Report Says Foundation Employment Has Risen 80 Percent Since 1993

Foundations now employ nearly 18,000 people, an 80-percent rise in foundation employment since 1993, according to a new report by the Foundation Center.

The surge in the number of staff members is a direct result of the rise in the number of large foundations, which has grown at an even faster rate. The number of foundations with assets of $1-million or more is up 120 percent since 1993, to 20,716, the Foundation Center noted. Most foundations that are smaller than that do not employ staff members, the center said.

Of the foundations that employ paid workers, 62.7 percent had no more than two staff members, and the average staff size was 5.3 workers.

Not surprisingly, the survey showed a strong correlation between the number of workers and the size of the fund. Foundations with budgets of $100-million or more, which accounted for only 525, or 2.5 percent, of all grant makers included in the report, were responsible for 9,743 — or 54.7 percent — of the total staff positions in the survey. Three-quarters of those grant makers employ at least one paid staff member.

The report also showed a strong correlation between the age of a fund and its number of employees. Foundations established before 1950 reported an average of 9.8 staff members, compared with grant makers founded since 1979, which reported an average of 3.2 paid staff members. Older funds were also more likely to have any paid employees at all: More than 43 percent of the older foundations reported that they employ at least one worker. For foundations established from 1950 to 1979, the percentage drops to 27 percent, while 10.8 percent of the youngest foundations have at least one staff member.

The Foundation Center surveyed about 26,400 foundations for the report, and included only the foundations that either distributed more than $100,000 annually or held assets of $1-million or more.

Other findings:

• Community foundations are more likely to employ paid staff members than corporate, independent, or operating foundations. Of the 544 community foundations in the report, 444 of them, or 81.6 percent, employed at least one staff member. One reason: Community foundations often employ fund raisers, as well as people to distribute grants.
• Foundations in the Western United States accounted for more staff positions than those in other regions, yet the West was represented by the lowest number of foundations large enough to be included in the survey.
• Over all, foundations have an average of 4.2 board members. Older foundations reported a higher average number of trustees than younger foundations. Community foundations maintained the highest average number of board members, with 12.4 trustees per board, compared with 5.6 for corporate foundations, 4.5 for operating foundations, and 3.8 for independent foundations.

A summary of “Foundation Staffing: Update on Staffing Trends of Private and Community Foundations” is available on the Foundation Center’s Web site at: http://fdncenter.org/research/trends_analysis/index.html. The full report, which can also be ordered via that Web page, is one of five included in the Foundation Today Series, published by the Foundation Center. These reports can be ordered through annual subscriptions for $95. Orders should be sent to Foundation Center, Department NA11, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003-3076; (800) 424-9836; fax (212) 807-3691.