Three Out of Four of the Top 100 Foundations Lack Asian Trustees

More than three-quarters of the nation’s 100 wealthiest grant-making foundations lack any Asian or Pacific Islander official on their boards, according to a new report by the Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, in Los Angeles.

The report by the group known as LEAP also found that none of those foundations had an Asian or Pacific Islander in the role of president, executive director, or chief executive officer.

Only two Asians currently serve as chairs of the wealthiest foundations: Tessie Guillermo, of the California Endowment, and Irene Hirano Inouye, of the Ford Foundation.

“There’s a perception out there in the general society that Asian Americans are well represented, that there’s a pipeline in the leadership position,” says Rima Matsumoto, vice president of research and strategic alliances at LEAP. “It’s such a huge misperception.”

The nonprofit LEAP runs a leadership-training program. Last year, the organization released a study that found Asians and Pacific Islanders made up only 2.2 percent of the corporate boards of Fortune 100 companies.

Asian and Pacific Islanders constitute 5.6 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2009 estimates from the U.S. Census.

In 2010 only 36 Asian and Pacific Islanders held board seats at two dozen of the 100 richest foundations nationwide. The 37 board seats represent 4.95 percent of the total 748 board seats in the top 100 foundations.

The report found that the Rockefeller Foundation had the highest percentage of Asians and Pacific Islanders on its board of trustees, at 25 percent.

“This becomes a tool for others to advocate for more inclusion and diversity,” Ms. Matsumoto says. “It’s extremely important for foundations to get all these different views so that they can better serve the communities that they are trying to reach.”

The report, “2010 API Representation on the Top 100 Foundation Boards,” is available for free download on LEAP’s Web site. Go to: http://www.leap.org.