Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Multiple reliable independent sources have been provided to meet WP:GNG (non-admin closure) Qwaiiplayer (talk) 12:21, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers

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The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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They exist, but I couldn't establish that they meet WP:N. Has been in CAT:NN for 12 years; hopefully, we can now resolve it. Boleyn (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 05:44, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• Merge/redirect to Joan Kroc, the donor and namesake of these centers, per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives for deletion. Cunard (talk) 08:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• Striking my support for a merge. I changed to "keep" below after finding significant coverage and analysis in multiple independent reliable sources. There is enough analysis about Kroc Centers to support a standalone article. Cunard (talk) 00:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Delete They're is many hundreds of thousands of these places in the Salvation Army, and there is no indication that it is notable. scope_creep^Talk 13:50, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to Joan Croc as there is reliable news coverage but not enough for a seperate article imv , Atlantic306 (talk) 23:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC) struck vote as per below Atlantic306 (talk) 23:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

• Delete Fails WP:GNG Not notable enough to justify a Wikipedia article and there is not significant coverage.RamotHacker (talk) 21:24, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• Delete For now, let it go.Yaxı Hökmdarz (talk) 13:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Is there merge-worthy content that isn't at the proposed target?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanamonde (Talk) 18:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

• Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
  1. Kiser, Sabrina (2017). Merritt, John G.; Satterlee, Allen (eds.). Historical Dictionary of The Salvation Army (2 ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 328–329. ISBN 978-1-5381-0212-1. Retrieved 2021-09-12.

     The book has a six-paragraph entry about Kroc Centers.

     The book notes: "In October 2003, two years after the opening of the San Diego Kroc Center, Mrs. Kroc bequeathed $1.5 billion to The Salvation Army upon her passing. The gift—which comprised much of Mrs. Kroc's estate—was not only the largest charitable gift ever received by The Salvation Army but in fact the largest gift ever given to any single charity at one time and the second largest gift provided from an individual to a third-party charity in American history. ...Between 2002 and 2014, 26 Kroc Centers were built across 20 states in the United States of America and in Puerto Rico. The locations are as follows: [list of all locations] ...Kroc Centers have also been recipients of national attention. In May 2015, less than a year after its October 2014 opening, the Camden, New Jersey, Kroc Center was selected to host visiting President Barack Obama as he delivered a speech to the community. [more details]"

  2. Budrys, Grace (2013). How Nonprofits Work: Case Studies in Nonprofit Organizations. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-4422-2105-5. Retrieved 2021-09-12.

     The book notes: "An excellent illustration of the problems a generous donation can present has unfolded in recent years after Joan Kroc, wife of McDonald's Corporation founder Ray Kroc, gave the Salvation Army $87 million to build a center in San Diego with three swimming pools, an indoor ice skateboard rink, a sports playing field, and a 600-seat theater. Upon her death in 2003, she bequeathed $1.5 billion to build another thirty to forty Kroc Centers in low-income communities (Strom 2006). They did not have to be exactly the same as the San Diego Center, but they were to have many of the same features. ... Here's the problem Mrs. Kroc left enough money to cover half of the funds needed to operate the centers. That means the Salvation Army would have to raise as much as $70 million a year to cover the other half of the cost of operating the centers. [four sentences elaborating on this] ... As it turns out, the leadership was right to be worried. As of the middle of June 2009, of the thirty centers that were projected, four had been completed; two others were scheduled to open later in the year, plus five others next year; two were abandoned in the planning stages. The problem is that the Salvation Army was able to raise only 34 percent of the $214 million that it needed to operate the centers (Strom 2009, 13)."

  3. Phillips, Patricia; Ricke-Kiely, Theresa (2014). "Supersizing Philanthropic Leadership: The Case of the Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Center". The International Journal of Servant-Leadership. 10 (1). Gonzaga University: 177–191. Archived from the original on 2021-09-12. Retrieved 2021-09-12.

     The article notes: "The money was designated to build state-of-the-art Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers nationwide, patterned after the flagship Kroc Center in San Diego. Kroc Centers are comprehensive community centers where children and families enjoy recreational, educa­tional, and artistic activities that would otherwise be beyond their reach. ... For the Salvation Army, the Kroc Center provoked a myriad of responses from the community. Many stakeholders were positive and enthu­siastic about the dream of this community center becoming more tangible. But skeptics continued to revisit the promises of the past that had been made to this west-side community, and to recall how pledges fell short."

  4. Hurd, Amy; Anderson, Denise M.; Mainieri, Tracy L. (2021). Kraus' Recreation and Leisure in Modern Society (12 ed.). Burlington, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-284-20503-9. Retrieved 2021-09-12.

     The book notes: "In 1998, Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, in making a $90 million donation to the Salvation Army of San Diego, California, started what would become a nationwide impact on the services provided to communities by the Salvation Army through funds designed to build comprehensive community centers. ... Today, there are 26 centters in cities such as [list]. ... An example of the success of the Kroc Centers comes from Greenville, South Carolina, whose Kroc Center opened in 2011. Conservatively, the Greenville Kroc Center contributed over $5,482,934 annually (2014) in local value, bringing economic and social vitality to the community through its programming, spending, and support of community members and organizations."

  5. Stern, Ken (2013). With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 145–147. ISBN 978-0307-74381-7. Retrieved 2021-09-12.

     The book notes: "It's hard for anyone, let alone a charity that rings bells for spare change, not to get moony over a billion and a half dollars, but in fact the Kroc gift was met with considerable trepidation within the Army's headquarters. It was not the value of the community centers per se that concerned the organization's leadership but the risk of undermining its core efforts. ... The Kroc gift carried substantial risk for the Salvation Army: management distraction and inattention to core services, public confusion over the operations and brand of the Salvation Army, and potential diversion of funds from core operations if the Kroc centers did not prove self-sufficient. Moreover, while the San Diego Kroc Center was beautiful, the service value of the center was unclear and untested by meaningful measure. These were all persuasive arguments against taking the gift, but ultimately the magnetic pull of $1.5 billion was simply too strong. In January 2004, about three months after the death of Mrs. Kroc, the Salvation Army finally announced the historic gift. The Kroc estate began the distribution in January 2005; by that time, investment gains had grown the gift to $1.8 billion, sufficient to fund a planned twenty-seven centers around the country."

  There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Kroc Centers to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

  Cunard (talk) 00:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Keep have changed from merge to keep in view of the multiple reliable sources showing significant coverage of the topic as evidenced above by Cunard which all together shows that a seperate article is warranted after all, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.