POCATELLO — For over 21 years, Steve Burns watched children press up against exhibits of grizzly bears, blood pythons and turkey vultures, hoping to get better views of the animals inside.

Burns was recently chosen to be the new president and CEO of the Idaho Community Foundation.

Burns always understood their eager wonder, as he’d never lost his love for animals as a child, a passion that drove him to work at Zoo Boise as director.

Seeing visitors’ excitement toward animals led Burns to a thought.

“We were involved a lot in wildlife conservation,” he said. “And we didn’t want to just be a zoo, like when people would come in and see the animals. That was great, but we wanted to be more than that because living in the zoo were all these animals going extinct.”

What came to pass was a conservation fee that Zoo Boise added to ticket sales to help conserve animals and fund conservation projects around the world — the first zoo in the nation to establish such an initiative.

Burns also led a partnership between Zoo Boise and Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, Africa, a park that was ravaged by civil war and where people resorted to eating local animals to survive.

Burns also partnered with Idaho Falls resident Greg Carr, who created a foundation committed to restoring Gorongosa National Park and helping conserve local animals that were going extinct.

“So we partnered with Greg and his team and very quickly realized if this park is going to be successful, then that success is dependent upon the people living around it,” he said.

Although Burns entered this project from a wildlife conservation perspective, it broadened into something more — something that helped the communities around the park thrive. They helped fund agricultural and education programs, and set up girls clubs that encouraged girls to stay in school.

“Even though I was at the zoo, we were helping build communities,” he said.

Burns’ skills and experiences he gained as director of Zoo Boise and helping enrich the quality of life for communities in Mozambique are something he is confident will be put to good use as he strives to assist each of the 44 counties in Idaho in his new position with the Idaho Community Foundation.

“(Gorongosa National Park) is a different geographical place but the same principles still apply,” he explained. “How do you build communities? How do you bring people together? How do you respect each other? I hope these skills translate well into this job.”

Burns became president in early January and recently visited with three of Pocatello’s board members to discuss challenges and needs of the community.

One project for Pocatello that the ICF wanted to approach was to revisit priorities from the past five years and gauge whether or not they have changed.

“Are they the same? What’s changed and how, and how can we be inclusive in terms of listening to people?” Burns said. “Then we can help allocate the resources we have to address the needs the communities have identified. So it’s a more strategic way, we’re not just sitting there, giving out money. We are strategically listening and understanding from communities where the needs are most important and how we can help make that work.”

As a foundation that offers grants to nonprofit organizations and schools, the ICF, which is headquartered in Boise, focuses on establishing relationships with community representatives and leaders from each county. These leaders explain to ICF what issues the community may be facing, and where and what assistance might be needed.

While Idaho is the 14th largest state in terms of square miles and many counties have rural communities, Burns explained that after interacting with people from all over the state he noticed there are several common challenges it faces.

“It is a big state and at times it feels like multiple states, but even in my first few months as I’ve gone around to different parts of it, the challenges are all the same,” he said. “We’re hearing the same things in communities. There’s a mental health crisis, there’s homeless issues, there’s affordable housing — how are we going to deal with that in so many communities? So part of what we want to do is make people aware that they’re not alone.”

Burns hopes that seeking input and insight from local county representatives will be a solid strategy to help fund projects that will make a beneficial difference.

Recently, ICF helped oversee such a cause with their Project Neighborly initiative, where counties are encouraged to come up with ideas on how to bring inclusive, compassionate acts to their neighborhoods, which ICF will then help fund through a grant to bring that idea to life.

“The idea is to give small grants to groups, with the idea of bringing people together who don’t normally come together so they can interact and talk and get to know each other,” he said. “We need more of that.”

A high school in Boise received a grant from Project Neighborly after students addressed the city as having been seeing a large influx of refugees and explained they wanted to rally together to welcome them. With the grant, the students purchased about a hundred flower pots with flowers and a card that they then delivered to their new neighbors.

“They said, ‘We’re Borah High School, we wanted to introduce ourselves and wanted to get to know you,’ and so that was an example of what can be done,” Burns said. “So we’re excited to see what some of the ideas are.”

Burns explained he is excited to see what the ICF can do to help counties all throughout the state, and bring communities and individuals together in a time of political and social division.

“When I was in Coeur D’Alene, they were going to try and do something that happens on NPR where they will take two people who have diametrically opposing views on a particular topic and they have to be interviewed,” he said. “And they can talk about everything except what they’re in disagreement over, and by the end of the conversation they realize they have more in common than they ever thought they did. That’s one of the projects we’re excited about this year…we’ll see it where it goes, and hopefully it just continues to grow.”