Driven to Build: The Story Behind the Catskill Mountain Foundation

"Close your eyes when you roll through town and open them when you get to the driveway," is essentially how Peter and Sarah Finn jokingly welcomed friends to their Hunter home in the mid-1990s — when dilapidated buildings and FOR SALE signs dominated Main Street.

The Finns turned  frustration into action, buying a rotting dairy barn and a struggling movie theater, and building what would become the Catskill Mountain Foundation in 1998. Nearly 30 years later, CMF runs a three-screen cinema, a piano performance museum, ballet and theater programs, artist housing, an organic farm, and a monthly regional magazine, and employs about 30 people.

Peter's new book, Driven to Build, Guided by Values: Leading for Long-Term Success in the For-Profit and Nonprofit Worlds, traces the principles behind both CMF and FINN Partners, the global PR firm he founded.

Peter and Sarah join host Brett Barry at their home in Hunter, along with CMF Executive Director Amy Scheibe, to talk through the foundation's origins and where it's headed. Topics include:

The Finn family's roots in Hunter, going back to Peter's great-grandparents, who arrived from the Poland-Ukraine borderlands in 1889 (a story also told in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers)Buying and renovating the Red Barn and the old Hunter movie theater, and how conversations with Sean Byrne (Hunter Foundation), Barry Kerr, Linda Nichols, and Pam and Judd Weisberg shaped CMF's formationThe distinction between CMF (arts) and its neighbor, The Hunter Foundation (Main Street revitalization)Funding the foundation's early years and building donor relationships, including Hunter Mountain's Slutsky familyHow Peter's PR-agency background shaped CMF's multi-pronged structureCurrent capital projects: new theatrical equipment and a rehearsal/dance studio at the Orpheum (funded by a $1.75M state matching grant), a NYSERDA net-zero grant for the studio building, and new artist housing (Creekside Retreat)What's next for CMFLinks:

Peter Finn's book: Driven to Build, Guided by ValuesThe Catskill Mountain Foundation: catskillmtn.orgKaatscast: kaatscast.com — full episode archive, transcribed and searchable