To The Rescue? Foundations Grantmaking Response to the Financial Crisis

When the financial crisis first struck in late 2008, a flurry of foundation press releases promised to maintain commitments to grantees, uphold foundations’ missions, cut their own administrative costs, and establish emergency funds and other initiatives to help those hardest hit. It’s not too soon to take a look at how the foundations have performed in the crisis.

We know, for instance, that foundation giving fell 8.4 percent between 2008 to 2009. But beyond that, what specific programs have foundations undertaken, for instance, to help homeowners deal with the problem of sub-prime mortgages and foreclosure, and help those out of work find new employment or workforce retraining? How did foundations respond to the shifting dynamics of the recession? Which foundations distinguished themselves in these trying times?

On Friday, May 7, Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal hosted Douglas Holtz-Eakin Ph.D. for a discussion of his brand new study on foundations and the financial crisis, Responding in Crisis: An Early Analysis of Foundations’ Grantmaking During the Economic Crisis, published by The Philanthropic Collaborative

Further Reading

Steven Lawrence and Reina Mukai, Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates, Foundation Center, 2010.