Starting with their partnership in 1948, Greenville’s Mickel and Daniel families envisioned and helped build the city we see today.
Today, the descendants of those visionary construction titans are paying that history forward with millions in philanthropic dollars.
“If you go back to our guidelines, there were a number of things that the trustees then and the trustees now really care about, and one of those certainly is education,” said Minor Mickel Shaw, trustee of The Daniel-Mickel Foundation.
The same post-war year that Shaw’s father, Buck Mickel, joined Charles Daniel’s firm, the latter formed the philanthropic Daniel Foundation. In 1993, the former renamed the charity The Daniel-Mickel Foundation. Throughout its history, the foundation has gifted some $57 million to nonprofits in Greenville, from the arts to conservation to health care.
Two of those include Greenville Technical College and the Greenville Tech Foundation. On Oct. 22, the foundation honored The Daniel-Mickel Foundation for “lifetime giving” for its $330,000-plus in donations since 2001.
Greenville Tech gifts from The Daniel-Mickel Foundation
Those gifts have helped power Greenville Tech’s explosive growth in culinary, information technology and continuing education programs, a foundation website page says, noting: “The Daniel-Mickel Foundation has left a lasting legacy in the Upstate of South Carolina and is a true champion for student success.”
Shaw sounds similar sentiments about the school, which opened in 1962, and its fundraising foundation, created 11 years later.
“We feel really good about giving our money to Greenville Tech because we know it makes a difference, and we’re getting results and they can measure their results,” Shaw said. “The African American Male Scholars Initiative is a great example of that.”
Founded in 2019, AAMSI has seen 83% of its scholars stay enrolled at Greenville Tech through their academic journey, according to the AAMSI page on the college’s website.
Workforce development and creating opportunities for personal and professional growth, all toward building Greenville, are among The Daniel-Mickel Foundation’s core priorities, Shaw said. To that end, she and her four fellow trustees comb through mountains of grant applications each year.
“I think the key is trying to understand the needs of, be aware of, what’s going on in Greenville, trying to understand the needs of the community,” she said. “Greenville Tech is a really, really critically important organization in this community and is one of the building blocks of this community.”
As for Greenville Tech and the Greenville Tech Foundation, TDMF trustee Charlie Mickel added: “Why wouldn’t you support an organization that supports Greenville and economic development in our area? Once we get families working and industries here, we all get to rise up.”
Likewise, Shaw said the foundation treasures its relationship with the college and GTF for its commitment to communicating success stories from philanthropic investments.
“When donors give to Greenville Tech, it’s important for them to be able to keep us informed, and they do, and we know that they are making a difference in this community,” she said.
Carter Shaw Lowrance, another Daniel-Mickel Foundation trustee, shared her gratitude for the recognition coming later this month at Greenville Technical Foundation’s Champions for Student Success at the Prisma Health Center for Health & Life Sciences.
“Greenville Tech has always been such an integral part of our community,” she said, “and for us to be able to play a small part in that is a real privilege.”
Philanthropic efforts
The Daniel-Mickel Foundation’s philanthropic efforts on behalf of Greenville Tech and Greenville Tech Foundation have included:
- Establishing the Buck Mickel Endowed Scholarship for Career Development
- Gifts to corporate and continuing education in information technology
- Naming a classroom at the Truist Culinary & Hospitality Innovation Center
- Supporting the African American Male Scholars Initiative and Student Emergency Needs programs
Source: Greenville Tech
The Daniel-Mickel Foundation has contributed to, among numerous others:
- Greenville Tech Foundation
- South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities
- YMCA-Cleveland Street
- A Child’s Haven
- Greenville County Museum of Art
- The Children’s Museum of the Upstate
- Palmetto Conservation Foundation
- Harvest Hope Food Bank
- Meyer Center
- The Nature Conservancy
Source: The Daniel-Mickel Foundation
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