Small Private Foundations Give More in Tough Times, Report Finds

Private foundations with assets of less that $50 million increased their investments in alternative assets and gave away double the minimum requirement during a four-year period, a report based on actual foundation transactions showed on Thursday.

The first annual report on small private foundations, published by the Foundation Source, establishes a baseline for future editions on giving trends, endowment growth and decline, and trends in investment strategies for small private foundations, which account for 98 percent of the 80,000 non-operating private foundations in the United States.