Small Towns, Big Success

Community members point to Mr. Miller and his organizational skills as the first key to the group's success. Mr. Miller, in fact, spends a great deal of time keeping painstakingly detailed records of the foundation's activities and spreading the good news about the scholarships.

He, in turn, benefits from his company's granting him as much time as he needs to work on the scholarship fund. Yet Brad Manatt, the president of Manatt's Inc., Mr. Miller's employer and a major contributor to the foundation, shrugs off the suggestion that he has done anything particularly noteworthy by providing the time. "I didn't know I had a choice," Mr. Manatt says jokingly.

Another key has been publicity, which is easier in a town where the newspaper also serves as a community bulletin board. Frank Heinen, the foundation's publicity chairman, writes an article about the scholarship fund each week for publication in the Brooklyn Chronicle . And he ends each article with an address to which...