How Data on Grants Was Gathered.

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Author: Joslyn, HeatherBarton, NoelleJones, Candie

The Chronicle's annual survey of the nation's largest private foundations is based on financial information provided by 147 grant makers.

Among the 122 foundations that provided asset figures for their fiscal year ending in 2005, assets totaled $166.5-billion. The 10 wealthiest foundations accounted for $94.4-billion of those assets. Among the 132 foundations that provided data on their grants paid in fiscal 2005, grants totaled nearly $7.3-billion.

The Chronicle also collected data on total operating and administrative costs and total compensation for foundation directors, trustees, and officers. Ninety-one foundations provided this information for the fiscal year ending in 2005.

To be included in the survey, foundations had to hold at least $230-million in assets or have awarded at least $9-million in grants in the fiscal year ending in 2004, the most recent year for which all the foundations had audited financial information. Organizations that met those standards in fiscal year 2005 were also included.

One hundred and seven grant makers of that size declined to participate in the survey. Figures for those organizations come from their most recently completed Form 990-PF, the informational tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Data from those organizations is presented on The Chronicle's Web site at http://philanthropy.com.

Officials at some foundations declined to complete a Chronicle survey form because it is their policy not to participate in surveys. Others said they lacked sufficient staff members to fulfill the request by the deadline.

The network of foundations created by the financier George Soros, six of which have headquarters in New York, submitted a survey questionnaire but because it omitted several key pieces of data, The Chronicle relied on the foundations' informational returns to determine their assets and giving figures.

One grant maker, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in Princeton, N.J., responded to The Chronicle's survey just as the newspaper was about to go to press. As a result, only some of the foundation's information is included in this issue, but all of it is presented on The Chronicle's Web site.

Four of the participants in this year's survey provided Forms 990-PF that covered the fiscal year ending in 2005: the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, in Muscatine, Iowa; France-Merrick Foundation, in Baltimore; Northwest Area Foundation, in St. Paul; and Spencer Foundation, in Chicago. All other foundations, both those that participated in the survey and those that declined, provided the tax forms from the 2004 fiscal year.

Foundations were selected to participate based on information supplied by the Foundation Center, an organization in New York that conducts research on grant makers. The Chronicle asked the center to rank the 150 largest grant makers by their assets and the amount they gave away during the most recent fiscal year for which data were available.

The Chronicle sent a written request to foundations for their Forms 990-PF during the third week of December, so that organizations would have time to comply with federal law, which requires that the form be provided within 30 days of such a request.

All foundations contacted for the survey either provided The Chronicle with their Form 990-PF or made it available online for public inspection, with the exception of the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation, in West Palm Beach, Fla., which did neither. The IRS has been notified of the foundation's failure to comply with federal disclosure law.

Many of the grant makers that responded said that their figures for 2005 were estimated or unaudited, and thus subject to change.

In a handful of cases, grant makers submitted figures for fiscal years ending in 2006 and 2007; those figures were estimated or unaudited.

This year, The Chronicle calculated the percentage of foundation assets paid in grants, based on data for the 2005 fiscal year provided by 120 groups.

This figure, while intended to give readers an indication of a foundation's grant-making activity, should not be confused with the federal requirement that foundations distribute 5 percent of their net assets for charitable purposes every year.

Foundations are allowed to average their payout over three years to meet the requirement and are also allowed to include some administrative costs in meeting the federal requirement.

Readers of the survey should be careful when comparing a foundation's giving and asset figures from year to year. A sharp increase or decrease in the amount of grants approved or paid may not necessarily mean a change in the foundation's financial condition.

Some grant makers, for instance, make a large initial payment on a multiple-year pledge, then pay reduced amounts on the pledge in subsequent years. Others make large, one-time payments that are not typical of their giving patterns.

The assets of several foundations increased because of large cash infusions from the donors who created them.

