Giving From Community Foundation Funds Strong in 2009, Early Findings Suggest

Is grant making at community foundations holding up better than grant making at commercial funds?

Results from a small subset of organizations that manage donor-advised funds suggest that it might be.

Four of the 10 organizations that provided full data for their 2009 fiscal year to The Chronicle are community foundations. Their grant-making fell 7 percent, to a total of $107-million, and ranged from a 19 percent drop at the San Francisco Foundation, to a 36 percent jump at the Community Foundation of Louisville, in Kentucky.

Meanwhile, grant making fell at three of the four commercial funds with full 2009 data. Distributions by the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, in Boston; the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, in Malvern, Pa.; and the Ayco Charitable Foundation, in Albany, N.Y., fell 13 percent, to a total of $1.5-billion. At Schwab Charitable Fund, in San Francisco, grants increased 6 percent in 2009.

Louisville, which distributed grants from donor-advised funds worth $11.7-million during the 2009 fiscal year, was hit by a wind storm in September of last year, causing some residents to lose power for a week or more. That crisis, coupled with the nation’s escalating economic troubles, prompted the foundation and one of its major donors to start an emergency fund last fall and challenge the holders of donor-advised funds to contribute to it.

The effort, which primarily supported shelters, pantries, and ministries, raised a total of $285,000 from donor-advised funds.

Big Grants

Most of the increase in grant making in Louisville can be attributed to a few large grants that probably had no connection to either the natural disaster or the financial crisis. But Susan A. Barry, the foundation’s president, says grant making still would have risen by 10 percent even if those large grants are excluded.

A similar safety-net fund started last November by the Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia generated $832,000 in grants from donor-advised funds.

Ms. Barry sees the success of such efforts as evidence that community foundations are in a better position than commercial funds to get donors to increase giving in hard times.

“We had the knowledge of the community to be able to put the dollars to work very quickly,” says Ms. Barry. “We also were able to personally engage with donors in the community to make that happen.”