In early October, a 20-person delegation of Maryland, Anne Arundel County and Annapolis officials traveled to Sweden to study sustainability, review electric ferries and meet with Swedish leaders.

The weeklong trip was funded by the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County through $75,000 in grants from the MHE and Denker foundations, both of which have a history of making donations to organizations throughout Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. No taxpayer funds were used for the trip. Trip sponsors Patrick Denker and Matt Earl paid for their own expenses. Expenses for Capital Gazette reporter Natalie Jones, who reported live from Sweden, were paid for by the Capital Gazette.

Who are the foundations, and why did they fund the trip?

The Denker Foundation

Started more than a decade ago by Peter Denker as a small private family foundation, the nonprofit’s earliest donations included gifts to Dallas-based institutions focused on health care, education and the arts. When Peter Denker died in late 2017, however, his son Patrick Denker took over managing the foundation, becoming co-trustees with his mother.

Denker, a former college English professor, moved to Annapolis in 2018, renting an apartment before settling in Eastport.

“I love Annapolis, I’m very excited about Annapolis, maybe in the way that only an outsider can be,” he said in a phone interview Thursday. “I chose to live there, I picked it after literally years of study.”

With an interest in philanthropy, Denker began donating to Annapolis-based organizations the same year.

“I was interested in focusing on small organizations and smaller projects where a small amount of money, something in the single thousands or the tens of thousands — not many tens — where something like that can have a big impact,” he said.

Since moving to the area, Denker’s donations have gone to Historic Annapolis, the Annapolis Maritime Museum and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, among others. Denker has also donated to the Spa Creek Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to cleaning up the waterway in the heart of Annapolis, and is a board member for the organization.

In addition to the $25,000 he donated to fund officials’ travel to Sweden, last year, Denker gave $20,000 to the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County for Annapolis officials’ trip to the Netherlands to study resilience infrastructure, flood defenses and alternative transportation methods. Denker joined city officials on the trip.

Though the Denker Foundation’s 2023 IRS Form 990, which nonprofits are required to file annually, indicates the $20,000 donation was to the Resilience Authority of Charles County in southern Maryland, Denker confirmed the donation was to the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. The error, he said, was a mistake made by his tax preparers. Some of the policy initiatives discussed on the two trips, including bike infrastructure, flood control, electric ferries and clean waste incineration, piqued Denker’s interest.

“I’m really excited about the policies and what little I can do to help push the state in that direction or do some more research on them to see if they are in fact desirable and applicable,” he said. “I’m happy to do it.”

“The most important thing is, I feel like it was tremendously productive for the city and the county and the state and the people of Maryland,” he said. “That’s why we paid for it and the taxpayers didn’t have to spend a dollar, so if some critic thinks there’s something better we could have done, have them let me know what it is and we’ll do it next year — and again, it will cost the citizens nothing.”

The MHE Foundation

A family foundation started by Anne Arundel County resident Matt Earl in 2007, the MHE Foundation is named after his grandmother, Margaret Helena Earl. In an email, Earl said he created the foundation to support the environment, education, the arts, and health care.

Similar to the Denker Foundation, the MHE Foundation has long contributed to Annapolis and Anne Arundel-based organizations.

Over the past five years, the foundation has donated to the Anne Arundel Medical Center, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Maryland Hall, among others.

Last year, the MHE Foundation donated more than $200,000 to the Chesapeake Conservancy, an Annapolis nonprofit that aims to conserve and restore the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where Earl is the vice chair of the board of directors.

Although donating to the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County is “slightly outside” of what the foundation traditionally does, Earl said the foundation felt the trip was in alignment with one of its missions — protecting the environment.

“Educating our local leaders on environmental sustainability from the world leader in these technologies (Sweden) will hopefully translate to utilizing some of the techniques here in the United States,” Earl said in an email Friday. “If even a fraction of the things we learned from the trip are implemented, I think it would be a huge win for our country and the environment.”

Have a news tip? Contact Megan Loock at mloock@baltsun.com or 443-962-5771.