How The Chronicle Compiled Its Survey of Giving and Assets at Big Foundations

The Chronicle‘s annual survey of the nation’s largest private foundations is based on

financial information provided by 149 grant makers.

Among the 141 foundations that provided asset figures for the 2003 fiscal year, assets totaled $166.6-billion. Among the 147 foundations that provided data on the value of their grants paid in fiscal 2003, grants totaled $4.7-billion.

To be included in the survey, foundations had to hold at least $230-million in assets or have awarded at least $9-million in the 2002 fiscal year, the most recent year for which all the foundations had audited financial information.

Ninety-nine grant makers of that size declined to participate in the survey. Figures for those organizations come from their most recent Form 990-PF informational tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Officials at some organizations declined to complete a survey form because it is the policy of their organizations not to participate in surveys. Others said they had a limited number of staff members and did not have time to respond.

Foundations were selected to participate based on information supplied by the Foundation Center, an organization in New York that conducts research on grant makers. The Chronicle asked the center to rank the largest grant makers by their assets and the amount they gave away during the most recent fiscal year for which data were available.

The Chronicle sent a written request to foundations for their Forms 990-PF during the third week of December, so that organizations would have time to comply with federal law, which requires that the form be provided within 30 days of such a request. All foundations contacted for the survey followed the law, either by providing The Chronicle with a copy of their Form 990-PF, or by making it available online for public inspection.

Many of the foundations that responded said their figures for 2003 and 2004 were estimated or unaudited and could change.

Comparing Figures

Readers of the survey should take care in comparing a foundation’s giving and asset figures from year to year. A sharp increase or decrease from one year to the next in the amount of grants approved or paid may not necessarily mean a change in the foundation’s financial condition. Some foundations, for example, make a large initial payment on a multiyear pledge, then reduce the amounts given toward the pledge in subsequent years.

In 2002, the Grainger Foundation, in Lake Forest, Ill., gave $10.7-million to the University of Illinois Foundation, in Urbana. As a result, grants paid by Grainger decreased more than 78 percent from 2002 to 2003. The grant to the University of Illinois Foundation qualified Grainger for this year’s survey but is not indicative of its usual grant making. In the 2003 fiscal year, its largest grant paid was $634,490, also to the University of Illinois Foundation.

Two grant makers, the Rasmuson Foundation, in Anchorage, and the Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation, in San Francisco, received large donations in 2003 that account for the foundations’ significant increases in assets. The Rasmuson Foundation’s assets more than doubled, from $211-million in 2002 to nearly $425-million in 2003.

The Moore Foundation’s assets increased more than 5,000 percent from 2002 to 2003 because in February 2003 it received what is estimated to be nearly $4-billion from a charitable trust that had been set up by Mr. Moore, co-founder of the Intel Corporation.

It is also important to keep in mind that because some foundations award money to their own foundation-run programs or to organizations they select, all the grants do not represent proposals chosen through a competitive application process.

Some foundations, such as the Ellison Medical Foundation, in Bethesda, Md., which reported zero assets at the end of its 2003 fiscal year, distribute within 12 months all of the money they receive in a given year. Some other so-called pass-through foundations do not give out all of their money in grants before the fiscal year ends.

The foundation survey was compiled by Leah Kerkman and Stanley W. Krauze.