Millard Fuller; gave millions, created Habitat for Humanity

Millard Fuller, helping workers install framing for one of 60 Habitat for Humanity houses built in Shreveport, La., for victims of Hurricane Katrina. (ap/file 2005)

WASHINGTON - Millard Fuller, a self-made millionaire who gave away his wealth to start the Christian house-building group Habitat for Humanity, and who later started a similar organization after he was fired over disputes with the Habitat board, died Feb. 3 en route to a hospital in Albany, Ga. He was 74.

An autopsy was being performed to determine the cause of death.

Mr. Fuller had recently been under a doctor's care for chest congestion and was taking antibiotics, said a spokeswoman for the Fuller Center for Housing. He continued to work, although he uncharacteristically took a sick day the day before he died. Late that night, or early the next day, he went to Sumter Regional Hospital in Americus, Ga., and was being transferred to a larger hospital when he died, the spokeswoman said.

Habitat for Humanity, founded in 1976 and based in Americus, built more than 175,000 houses in 100 countries under Mr. Fuller's leadership and attracted prominent volunteers, including former President Jimmy Carter. The Fuller Center for Housing, founded in 2005, raises money for Habitat affiliates.

Hundreds of thousands of low-income families that had been living in substandard housing benefited from Habitat's policy of no-interest mortgages. Would-be homeowners had to make a small down payment and spend a certain number of hours building their home along with volunteers.

In a statement yesterday, Carter called Mr. Fuller "one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

"He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing," Carter said. "As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family, and an untold number of volunteers who worked side by side under his leadership."

In 1996, Mr. Fuller received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. In 2005, he and his wife, Linda, who cofounded Habitat, were honored by former President George H.W. Bush and the Points of Light Foundation with a bronze medallion embedded in the Extra Mile volunteer memorial in Washington.

Mr. Fuller's legacy was tarnished in early 2005 when a former employee said he sexually harassed her, some 15 years after at least five other former employees made similar claims. Mr. Fuller denied the allegations, and the Habitat board of directors said it could not substantiate the charges. Nonetheless, he was fired.

Mr. Fuller attributed his ousting to his continued efforts to expand the organization's operations.

He started a new group, first called Building Habitat until the Habitat for Humanity board filed suit. It became the Fuller Center for Housing.

Millard Fuller was born in Lanett, Ala., on Jan. 3, 1935, to a farming family. He graduated from Auburn University in 1957 and enrolled in law school at the University of Alabama.

He and a fellow law student, Morris S. Dees Jr., later the cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., started a direct-mail business with the simple mission to get rich, Mr. Fuller said.

"We launched into a whole lot of business ventures - almost all of which worked," he told The NonProfit Times. They sold 20 train carloads of tractor cushions in three months through Future Farmers of America. They sold rat poison, candy, and toothbrushes, and "all of it just made money," Mr. Fuller said.

They tried to sell mistletoe, but couldn't get it down from the trees, even after shooting at it with rifles. They also invested in real estate near their law school.

The partners were earning $15,000 a year before they even finished law school in 1960. After passing the bar, Mr. Fuller served in the Army, then returned to Alabama to open a law office with Dees. They also became publishers, starting with "Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers" (1963).

After two years, they stopped practicing law and became the largest publishers of cookbooks in the United States. By age 29, Mr. Fuller was a millionaire.

Success brought stress and tensions in his relationship with his wife, whom he had married in 1959. Linda Fuller left for New York City and Mr. Fuller followed. After long discussions, they decided to sell almost everything they owned and give away the proceeds.

In 1966, Mr. Fuller became a fund-raiser for Tougaloo College, a church-funded and predominantly African-American school in Mississippi. He moved his family to Koinonia Farm, a 20-year-old multiracial, religious commune in Americus, and developed business plans for the group. He spent two months in Africa with the Church of Christ.

Upon their return to Koinonia Farm, Mr. Fuller and his wife decided to rebuild the faltering community with its founder, Clarence Jordan. From that decision grew the concept of building no-interest housing for the poor - an idea that eventually became Habitat for Humanity. Jordan died soon after, but the homes went up.

The Fullers returned to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1973. Mr. Fuller, as the Church of Christ's director of development for the region, started a home-building program for local residents and raised money for prosthetic limbs and eyeglasses. By the time they returned to Georgia in 1976, Habitat for Humanity was born.

"We want to make shelter a matter of conscience," Mr. Fuller told the Chicago Tribune. "We want to make it socially, politically, morally, and religiously unacceptable to have substandard housing and homelessness."

Mr. Fuller wrote numerous books about his experiences, including "Bokotola" (1977), "The Theology of the Hammer" (1994), and "A Simple, Decent Place to Live: The Building Realization of Habitat for Humanity" (1995).

In addition to his wife, Linda (Caldwell), he leaves four children, Chris Fuller of Macon, Ga., Faith Fuller of Americus, Georgia Luedi of Jacksonville, Fla., and Kimberly Isakson of Dallas; and eight grandchildren.

The Fullers planned to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in August with a 100-house worldwide "blitz build," Linda Fuller told the Associated Press.

"We'll probably go ahead with the blitz build. Millard would not want people to mourn his death," she said. "He would be more interested in having people put on a tool belt and build a house for people in need."