Understanding Foundation Expenses: Focus on Illinois

Understanding Foundation Expenses: Focus on Illinois defines and delineates charitable (programrelated) administrative and operating expenses, which are those that count toward a foundation's payout requirement. The report addresses specific questions such as: Which foundation costs are included in charitable administrative expenses? What are the limitations of Form 990-PF for reporting expenditures? How are charitable administrative expense levels measured? What are the most important factors driving expense levels? It also offers first-ever multi-year trend information (2008– 2010) detailing the expense practices of large Illinois independent foundations and compares them to the national experience.Intended for foundation leaders, policymakers, advocates, journalists, and the general public, this brief serves as a key resource for understanding foundation operating and administrative expenses and as an unbiased source of facts on actual practice in Illinois

Highlights of the Foundation Center's 2000 Study: International Grantmaking II - An Update on U.S. Foundation Trends

International Grantmaking II: An Update on U.S. Foundation Trendsrepresents the Foundation Center's second examination of the role of private grantmakers in funding cross-border and U.S.-based international programs. The Center's first study of international giving trends, International Grantmaking: A Report on U.S. Foundation Trends, mapped funding patterns from 1990, the start of the post-Cold War era, to 1994. This update carries the analysis through 1998. Both the original report and this update were developed in collaboration with the Council on Foundations, a nonprofit membership association of foundation and corporate donors

Foundation Funding for the Humanities: An Overview of Current and Historical Trends

Foundation Funding for the Humanities: An Overview of Current and Historical Trends, finds that funding for fields such as art history, history and archeology, languages and linguistics, area studies, and the humanistic social sciences increased two and one-half times (149.8 percent) from $134.1 million in 1992 to$335 million in 2002. At the same time the report notes that, despite the overall increase, some scholarly disciplines actually lost ground over the ten year period. Support for the humanities grew more slowly than overall foundation giving during this period (up 199.8 percent), and the share of giving for the humanities slipped from 2.5 percent in the early 1990s to 2.1 percent in 2002

Highlights of the Foundation Center's 1999 Study: Arts Funding 2000 - Funder Perspectives on Current And Future Trends

Arts Funding 2000: Funder Perspectives on Current and Future Trends represents the Foundation Center's fourth examination of the role of foundation and corporate grantmakers in supporting arts and culture. Developed in partnership with Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA), the new study explores the current practice of arts funding viewed through the eyes of grantmakers. GIA's purpose in sponsoring this research was to learn about the changing context for arts funding and about the ways grantmakers are responding to changes in the arts field and within their own organization

Giving in the Aftermath of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes: Profile of the Ongoing Foundation and Corporate Response (2007-2009)

Private and community foundations awarded an additional $125 million in grant support for recovery and rebuilding efforts from January 2007 to mid-2009, according to Giving in the Aftermath of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes: Profile of the Ongoing Foundation and Corporate Response (2007-2009). Economic and community development captured the largest dollar share, a shift from giving for human services in the immediate aftermath of the disaster

Benchmarking Foundation Administrative Expenses: How Operating Characteristics Affect Spending

Policy discussions of foundations often focus on how much they spend on administrative activities relative to their grantmaking and programmatic activities. Foundations themselves seek guidance on this question from their peers and professional associations. Yet often missing in these discussions is the need to consider foundation differences -- such as size, operating characteristics, and programmatic activities -- when assessing foundations' administrative and operating expenses. These differences are profound even among the nation's largest independent foundations

PRI Financing: 1998-1999 Trends and Statistics

The following trends analysis reviews the PRI activity of a sample of 133 leading PRI providers. A subset of the 192 foundations listed in the PRI Directory, these funders reported individual PRI transactions of $10,000 or more, which are indexed in the Foundation Center's PRI database (see box on page iii.) Since many foundations do not make PRIs on an annual basis, the trends analysis examines a cumulative two-year period. In addition to providing a more representative sample of funders, the cumulative two-year snapshot also permits comparisons with trends identified in the Center's last analysis of PRI activity, which covered the period 1993–1994

Understanding and Benchmarking Foundation Payout

The vast majority of U.S. grantmaking foundations are required by law to distribute 5 percent of their investment assets annually for charitable purposes. While this requirement is commonly known, it is often not well understood.To provide a more informed perspective on how foundation payout works, Understanding and Benchmarking Foundation Payout defines and demystifies the concept of payout while addressing common misperceptions. The report addresses specific questions such as: What constitutes payout? How is the payout rate calculated? Why do foundation payout rates differ? It also delivers first-ever trend information detailing the payout practices of the largest U.S. foundations.Intended for policymakers, advocates, journalists, researchers, and the general public, this brief serves as a key resource for understanding payout and as an unbiased source of facts on actual practice.Among key findings from the new report:Most large endowed independent foundations paid out at or above the 5 percent required payout level during the period 2007 to 2009Nearly one-in-five endowed foundations had payout rates at or above 10 percentFew operating characteristics beyond endowment size were associated with consistently higher or lower payout rate practices, and variation was modestIn general, as endowment size increased, payout rates tended to decrease

Benchmarking Foundation Administrative Expenses: Update on How Operating Characteristics Affect Spending

This reportexplores how variations in foundations' characteristics, activities, and giving levels influence charitable (program-related) administrative expense levels for a sample of nearly 1,200 of the approximately 1,900 largest independent foundations between 2007 and 2009 (see "Sampling Information"). It updates a more detailed study of the largest foundations' 2004-2006 expenses. Since these organizations account for the bulk of foundation resources and spending, they are of paramount interest to policymakers, watchdog organizations, and foundation leaders concerned with self-regulation and developing standards. Like the previous report, this update builds on the foundations of a broader study of 2001-2003 expenses.This study's goals are to inform policy debates and foundation practices by documenting program-related administrative expenses and assessing the factors that drive these expenditures over time. By extending the research timeframe closer to the present, this study sheds light on expense levels and practices during the recent economic crisis. It confirms that expense patterns of large independent foundations that were clear and consistent in mid-decade -- when markets and asset levels were steadily rising -- remained mainly consistent in 2007-2009, despite the crash of financial markets and a deep slump in the economy and in foundation resources (see Foundation Finances and the Economic Crisis: A Different Perspective on page 6). Such consistency validates the importance of considering a foundation's operating characteristics when assessing its expenditures

Giving in the Aftermath of 9/11: An Update on the Foundation and Corporate Response

The unprecedented outpouring of charitable support that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted the Foundation Center to launch a multi-year effort to track relief and recovery funding by foundations, corporations, and other institutional donors. Our goal is to provide a definitive record of their philanthropic response to these tragic events. In the first phase of the project—spanning the year following the attacks—we built a comprehensive database of institutional donors that reported contributions in response to 9/11. In the second phase, continuing through 2003, we will track the distribution or use of donations by recipient organizations. Beyond compiling these data, the Foundation Center will strive to place 9/11 funding by foundations and corporations in the context of all private giving in response to the tragedy and to assess the impact of their relief and recovery support on their overall giving patterns.