Some Tips for Small Foundations Seeking to ‘Punch Above Their Weight’

There are about 86,000 foundations in the United States, and close to 98% have assets under $50 million, according to Henry Berman, chief executive of Exponent Philanthropy. Many of these “smaller” foundations want to make more of a contribution with what funds they have, so often this means writing smaller, more meaningful checks. Sometimes it also means trying to take a bite out of other societal issues than the billionaire foundations are.

In the case of the Harman Foundation, which had assets valued at $10 million, the family agreed to focus on end-of-life care. But the family did not have any medical expertise on the subject and was limited to about $350,000 a year in grants, so they decided to focus on education to raise awareness. The Foundation paid PBS to produce a film, Being Mortal, by Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and writer who was just recently named chief executive of the Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan Chase health care partnership. After success with the California Health Care Foundation, the family made another grant, to the Hospice Foundation of America, with the hope of about 200 groups seeing the film. It has been shown about 1,500 times, with discussions afterward.

Jeff Bradach, the managing partner and a co-founder of the Bridgespan Group, a philanthropic consultant, points to three strategies that foundations without enormous assets should consider: Having a concentrated focus is one option. Pooling money with other foundations is another. As a third strategy, small foundations can opt to take a risk on early-stage nonprofit groups and ideas.

See Paul Sullivan, Some Tips for Small Foundations Seeking to ‘Punch Above Their Weight,’ New York Times, October 5, 2018.

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.