For example, the assets of the Broad Foundation, in Los Angeles, rose by 52.3 percent from 2004 to 2005, from $544.8-million to $830-million, in part because of a $150-million pledge and a gift of $225-million in stock by Eli and Edythe L. Broad.

Mr. Broad is the founding chairman of two Los Angeles companies, KB Home Corporation and SunAmerica.

The Marisla Foundation, in Laguna Beach, Calif., saw its assets jump 464.3 percent from 2004 to 2005, from $14.3-million to $80.8-million, due to cash donations last year from its trustees.

Marisla, which changed its name from the Homeland Foundation in 2004, makes grants to environmental and human-services groups.

Some foundations' assets dropped precipitously because they have shut down or are about to do so.

For example, the Whitaker Foundation's assets plummeted from $123-million in 2004 to $38.9-million in 2005, because the Arlington, Va., grant maker is seeking to disperse all its funds by June 30.

The F.W. Olin Foundation, in Sarasota, Fla., and the John M. Olin Foundation, in New York, both dissolved last year.

It is also important to keep in mind that, because some foundations award money to their own foundation-run programs or to organizations they select, not all grants represent proposals chosen through a competitive application process.

Some foundations, such as the Ellison Medical Foundation, in Bethesda, Md., which reported that it had no assets at the end of its fiscal year, distribute within 12 months all the money they receive in a given year. Some other so-called pass-through foundations do not give all of their assets away before the fiscal year ends.

A searchable version of the data collected by The Chronicle is available online at http://philanthropy.com.

Legend for Chart:

B - Administrative costs
C - Compensation costs
D - Grants paid
E - Percentage of a grant dollar spent on administrative costs
F - Percentage of a grant dollar spent on compensation

A

        B           C              D          E       F

J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation (Boise, Idaho)

   $1,500,000    $85,000      $23,925,000    6.3%    0.4%

Altman Foundation (New York)

   1,200,000     263,000      11,138,723     10.8    2.4

Annenberg Foundation (Radnor, Pa.)

   9,619,418     329,443      251,663,628    3.8     0.1

Baptist Community Ministries (New Orleans)

   2,555,328     510,000      6,813,745      37.5    7.5

Beldon II Fund (New York)

   2,227,500     268,969      13,122,055     17.0    2.0

Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation (Pittsburgh)

   1,700,000     994,600      16,183,621     10.5    6.1

Broad Foundation (Los Angeles)(1)

   5,500,000     370,000      41,200,000     13.3    0.9

Brown Foundation (Houston)

   1,023,858     76,500       52,849,201     1.9     0.1

James Graham Brown Foundation (Louisville, Ky.)

   273,450       178,282      18,738,169     1.5     1.0

California Endowment (Los Angeles)(2)

   37,509,658    2,092,522    153,242,789    24.5    1.4

Cannon Foundation (Concord, N.C.)

   1,243,848     199,802      9,100,000      13.7    2.2

Carnegie Corporation of New York

   14,240,444    1,885,418    87,250,587     16.3    2.2

Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust (Muscatine, Iowa)

   790,477       501,116      14,215,706     5.6     3.5

Marguerite Casey Foundation (Seattle)

   4,887,547     160,000      27,685,300     17.7    0.6

Charitable Leadership Foundation (Clifton Park, N.Y.)

   1,475,000     150,000      8,486,644      17.4    1.8

Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (New York)

   5,643,650     1,041,241    31,175,454     18.1    3.3

Colorado Trust (Denver)

   4,831,239     649,860      16,428,437     29.4    4.0

Commonwealth Fund (New York)

   9,077,635     563,398      15,229,313     59.6    3.7

Connelly Foundation (West Conshohocken, Pa.)

   1,800,000     790,000      10,535,555     17.1    7.5

Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (Lansdowne, Va.)

