December 11, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Daniels Fund, one of the nation’s 75 wealthiest grant makers, laid off a third of its staff and closed offices in New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming last month, as part of an effort to rein in operating costs.
Daniels, the largest foundation in the Rocky Mountain region with assets of roughly $900-million, will save $2.65-million per year through the restructuring, said its chief executive officer, Hank Brown, a former U.S. senator from Colorado. All of the savings will be used to make grants to charities, he said.
Administrative costs had been consuming 21.5 percent of the foundation’s grant budget, more than twice the average for comparable foundations (8.5 percent), according to an internal study by the fund. Following the layoffs, administrative costs will drop to 10.5 percent of Daniels’s grant-making budget.
The foundation is laying off 21 of its 62 workers, including eight employees at its new $12.7-million headquarters in Denver. The fund has canceled plans for a $10-million conference center.
Bill Daniels, a cable-television mogul, left the foundation the bulk of his $1-billion estate when he died in 2000.
The restructuring hits hard in Wyoming, where the Daniels Fund had become the most influential grant maker in the state. John Freeman, the retired founder of the Wyoming Community Foundation, says Daniels had focused attention on vexing problems facing the state, including a population that is aging faster than any other in the nation. “I hope the Daniels Fund will not abandon the homework that has been done to date,” he said.
