learning center. Many long-time Atlanta residents will have fond memories of the special events Jean helped plan such as the Festival of Trees, the Atlanta Symphony Show Home, and the Southeastern Flower Show which brought the public out for a good cause. Jean enjoyed reading, gardening, and interior decorating.
George W. Brumley, Jr. grew up in St. Mary’s, GA. He received both his undergraduate and medical school degrees from Duke University with postgraduate training in pediatrics and neonatology spanning London’s National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital (Harvard) and Johns Hopkins. George served in the Navy as a physician in Newfoundland. The first neonatologist in North Carolina, George taught at Duke for 19 years and co-directed the Division of Perinatal Medicine. In 1981 George was named Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine where he later served as interim Dean of the medical school. He retired from Emory in 1995 and focused his energies on several nonprofit organizations focusing on the underserved including launching The Whitefoord Community Program. George also initiated Project Grad – a public-private nonprofit effort to support enhanced performance in public city schools. George was a voracious reader of everything but fiction. In February of 2000 he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.
The Brumley Family
Dr. and Mrs. Brumley were blessed with five children, George III, Beth, Lois, Marie and Nancy, who kept the household bustling. The Brumleys raised their children to internalize to whom much is given, much is expected. Dr. Brumley regularly quoted George Bernard Shaw “life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can”. Mrs. Brumley regularly volunteered her children for park clean-ups and hospital candy-striping. Their lessons stuck as demonstrated by their children’s ongoing dedication to community-based organizations.
In 1989, not long after settling in Atlanta, GA, the couple formalized their philanthropic ways with the creation of the Zeist Foundation. All adult Brumley children were granted trusteeship.
The Name
The name for the Zeist Foundation was born out of a joyous year the Brumley family spent together in the town of Zeist, Netherlands where they lived while Dr. Brumley was on sabbatical from his position at Duke University. The time the family spent in Zeist was wonderful and served to strengthen further their already strong bond. In recognition of the importance of the family’s time together in Zeist and of the treasured memories they made while living there, they chose the name “Zeist” for the family’s foundation and company.
Exploring Philanthropy
During the early years of the foundation, Mrs. Brumley and other members of the Brumley family spent their volunteer time exploring opportunities to partner with non-profit organizations that shared their mission of supporting education, children and youth, community building, health, the arts, the environment, and wildlife.
During the first 15 years of the foundation, approximately fifty non-profit organizations received annual support from the foundation. A few stake holder organizations with close associations to the Brumley family received the largest grants, however. These organizations included the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Emory-Egleston (CHOA), Trinity Presbyterian Church, and Duke University.
Place-Based Philanthropy
In the early 1990s, several years after the founding of the Zeist Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Brumley adopted a “place-based” approach to the foundation’s philanthropy. The focus of their philanthropic efforts became Atlanta’s Edgewood community, an underserved area strategically located near transportation hubs and Emory University.
In 1994, The Zeist Foundation’s initial investment in the Edgewood community was made through the establishment of a school-based, pediatric clinic that operated within Whitefoord Elementary School by physicians and nurses from Emory University. This collaborative partnership between the Zeist Foundation, Atlanta Public Schools and Emory University was a unique health education project which served as a catalyst for future community-building efforts in the Edgewood community.
Zeist Family Office
As the Zeist Foundation approached its tenth anniversary in 1999, the philanthropic organization became a full-time operation. In response, the Zeist Family Office was created and Lizanne Stephenson was hired as the Executive Director and the foundation’s first staff member. At this time, The Zeist Foundation was providing support to nearly sixty organizations and additional stakeholder organizations were named.
The eventual presence of full-time Executive Directors at both the Zeist Foundation and at the Whitefoord Community Program allowed Dr. Brumley (who had retired a few years earlier) and Mrs. Brumley to devote more of their time to other community initiatives. Dr. Brumley affirmed his commitment to public education through his service as the first Board Chairman for Project GRAD Atlanta, a signature reform effort of Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall which evolved into Achieve Atlanta. Mrs. Brumley, meanwhile, was inspired by her passion for families, music and community development to serve on the Boards of Families First, Inc., the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta.
Today, the Zeist Family Office provides accounting, administrative, and benefits support to the Zeist Foundation so that Foundation staff and directors can focus on community. In turn, the Foundation staff organizes non-profit field trips and service days to expose our back office to the organizations benefitting from their work.
Foundation at Rest
In the summer of 2003, while traveling in Kenya, twelve members of the Brumley family, comprising three generations, died in a plane accident.
Dr. George W. Brumley, II & Mrs. Jean S. Brumley
Mr. George W. & Mrs. Julia Brumley, III, George and Jordan Brumley
Mr. Richard & Mrs. Lois Brumley Morrell, Alex Morrell
Mr. William & Beth Brumley Love, Sarah Love
Not only were their deaths devastating to surviving family members, communities across Georgia and North Carolina lost dedicated volunteers who so willingly shared their passions, talents, and treasures with the broader community.
In the wake of this enormous tragedy, the surviving Brumley children made the difficult yet understandable decision to temporarily suspend Zeist Foundation activities.
Legacy Leadership
In 2005, Nancy Robitaille, Marie Foster, and Brad Foster, resumed Zeist Foundation activities and committed themselves anew to preserving and advancing their family’s philanthropic legacy. Soon thereafter, Kappy Kellett deButts was named the Zeist Foundation’s Executive Director. Ms. deButts and Garry Long, the Foundation’s Place-Based Philanthropy Director hired by Dr. Brumley before departing for Africa, supported the family’s efforts to realize the Brumley’s vision for the Foundation, including affordable housing in the Edgewood neighborhood.
Over the succeeding years, Nancy and Marie have carried the mantle of the Brumley Family Way through their Foundation leadership and community volunteerism. Their professional experience as elementary school educators informed not only the Foundation’s grantmaking, but their belief in preparing the next generation of Brumley descendants to one day answer the call of board service through education and grantmaking within a Junior Board structure.
In 2020, the Junior Board evolved into the Next Generation board providing the ten members of the Brumley’s third generation an opportunity to learn more about Atlanta’s non-profit ecosystem, exercise more agency in their annual grant cycle, and develop their approach to personal philanthropy, as another step in their board service preparation. In 2022, the Zeist Foundation welcomed its first Director from the third generation and continues to nurture family engagement with the Zeist Foundation and volunteerism within their home communities.