November 28, 2002 | Read Time: 3 minutes
The United Nations Foundation, which Ted Turner founded in 1997 by pledging $1-billion, has attracted $150-million in additional private donations in the past five years and plans to continue to operate until at least 2012 — five years longer than Mr. Turner says he originally intended.
A recent increase in donations from sources other than Mr. Turner persuaded the Washington organization’s board and management to extend the life of the foundation, which supports U.N. agencies working on environmental, health, and humanitarian causes around the world. A broadened fund-raising approach, buoyed by the heightened visibility of the United Nations after the September 11 attacks, has contributed to the increase in support, according to David M. Carter, the foundation’s chief financial officer.
Mr. Turner has contributed $100-million a year for the past five years and had planned to give the remaining $500-million during the next five years. Instead, Mr. Turner has decided to stretch out his grant, and now plans to contribute $50-million in each of the next 10 years. His gifts come from his stock holdings in AOL Time Warner, where he serves as vice chairman.
The sharp decline in value of AOL stock in the past year did not affect Mr. Turner’s decision to stretch out the grant, he said, because the value of the stock at the time of the $1-billion pledge was about the same as it is today.
He decided to change his giving schedule, he says, because the board persuaded him that his donations would have greater impact — and could continue to attract more money from other sources — if the organization had 10 more years to operate.
Mr. Turner’s other philanthropy has been more seriously affected by the drop in his stock’s value. He announced in October that he was curtailing much of his charitable giving and he said his Turner Foundation would give only $35-million this year, about half of what it gave last year (The Chronicle, October 17).
‘Find Another Ted’
Inspired by Mr. Turner’s largess, the foundation initially sought to “find another Ted,” says Rick Parnell, the foundation’s chief fund raiser. “But it’s not like we could go to other people’s donor lists,” Mr. Carter says. “There isn’t a similar organization we can model ourselves after.”
After experimenting with a few fund-raising approaches that failed to attract significant gifts, the foundation broadened its efforts in an attempt to attract money from more foreign governments, corporations, and foundations, Mr. Parnell says.
The foundation also began to attract funds from other grant makers for some of its global programs. For example, it attracted a $50-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help eradicate polio.
Mr. Parnell says the foundation has had an easier time raising money from foreign governments and others as the United Nations has gained additional prominence. In responding to the attacks of September 11 and in overseeing weapons inspections in Iraq, the United Nations has been a highly visible force, Mr. Parnell says.
If the United Nations Foundation continues to attract big gifts, its top executives say the organization might consider extending the life of the foundation indefinitely, assuming that Mr. Turner, who has been an outspoken critic of operating foundations in perpetuity, approves. “It takes a lot of effort to get the train to start, and an equal effort to make it stop,” says Mr. Carter. “If total dollars in support of U.N. programs continue to go beyond Ted’s pledge, it’s not a dynamic you want to stop.”
