Foundations

Grant making by the country’s richest foundations is expected to tick up only slightly in 2011, according to a new Chronicle survey based on data from 187 funds.

The modest increase would come after two successive years of gains in foundation assets following the 2008 stock-market plunge that gobbled up a third of the foundation world’s wealth.

However, foundation endowments remain roughly 17 percent lower than before the recession, according to data from 65 grant makers for which The Chronicle has five years of data.

With over $550 billion in investments, more foundations are trying to align their missions with the investments they make, and they are using proxy voting as a key tactic, a new report says.

In 2011, for example, five foundations are the primary filers on 29 shareholder resolutions, says Proxy Preview 2011, a review of the nearly 400 social and environmental resolutions that investors filed at companies this spring.

Coordinating philanthropic and community involvement efforts is a one-stop shop away, says Diane Solinger, executive director of San Jose, Calif.-based Entrepreneurs Foundation. She's talking about the partnership her organization and Mountain View, Calif.-based Silicon Valley Community Foundation announced on Dec. 20, 2010, to make it simple for companies to implement giving programs.

The Pittsburgh Foundation Thursday said it planned to launch an online news venture in June to focus on reporting of in-depth, regional issues.

The nonprofit initiative will be funded with a $253,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami; and $325,000 from the Pittsburgh Foundation. The site will be produced at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Oakland. Plans call for an editor to oversee content supplied by freelancers and by media organizations.

Foundation Source, provider of support services for private foundations, announced the launch of Foundation Source Access, a new online platform that connects nonprofits with private foundations in order to help them raise money easily and cost-effectively. Access introduces private foundations to discover and fund a wide range of the latest and most urgent fundraising projects for support. Access also serves as an innovative philanthropy network, allowing nonprofit and foundation peers to share lessons learned and strategic insights.

A Circuit Court jury in Miami decided on Monday that the accounting firm BDO Seidman should pay the late philanthropist/aviation pioneer George Batchelor's estate and foundation $91 million for "fraudulently'' concealing false information about a company in which Batchelor had invested.

Batchelor's attorney said that the entire award "goes into the Foundation, which means dozens of organizations in Miami that are funded by the Foundation may be getting additional monies.''

Twenty years after his arrival in the U.S., after his liberation in Austria, Holocaust survivor Zev Weiss started the Holocaust Educational Foundation with the intention of fighting evil with education and scholarly pursuits.

On Monday, Weiss, 79, announced he would pass the torch of the private nonprofit organization to Northwestern University so academic research surrounding the Holocaust continues long after he and other survivors are gone.

Foundation marks 20th anniversary with capacity building grants TORONTO, Jan. 18 /CNW/ - Four Canadian environmental charities have been awarded funding grants to support capacity building from TD Friends of the Environment Foundation (TD FEF), recognizing excellence in the not-for-profit sector. TD FEF received nearly 200 applications for the grants, which were created to celebrate the Foundation's 20th Anniversary and to support the need for this type of funding by environmental charities in Canada, something that was strongly communicated by these organizations during the Foundation's cross-country community forum tour last year. One $5,000 grant was awarded in each of

Artist-endowed foundations are a sleeping giant of philanthropy. They are rapidly expanding in number—close to 300 have been identified in the US at the last count—and financial strength, commanding approximately $2.7bn in combined assets. That’s a relatively modest sum next to the half a trillion dollars held in total by US foundations. But artist-endowed foundations are especially important in the art world.

THE Lee Foundation has given $150 million to Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) new medical school.

Two endowment funds will be established at the school.

Half of the gift - $75 million - is designated for an endowment fund offering student financial aid in the form of scholarships, bursaries and other forms of student financial support. The remaining half will form another endowment fund for the advancement of medical education and clinical research at the medical school.