Foundation Center Releases New Report on
California Foundations
STUDY DOCUMENTS RAPID GROWTH OF STATE’S GRANTMAKING COMMUNITY
The Foundation Center has just released California
Foundations: A Profile of the State’s Grantmaking Community, the most comprehensive
study to date of the size, scope, and giving patterns of private and community
foundations in the state and the first report to place California foundation
philanthropy in the context of other leading states. California Foundations
also provides the first-ever statistical profiles of the foundation communities
in five of the state’s largest metropolitan areas. The report was prepared in
cooperation with the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University
of Southern California.
Loren Renz, vice president for research at the Foundation
Center, said of the new study, “California has become a leading force in American
philanthropy over the past decade. This report documents the state’s gains and
offers insights on the California foundation community’s continued growth in
the unpredictable times ahead.”
Additional Research on California and U.S. FoundationsAs a companion study to the California Foundations
report, the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy has created An Atlas
of Foundation Philanthropy in California. This Web-based report, prepared
in cooperation with the Foundation Center, maps data on California foundation
resources and giving patterns to the county level. The complete report is available
at www.usc.edu/philanthropy.
“Highlights” of California Foundations
and other Foundation Center research publications can be accessed at no charge
from the “Researching Philanthropy” area of the Foundation Center’s Web site,
www.foundationcenter.org/research.
Key Findings from the California Foundations
Report
California foundations surpassed growth in giving
and assets of U.S. foundations overall and funders in most leading states during
the 1990s. As a result, California grantmakers
moved up to second-place rank based on their share of overall foundation resources,
trailing only New York. Principal factors propelling this growth included a
technology-driven economic boom, a few exceptionally large bequests, numerous
conversions of nonprofit healthcare entities to for-profit corporations, and
the rising popularity of community foundations’ donor-advised funds.
California foundation resources were concentrated
among a handful of metropolitan areas. Roughly three-quarters of California’s
more than 4,200 active foundations were based in the Los Angeles, Oakland, San
Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose metropolitan areas, and they accounted for
close to nine-tenths of the state’s foundation giving and assets in 1999. The
San Jose metropolitan area—home to Silicon Valley—experienced the fastest growth
in number of foundations, giving, and assets during the late 1990s.
Giving patterns of California foundations demonstrated
their unique profile among U.S. foundations. For example, health ranked
as the top funding priority among California funders in the 1999 grants sample,
followed by education. By comparison, health ranked second after education among
all U.S. foundations. Grantmakers in the state also provided larger shares of
support for the environment and animals and science and technology, and for
the first time matched U.S. foundations overall in their share of giving for
international purposes. Still, California’s largest grantmakers—such as the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the California Endowment—strongly influenced
these giving patterns. Among the majority of funders in the state, giving priorities
appeared more similar to U.S. foundations overall than to the state’s top funders.
Despite short-term slowing, the potential for future
growth in California foundation resources remains strong. The overall slide
in the stock market beginning in late 2000, the collapse of technology stocks,
and the current gloomy economic and political climate suggest that any gains
in giving by California foundations in 2001 will be modest at best. Nonetheless,
the state continues to attract new migrants from around the country and immigrants
from around the world who will generate new wealth and new philanthropy; the
Western-dominated technology industry retains the greatest possibilities for
wealth creation in the U.S. economy; and California donors will continue to
add resources to the more than 1,100 larger foundations they established over
just the past decade. In addition, the recent establishment of the Gordon E.
and Betty I. Moore Foundation and the bequest to the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation already promise billions of additional dollars for California foundations.
ABOUT THE FOUNDATION CENTER
The Foundation Center’s mission is to support and improve
institutional philanthropy by promoting public understanding of the field and
helping grantseekers succeed. To achieve our mission, we: collect, organize,
and communicate information on U.S. philanthropy; conduct and facilitate research
on trends in the field; provide education and training on the grantseeking process;
and ensure public access to information and services through our World Wide
Web site, print and electronic publications, five library/learning centers,
and a national network of cooperating collections. Founded in 1956, the Center
is the nation’s leading authority on institutional philanthropy and is dedicated
to serving grantseekers, grantmakers, researchers, policymakers, the media,
and the general public.
ABOUT THE CENTER ON PHILANTHROPY AND PUBLIC POLICYThe Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy promotes
more effective philanthropy and strengthens the nonprofit sector through research
that informs philanthropic decision making and public policy to advance public
problem solving. Using California and the West as a laboratory, the Center
conducts research on philanthropy, volunteerism, and the role of the nonprofit
sector in America’s communities. In order to make the research a catalyst for
understanding and action, the Center encourages communication among the philanthropic,
nonprofit, and policy communities. This is accomplished through a series
of convenings and conversations around research findings and policy issues to
help key decision makers work together more effectively to solve public problems
and to identify strategies for action.
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