Leo Adler Foundation awards $1.37 million in Baker County grants, scholarships

The Leo Adler Foundation pushed $1,372,285 back into Baker County and North Powder, a seven-figure infusion that keeps scholarships, youth programs and small civic groups moving in a county where private funding is often thin. The foundation’s work has become one of the most dependable civic supports in the region, quietly underwriting local needs that would otherwise compete for limited donations and grant dollars.

That money does not stay abstract for long. Over recent years, community grants from the foundation have reached the Baker City Police Department, Crossroads Carnegie Arts Center, Friends of the Baker Heritage Museum, Baker Backpack Program, Baker City Downtown, Baker City Rotary, Baker Swim Team, Haines Fire District, North Powder Rural Fire District and the Baker County Community Literacy Coalition. Those awards have helped cover the work of volunteer-led services, heritage groups, after-school supports and community institutions that anchor daily life from Baker City to North Powder.

The scholarship side is just as local. Awards are limited to graduates of Baker County high schools and North Powder High School who are residents of Baker County or the North Powder School District, and they can be used for college, university, technical or trade study. From 1995 to 2008, the fund supported about 400 students a year, with an average scholarship of $2,433, showing how deeply the program has mattered to families trying to bridge the gap between graduation and the next step.

The foundation said its mission is to enrich quality of life and expand opportunities in Baker County and North Powder through community grants and scholarships. It operates with a seven-member board, and community grant applications are reviewed by six local committee members plus one representative from First Republic Trust Company. Community grant applications will open July 1, 2026, and close Sept. 1, 2026, while scholarship applications for the 2025-26 cycle ran from Dec. 15, 2025, through March 1, 2026.

Leo Adler, born in Baker City in June 1895, died on Nov. 2, 1993, and left $20 million in the Leo Adler Trust. Other accounts have placed the original gift at about $22 million. However it is measured, the endowment has endured as a tightly focused local fund, with Candid describing its giving as 60 percent scholarships and 40 percent community grants.

For Baker County, that means the Adler legacy still lands where it started, in schools, service clubs, arts groups, fire districts and student aid that help hold the county together.