Foundation Annual Reports

November 15, 2001 | Read Time: 3 minutes

CONRAD N. HILTON FOUNDATION

100 West Liberty Street, Suite 840
Reno, Nev. 89501-1988
(775) 323-4221
10100 Santa Monica Boulevard
Suite 1000
Los Angeles, Calif. 90067-4011
(310) 556-4694
http://www.hiltonfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending February 28, 2001.

Finances
(in millions)	2000	2001
Assets	$554.2	$652.3
Realized gains on sale of investments	$41.8	$66.1
Operating expenses	$3.2	$3.6
Grants approved	$9.8	$13.2

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1944 as a trust by the hotel entrepreneur Conrad N. Hilton. In 1950 all assets were transferred to a nonprofit corporation, which remained relatively modest in size until Mr. Hilton’s death in 1979, when he left the bulk of his estate to the foundation.

The foundation is the beneficiary of two related trusts with combined assets of $850-million that hold shares of common stock in the Hilton Hotels Corporation. With the Conrad N. Hilton Fund — a supporting organization described below — also taken into account, the Hilton philanthropic entities hold approximately $1.9-billion in assets. Some grant recipients receive support from both the foundation and the fund.

The main grant-making areas of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation are blindness, domestic violence, early childhood development, homelessness, hotel and restaurant management, substance abuse, and water development.

Grants related to blindness focus on direct services for infants and children who have multiple disabilities and on efforts to prevent blindness caused by trachoma. For example, World Vision, in Federal Way, Wash., is using a $1.12-million grant for trachoma-prevention programs in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Vietnam.

Through its water-development program, the foundation is working with World Vision, the Atlanta-based Carter Center, and local groups to eradicate the incidence of Guinea worm disease, a waterborne parasite. The foundation also supports efforts to develop water systems in small towns in southern Mexico’s semi-arid Mixteca region, to combat arsenic-contaminated drinking water in developing countries, and to promote sustainable agriculture.

Domestic-violence awards seek to help strengthen the systems to which abused women most often turn for assistance: health care, public policy, and religion.

Recent grants for hotel- and restaurant-management education include a $9.6-million, multiple-year award to the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston.

Grants in other priority areas included $2.5-million to the BEST Foundation for a Drug-Free Tomorrow, in Los Angeles. The funds were used to disseminate a drug-prevention curriculum for students in the middle grades, developed by RAND.

In 1996 the foundation created the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which annually bestows a $1-million award on a charitable organization “anywhere in the world that is making extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering.”

Endowed in 1995, the Conrad N. Hilton Fund supports groups designated in its charter. Its main beneficiary is the Conrad N. Hilton Fund for Sisters, which operates under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. In fiscal 2001, the fund approved approximately 300 grants averaging $10,000 each; recipients included an AIDS project in Haiti and a sustainable-agriculture project in Togo.

Application procedure: The foundation neither encourages nor generally considers unsolicited proposals. It initiates and develops major long-term projects and then seeks out appropriate organizations that can best implement those projects.

Key officials: Donald H. Hubbs, chairman and chief executive officer; Steven M. Hilton, president; Dyanne M. Hayes, vice president for programs; Conrad N. Hilton III, vice president for information technology and special projects; Judy M. Miller, vice president and director of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize Program; Patrick J. Modugno, vice president for administration and chief financial officer; Deborah Kerr, secretary and treasurer; Marge Brownstein and Jeff Schaffer, senior program officers; Rose Arnold, grants manager.

THE MEYER FOUNDATION
1400 16th Street, N.W., Suite 360
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 483-8294
http://www.meyerfoundation.org