A Foundation Coalition Presents Ideas to Congress

For the Council on Foundations, in Washington, Sen. Max Baucus’s desire to increase foundation giving to rural

areas has offered a golden opportunity to put into practice its goal of developing a “philanthropic partnership” with Congress — partly as a way to move the discussion beyond regulations designed to crack down on charitable abuses.

Steve Gunderson, the council’s president, says he and his colleagues have proposed to the Montana senator, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and other members of Congress ways for foundations and government to cooperate to get more help to rural areas.

For example, Mr. Gunderson says, the council would like Congress to pass legislation to allow foundations to make grants or loans to “low-profit limited liability companies” — and have it count toward the federal requirement that they distribute at least 5 percent of their assets to charitable causes each year. Such companies would be set up to earn modest profits while conducting business for the public good — for example, by keeping a small-town newspaper alive.

The council has also proposed that foundations work with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide money for projects to train workers in rural areas, Mr. Gunderson says.

And it has suggested that Congress specify that foundation money can qualify as part of the local matching funds that are required to get federal money for rural-development projects, he says.