   4,762,621     903,334      10,475,884     45.5    8.6

Wallace H. Coulter Foundation (Miami)

   1,459,296     457,084      18,381,525     7.9     2.5

Nathan Cummings Foundation (New York)

   3,423,000     295,056      17,502,807     19.6    1.7

Daniels Fund (Denver)

   2,270,000     334,000      35,962,286     6.3     0.9

Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (Jacksonville, Fla.)

   995,000       204,000      10,167,859     9.8     2.0

Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation (Morristown, N.J.)

   2,806,000     509,000      21,015,507     13.4    2.4

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (New York)

   9,195,000     756,470      62,987,000     14.6    1.2

Jessie Ball duPont Fund (Jacksonville, Fla.)

   2,298,870     521,382      12,732,685     18.1    4.1

Dyson Foundation (Millbrook, N.Y.)

   1,415,000     242,170      14,419,624     9.8     1.7

El Pomar Foundation (Colorado Springs)

   7,400,000     990,000      12,570,373     58.9    7.9

Energy Foundation (San Francisco)

   2,511,538     46,769       19,725,994     12.7    0.2

Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation (Indianapolis)

   1,518,648     354,750      11,496,340     13.2    3.1

Ford Family Foundation (Roseburg, Ore.)(3)

   5,000,000     550,000      17,493,070     28.6    3.1

France-Merrick Foundation (Baltimore)

   2,271,089     290,483      10,089,745     22.5    2.9

Grable Foundation (Pittsburgh)

   2,416,008     175,100      9,215,730      26.2    1.9

William T. Grant Foundation (New York)

   4,862,722     868,150      10,054,718     48.4    8.6

Walter and Elise Haas Fund (San Francisco)

   1,750,000     219,000      12,330,503     14.2    1.8

Conrad N. Hilton Foundation (Reno, Nev.)(2)

   3,800,000     950,000      34,000,000     11.2    2.8

Houston Endowment

   3,030,000     743,940      53,635,000     5.6     1.4

Inasmuch Foundation/Ethics and Excellence in Journalism
Foundation (Oklahoma City)

   2,109,202     718,950      10,631,868     19.8    6.8

Joyce Foundation (Chicago)

   4,232,000     807,861      31,654,515     13.4    2.6

Kansas Health Foundation (Wichita)

   4,768,000     650,000      19,844,678     24.0    3.3

W.K. Kellogg Foundation (Battle Creek, Mich.)(4)

   65,412,981    2,093,188    219,862,847    29.8    1.0

Kohlberg Foundation (Mount Kisco, N.Y.)

   2,200,000     195,000      12,970,200     17.0    1.5

Koret Foundation (San Francisco)

   7,379,732     677,913      20,379,734     36.2    3.3

Kronkosky Charitable Foundation (San Antonio)

   1,409,000     190,000      11,717,955     12.0    1.6

Lannan Foundation (Santa Fe, N.M.)

   4,500,000     575,000      13,500,000     33.3    4.3

Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust (Beachwood, Ohio)

   1,000,000     100,000      6,584,500      15.2    1.5

Henry Luce Foundation (New York)

   5,464,870     930,000      35,948,189     15.2    2.6

Lumina Foundation for Education (Indianapolis)

   8,350,730     1,998,606    48,441,722     17.2    4.1

J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation (Tulsa, Okla.)

   2,204,966     564,521      33,393,442     6.6     1.7

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Chicago)

   27,000,000    2,250,000    193,000,000    14.0    1.2

McCune Foundation (Pittsburgh)

   1,940,000     1,243,965    27,309,422     7.1     4.6

Meadows Foundation (Dallas)

   8,500,000     1,200,000    26,618,247     31.9    4.5

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (New York)

   19,000,000    2,500,000    199,300,000    9.5     1.3

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (San Francisco)

   20,000,000    1,500,000    218,882,706    9.1     0.7

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation (Flint, Mich.)

   15,100,000    1,497,509    113,000,000    13.4    1.3

M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust (Vancouver, Wash.)

