The Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund has returned to a normal pace of charitable giving after years of record-breaking philanthropic efforts prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the foundation's financial filings, Smith-Barbieri distributed $1.2 million in 2023, $1.1 million in 2022, $1 million in 2021, and $950,000 in 2020.

Total charitable giving in 2024 was closer to $600,000, says Lerria Schuh, executive director of the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund and its first and only employee. She projects the foundation will likely administer the same amount this year.

“We decided during the time of COVID, with the need being so great, that it made more sense for us to stay true to our mission and be able to take those proceeds from those investments and put them back into the community,” Schuh says. 

She explains that the foundation sets its budget each year based on a percentage of return on investments. As a result, from 2020 to 2023, Smith-Barbieri was able to distribute more donations based on the organization’s investments doing so well.

While the foundation has lowered its rate of charitable giving since 2023, it had been steadily increasing its grants and donations each year prior to the pandemic. From 2010 to 2019, the foundation grew from $28,000 in charitable giving to $620,000.

The rise in grant applications also has grown from about 50 per grant cycle to over 100 since 2020. Schuh says the 2025 grant application cycle kicked off on March 1 and will stay open for about four weeks.

“We try and focus on aligning our mission, especially for programs that are filling in gaps where nobody else is investing,” she says. “We prefer to support small nonprofits. We’re looking for those that may seem (too risky) for a larger funder. That’s kind of our niche.”

The Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation. Schuh says the foundation distributes grants, typically about $7,500 each, to organizations that focus on causes such as mental health, food security, homelessness, and children's literacy.

The foundation was started in 1998 by Spokane businessman Don Barbieri, who purchased the downtown Park Tower high-rise and converted it into affordable housing. He then set aside some assets, bought out his partners in the project, and created the foundation’s initial fund.

Barbieri is a well-known figure in the Spokane community. He served as the CEO, president, and chairman of Red Lion Hotels Corp. for an extended time. His family led Cavanaugh’s Hospitality Corp., and Barbieri worked for decades to build the hotel company and help it transition from Cavanaugh’s to WestCoast Hospitality Corp. and then to Red Lion. Barbieri retired as CEO in 2003 and stayed on as chairman until 2012.

He also led several new development and redevelopment projects near or along the Spokane River, including the historic Broadview Dairy, the Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Red Lion River Inn, and the Riverpoint and Upper Falls condominium developments.

In 2010, Barbieri and his partner Sharon Smith expanded the foundation by infusing it with some of their own money and growing the fund to $2.6 million in assets. It has grown to $7.2 million as of 2023. Smith and Barbieri are the foundation’s sole trustees and don't draw income from the work they do.

Smith has 25 years of experience in national operations and marketing efforts for hotel brands and served on a variety of community efforts primarily focused on poverty and homelessness causes. She served as vice president of operations for the Hilton Hotels Corp., handling operations and franchise services for the Red Lion brand until 2001, when it was sold to West Coast Hotels. She moved to Spokane in 2002 and met Barbieri. Smith and Barbieri, who are retired, split their time between their Spokane and Maui, Hawaii, homes throughout the year.

In 2020, Schuh became the foundation’s first employee. Before coming to the foundation, she spent two decades working with WestCoast Entertainment, presenting the Best of Broadway series in Spokane, which was started by Barbieri in 1986, she says.

WestCoast Entertainment was sold in 2017, and Schuh started doing contract work, but because most of her work was outside of the region, she felt disconnected from Spokane. Having known Smith since she first moved to Spokane, she told her how much she admired the work of the foundation and inquired about ways to get involved. She started out doing volunteer work for Smith-Barbieri, and eventually, as Smith was looking to retire, she was promoted to the executive director role. 

“It was rather serendipitous how it came together,” Schuh says.  

Schuh says Smith and Barbieri have no hidden agendas. They simply want to help people without judging them while working toward a common good, she adds.  

“They worked very hard and recognize their fortunate positions of privilege, of having wealth,” Schuh says. “Don has said to me numerous times, ‘You can’t take it with you, so let’s see how we can help people in the process.'”

Smith and Barbieri are the foundation’s main contributors along with some public donors, Schuh says. Donations to the foundation are invested in environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, funds. The income generated from those investments is then used to create grants, Schuh says. 

The foundation’s website lists over 150 organizations that have received grants from the fund, the majority of which are based in Spokane, with a few in North Idaho and Pullman, Washington.

Schuh says the foundation practices trust-based philanthropy. The application process is about five questions that can be answered easily off the top of the applicant’s mind. Then the onus is on Schuh to research each applicant organization and call trusted members in the community to learn more about the quality of the work the organization is doing. 

“If they get a grant from us, then we don’t ask for loads of paperwork,” Schuh says. “Most founders want receipts and to know what the outcomes are, and on and on. We feel like we trust them enough to give them funding; we’ve done our due diligence in the beginning.” 

Beyond the distribution of grants, the foundation also has two additional areas of focus centered around fiscal sponsorships and advocacy work.

“Fiscal sponsorship has become a really important part of what we do,” Schuh says.

Fiscal sponsorship is the practice of nonprofit organizations offering their legal and tax-exempt status to groups that are in the early stages of setting up their nonprofit, Schuh explains. 

When a group of people are in the early stages of setting up a nonprofit, it is a difficult and long process to become a 501(c)(3) organization, which is often a hurdle for these startups because they need funds to get through the process, but most large sponsors are not willing to give unless the group has a 501(c)(3) status, she adds.

To help these small groups, Smith-Barbieri serves as a fiscal sponsor, allowing donations meant for these startup nonprofits to flow through the foundation, which then allows donors to receive a tax exemption and the small startup to receive the funding they need to build their organization.

Schuh says Smith-Barbieri doesn't charge a fee to these organizations for using the foundation's exempt status and distributes 100% of donations directly to the startups. 

Typically, fiscal sponsors take a percentage off the top of the sponsored organization's revenue, she says.

“In our case, because Sharon and Don personally reimburse all of our expenses at the end of the year ... I don’t have to charge anything for a specific sponsorship," Schuh says. 

Schuh then helps incubate and launch these nonprofits, she says. Some examples of past organizations sponsored by Smith-Barbieri include Feast World Kitchen, Compassionate Addictions, Shades of Motherhood, and Giving Back Spokane.

“We can look at some of these organizations that have really made an impact, and we’re grateful that we could help give them their start,” Schuh says.

The third area of focus is the foundation’s advocacy work in which it advocates for policy, policy change, and support for vulnerable populations. Sometimes advocacy can mean sending testimony to state legislators, talking with the Spokane City Council, or the mayor, among other things, she says. She clarifies that as a 501(c)(3) organization, Smith-Barbieri doesn't delve into the territory of supporting political candidates.

“We speak up when we see something that is harmful to communities that we’re trying to support, and advocate side-by-side with them in ways they need the most,” Schuh says. 

Some of the causes the organization has advocated for in the past include supporting homeless people and protecting their rights. Additionally, Schuh says it’s important for the foundation to make sure the voices of people in impacted and vulnerable communities are also heard. 

“We try to bring folks to the table who have been impacted because they know better than anybody what the solutions are and how to get there,” she says.