Grants Grew by 17% Last Year

By HARVY LIPMAN

Grant making by the nation’s foundations grew by an estimated 17.2 percent in 1999,

slowing from a record 21.7 percent increase the year before, according to a new report by the Foundation Center.

Foundations gave an estimated $22.8-billion to non-profit organizations in 1999, up from $19.5-billion in 1998.

The report’s 1999 figures are estimates based on a sample of 1,300 of 47,000 funds. The 1998 data are from all active foundations.

The increase in grant making arose mainly from growth in foundation assets, which went up 16.7 percent in 1998, to $385.1-billion. Foundations are required by federal tax law to give an average of at least 5 percent of their assets to charity over a three-year period. The asset growth was driven largely by the rising stock market.

Grant makers in Western states saw the largest increase in assets, which grew by nearly 28 percent — to $81.2-billion — or about twice the rate in the South, Midwest, and Northeast.

More than one-fourth of the $17.8-billion increase in assets in the West was attributable to the single largest gift ever given to a foundation: Bill Gates’s $4.8-billion donation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle.

The Gates gift fueled a record increase in overall gifts to foundations, which jumped 42.6 percent in 1998, to $22.6-billion.

Among the Foundation Center’s other findings:

• Some 585 foundations received at least $5-million in bequests and gifts in 1998. The number of foundations receiving such donations was 20 percent higher than in the previous year.
• Funds in five states — California, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas — accounted for nearly half of all giving by foundations in 1998. Those located in New York and California made up nearly one-third of the total.
• The number of all foundations — private, community, corporate, and operating — grew 6.1 percent, from 41,146 to 46,832. Private, independent foundations rose 6.4 percent, to 41,751. Operating foundations rose 6.3 percent, to 2,622. But corporate foundations fell 0.3 percent, to 2,022.

“The Foundation Yearbook: Facts and Figures on Private and Community Foundations” is part of a series of five reports published by the Foundation Center, called the “Foundations Today Series.” To order copies of the “Foundations Today Series” by credit card, contact the Foundation Center at (800) 424-9836 (in New York City, call (212) 807-3690); fax (212) 807-3691; or use the online ordering form at http://www.fdncenter.org; or send mail orders to the Foundation Center, Dept. NA7, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York 10003-3076. Prepayment of $95 is required. Call (800) 424-9836 for details.