   3,180,000     306,000      25,977,150     12.2    1.2

Northwest Area Foundation (St. Paul)(3)

   9,000,000     37,700       15,500,000     58.1    0.2

John R. Oishei Foundation (Buffalo, N.Y.)

   1,000,000     400,000      15,160,000     6.6     2.6

David and Lucile Packard Foundation (Los Altos, Calif.)

   20,788,000    614,000      176,137,000    11.8    0.3

Ralph M. Parsons Foundation (Los Angeles)

   1,250,000     130,000      18,000,000     6.9     0.7

Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation (Minneapolis)

   843,730       131,250      9,921,862      8.5     1.3

Picower Foundation (Palm Beach, Fla.)

   3,167,000     25,000       27,662,893     11.4    0.1

Virginia G, Piper Charitable Trust (Scottsdale, Ariz.)(3)

   2,950,000     625,000      27,000,000     10.9    2.3

Polk Bros. Foundation (Chicago)

   1,458,082     185,150      15,480,285     9.4     1.2

Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust (Indianapolis)

   2,900,000     470,000      13,704,419     21.2    3.4

Rasmuson Foundation (Anchorage)

   2,000,000     198,430      24,000,000     8.3     0.8

V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (Boston)

   1,148,084     100,000      7,707,736      14.9    1.3

Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation (Winston-Salem, N.C.)

   2,420,000     300,000      14,060,211     17.2    2.1

Rockefeller Foundation (New York)

   30,530,298    1,771,748    110,526,644    27.6    1.6

Skillman Foundation (Detroit)

   6,962,549     937,460      22,516,271     30.9    4.2

Skoll Foundation (Palo Alto Calif.)(5)

   3,600,000     225,000      18,343,698     19.6    1.2

Spencer Foundation (Chicago)(3)

   3,500,000     700,000      13,834,000     25.3    5.1

Stuart Foundation (San Francisco)

   2,530,636     221,490      13,437,921     18.8    1.6

T.L.L. Temple Foundation (Lufkin, Tex.)

   997,447       484,454      14,772,983     6.8     3.3

Unihealth Foundation (Los Angeles)

   975,391       294,644      14,605,670     6.7     2.0

Victoria Foundation (Montclair, N.J.)

   958,730       436,038      9,204,949      10.4    4.7

Wallace Foundation (New York)

   9,140,000     937,000      55,100,000     16.6    1.7

Robert A. Welch Foundation (Houston)

   1,506,106     268,536      27,393,359     5.5     1.0

Whitaker Foundation (Arlington, Va.)(6)

   1,872,000     895,970      83,530,700     2.2     1.1

Windgate Charitable Foundation (Fayetteville, Ark.)

   280,000       180,000      18,957,000     1.5     0.9

Robert W. Woodruff Foundation (Atlanta)

   914,714       583,311      101,030,268    0.9     0.6

Yawkey Foundation II (Dedham, Mass.)

   4,385,953     68,000       25,124,600     17.5    0.3

Note: Unless otherwise noted, figures are for each foundation's
2005 fiscal year.

(1) The Broad Foundation plans to merge with the Eli &
Edythe L. Broad Foundation and the Broad Art Foundation in
2006. Combined, assets of those foundations were $2-billion
in 2005; grants paid totaled $76.2-million.

(2) Figures are for the fiscal year ending February 28, 2006.

(3) Figures are for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006.

(4) Figures are for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation Trust.

(5) The Skoll Foundation encompasses two separate entities:
The Skoll Foundation, which is a private foundation, and the
Skoll Fund, which is a charity. The Skoll Fund is a supporting
organization for the Community Foundabon Silicon Valley, in
San Jose, Calif. The foundation's fiscal year ends November 30,
while the fund's fiscal year ends June 30.
(6) Foundation plans to distribute all its assets in 2006.

~~~~~~~~

By Heather Joslyn

The foundation survey was compiled by Noelle Barton and Candie Jones