Category:Foundations

This category contains all pages on charitable or philanthropic foundations, meaning those organisations which exist to fund other organisations. Confusingly, not all foundations have the word 'foundation in their title. For example the following are all foundations in that they exist to distribute money to what they see as 'good causes' or other charitable endeavours:

• The Leverhulme Trust, The California Endowment, The Church Commissioners for England, City Bridge Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Lilly Endowment. The National Trust. The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Henry Smith Charity and the Wellcome Trust.

Not all those organisation with the word 'foundation' in their title are really foundations in this definition. The category should not be used to label organisations which just have the word 'foundation' in their title but are actually think tanks or institutes or other action oriented organisations which do not mainly exist for the purpose of giving money away to 'good' causes.

The Foundations

One of the key interests of Powerbase is in the right wing foundations which do so much to distort public debate and policymaking. Their role is outlined in a report published by People for the American Way:

Each year, conservative foundations pour millions of dollars into a broad range of conservative political organizations. These foundation gifts are remarkable for two principal reasons: first, their sheer size and concentration; second, the willingness of the foundations to promote a highly politicized agenda by funding a broad range of organizations.

The report examines the funding patterns of a number of significant conservative foundations and their grantees. It argues that:

• Right-wing foundations have developed a truly comprehensive funding strategy, providing grants to a broad range of groups, each promoting right-wing positions to their specific audiences. The grants have created and nurtured an enormous range of organizations all bent on promoting a far-right-wing agenda. Recipients of foundation largesse include the right-wing media; national "think tanks" and advocacy groups; a budding network of regional and state-based think tanks; conservative university programs; conservative college newspapers; conservative scholars and more. In many of these funding areas, progressive and mainstream foundation giving lags far behind.
• Five foundations stand out from the rest: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Koch Family foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundations and the Adolph Coors Foundation. Each has helped fund a range of far-right programmes, including some of the most politically charged work of the 1990s. For example, the American Spectator magazine, which led the charge on President Bill Clinton's state trooper contretemps and launched a slash-and-burn strategy targeting Anita Hill, is a prime recipient of foundation support.
• Public debate on a number of issues has been transformed by foundation largesse. For example, the Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation has supported a range of pro-voucher efforts in its home state, sowing the seeds for that state's first-in-the-nation school vouchers program in Milwaukee. Other such case studies are presented in the report.^[1]

Not Foundations

The following organisations have the word 'foundation' in their title. Under English law the name 'foundation' has no precise meaning unlike in the US. For our purposes, such organisations may be charities but are not a philanthropic foundations in the sense of Private foundations in the US.

• British Nutrition Foundation and education and lobby group for the Food industry
• Scottish Council Foundation - a think tank
• Scottish Leadership Foundation - a policy and training organisation

External resources

US resources

• Scott Klein and Liz Day, Resources for Investigating Tax-Exempt Organizations, ProPublica, 9 May 2013.
• Peter Swords, How to Read the New IRS Form 990, Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, 2011.
• Nonprofit Explorer, ProPublica.

UK resources

• Register of Charities, Charity Commission.

Notes