Foundations

The Foundation Center has released the new 2012 editions of its essential fact sheets on corporate and community foundations. These brief reports provide critical statistics on the resources and giving priorities of these distinct types of U.S. grantmakers. Key findings from the reports include corporate foundation giving grew fastest across foundation types, increasing 6 percent in 2011, and community foundation giving remained basically unchanged in 2011.

A multi-foundation effort to generate support for the PBS NewsHour has resulted in $3.55 million of special funding for the news program, according to MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, which produces the NewsHour. The participants in the initiative are Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The board of directors of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, concerned with the socio-economic crisis in Greece, has committed up to $130 million over the next three years to help ease the adverse effects of the deepening crisis.

This decision comes on the heels of a $1.9 million grant with supporting a series of pilot programs addressing the country’s mounting social needs.

When it comes to philanthropy, bigger isn't always better. Small foundations may not have the financial clout of some larger peers, but many have shown they can pack a big punch by making quick decisions on grants, collaborating with other groups and developing expertise in certain areas that gives them credibility with the politicians and community leaders who can shine a spotlight on important causes.

Earlier this year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $10 million to acquire a stake in Liquidia Technologies, a biotechnology company working on new ways to deliver vaccines.

A growing number of foundations are using such investments, known as P.R.I.’s, to connect with profit-making ventures that advance their missions. But as they become more popular, some officials in the nonprofit field worry that this and other newer mechanisms are blurring the lines between profit-making businesses and charitable work.

Thirty-two more foundations from across the country have committed to dedicate a majority of their grants to benefit underserved communities and provide substantial support for strategies that seek solutions to social problems by joining Philanthropy’s Promise, an initiative by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

To date, 96 foundations have signed on to the Promise, representing more than $2.94 billion in annual giving, according to the latest available data.

Foundation Directory Online, a highly sought-after development tool, is made available to all nonprofit organizations for free thanks to a collaborative effort among the Louisiana Association for Nonprofit Organizations, the Organizational Effectiveness initiative at the Greater New Orleans Foundation, and the Arts Council of New Orleans.

Foundation Directory Online provides the most current, accurate, and comprehensive information available on U.S. grantmakers and their grants, drawn from reliable sources, including IRS Form 990s, grantmaker web sites and annual reports, and the grantmakers themselves.

Foundations are doing more than they did a decade ago to assess their performance but still are not satisfied with their ability to measure their impact and want their boards to be more involved in assessment, a new report says.

Nearly 75 percent of 173 CEOs of U.S. foundations awarding at least $5 million in grants a year who responded to a survey by The Center for Effective Philanthropy say assessing foundation effectiveness is among their top priorities.

Nearly 90 percent of America's largest foundations report that at least some of the nonprofit organizations they support have been severely affected by state budget cuts. One-quarter report having grantees that have been forced to suspend operations. According to the Foundation Center's new report, Foundation Leaders Address the State Budget Crises, about half of the funders surveyed have provided assistance to affected nonprofits, while two-thirds expect to increase funding for organizations serving vulnerable populations in general.

While it certainly hasn’t reached a tipping point, the number of foundation chief executives using Twitter is growing — slowly.

Jeffrey Raikes, chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, started tweeting last month. His boss, Bill Gates, has been on Twitter since January 2010.

James Knickman, head of the New York State Health Foundation, signed on recently. Alberto Ibarguen of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are tweeting their way to significant numbers of "followers."