How The Chronicle’s Survey of Grant Makers Was Compiled

The 20th annual Chronicle of Philanthropy survey of the nation’s largest foundations studied financial information from 174 of the largest grant makers in the United States.

Of those, 107 completed a Chronicle questionnaire, while information on 67 foundations that declined to participate came from their Form 990-PF’s, the tax return that grant makers file annually with the Internal Revenue Service and make available to the public.

The combined assets of the 100 foundations that provided two years of data were $183.8-billion in 2011, down 3.5 percent from 2010.

The largest foundation in the list, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, had assets of $33.8-billion as of December 31. It accounts for about 18 percent of the assets of all foundation in the survey.

The concentration of wealth goes beyond Gates. The next nine wealthiest foundations on the list account for 33 percent of all the assets of the grant makers in the survey. Although the foundations in The Chronicle’s survey are relatively few, they hold approximately 30 percent of all foundation assets in this country.

The Chronicle used data collected by the Foundation Center to decide which grant makers would receive the survey. The selected foundations were among the 150 wealthiest grant makers, or among the 150 that gave the most grant dollars to charities, or both.

The foundations were required to have assets of $226.2-million, or to have awarded at least $16.2-million in grants in the fiscal year ending in 2010, the most recent year for which all the groups had audited financial data.

The figures that the foundations provided for 2011 were estimated, and in many cases were unaudited.

An interactive database, with in-depth figures for each foundation, is available in the Facts & Figures section of The Chronicle’s Web site, along with more information from the survey.

The foundation survey was compiled by Noelle Barton, Peter Bolton, and Marisa López-Rivera.