Foundation Center

The Foundation Center is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in New York City. The Center’s stated mission is “to strengthen the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about U.S. philanthropy.” The Center maintains comprehensive databases on U.S. grantmakers and their grants; issues a wide variety of print, electronic, and online information resources; conducts and publishes research on trends in foundation growth, giving, and practice; and offers numerous education and training programs online and at its five regional library/learning centers and national network of more than 400 funding information centers known as Cooperating Collections. The president of the organization is Bradford K. Smith.
History
In the mid-1950s, John Gardner, F. Emerson Andrews, and other foundation leaders decided to create a “strategic gathering place for knowledge about foundations,” positing that transparency would be the best defense against congressional inquiries about private foundation activities and spending. Hence the Foundation Center—known then as the Foundation Library Center—opened in New York City on November 26, 1956. Its founding president was F. Emerson Andrews of the Russell Sage Foundation and author of Foundation Watcher. To achieve its goal of providing broad, open access to foundation information, the Center began in 1959 to establish depositories of information in other libraries—now known as Cooperating Collections—nationwide. In 1960 it published the first Foundation Directory, which is still being published annually. In 1968, the organization’s name was officially changed to the Foundation Center, signifying expansion of its services and activities beyond that of a library.
The organization collects detailed data on U.S. foundations through a variety of means, including grants lists supplied by foundations electronically and in other formats, foundations' publicly-available IRS forms 990-PF, annual reports, web sites, and mailed questionnaires. The Center continues to be publisher and distributor of its own directories, research reports, and nonprofit management and fundraising guides, and makes its databases available via Foundation Directory Online and other online and CD-ROM products.
Locations
The Foundation Center’s main office is in New York City where its publishing, web services, and administrative operations are located. Its education and reference services are available in all five library/learning centers in New York City, Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, as well as in more than 400 Cooperating Collections in every U.S. state and in Puerto Rico, Mexico, South Korea, and Thailand.
Foundation Center libraries are open to the public free of charge and are staffed with professional librarians with expertise in the field of philanthropy. Each library collection contains materials on philanthropy, the foundation world, the nonprofit sector — particularly works on such topics as fundraising and proposal development — and works related to charitable giving, including project reports, studies, and statistical analyses. Computers in the libraries provide free access to electronic fundraising directories (including Foundation Directory Online), grantmakers’ IRS Forms, and an online catalog (which can also be searched at the Center’s web site).
Education and Training
The Foundation Center offers educational programs on the funding research process, proposal writing, grantmakers and their giving, and related topics. Classroom training takes place in each Center location and in Cooperating Collections across the United States and beyond. The Center also offers online training courses and live and recorded webinars.
Web Site
At foundationcenter.org the majority of the features are free, including a database of foundation contact information and core fiscal data for private and community foundations with links to IRS Forms 990 and 990-PF, accessed through the Center’s Foundation Finder search tool. Other features include a wide variety of tutorials; statistical tables; a searchable bibliographic database; PubHub (a collection of links to foundation-sponsored reports); and an Online Librarian service that responds to reference queries via e-mail or instant chat.
Foundation Directory Online
Foundation Directory Online is a searchable database with detailed profiles of U.S. foundations and descriptions of their grants. Free access is available at any of the Center’s library/learning centers or Cooperating Collections. Subscriptions to Foundation Directory Online are available at five different plan levels.
Philanthropy In/Sight
Philanthropy In/Sight is an interactive mapping tool for grantmakers, policymakers, and researchers interested in seeing the impact of philanthropy around the world. A data visualization platform, it utilizes data on grantmakers and grants made to nonprofit organizations worldwide—along with a wide variety of demographic and socio-economic indicators—to create maps that show the effect of charitable giving around the globe or within the U.S., down to the level of congressional district or ZIP code.
Philanthropy News Digest (PND)
Since 1997, the Foundation Center has published Philanthropy News Digest (PND), an online daily news service with philanthropy-related articles; in-depth interviews with leaders in the nonprofit and philanthropic fields; outside opinion and commentary; reviews of books, web sites, and nonprofits on the web; funding opportunities, and nonprofit job postings. The publisher of PND also hosts a related blog, PhilanTopic.
PubHub: Foundation-Sponsored Reports
PubHub, a searchable online collection of annotated links to research reports, case studies, issue briefs, literature reviews, and annual reports covering the full scope of philanthropic activity in the United States, provides access to the vast body of knowledge generated or supported by foundations. In collaboration with the IUPUI University Library’s FOLIO, a permanent digital archive, PubHub also works toward the long-term preservation of and public access to Nonprofit Research and foundation publications.
Publishing
The Foundation Center publishes books ranging from reference works and research studies to basic primers on fundraising and nonprofit management.
Research
The Foundation Center's Research Institute analyzes and interprets the data the Center collects on foundations and their giving to inform the philanthropic sector and the broader public about patterns and trends in foundation growth, giving, and practice. Various media sources and news publications regularly cite Foundation Center statistics, including The Chronicle of Philanthropy and The New York Times.
The Center’s primary research publication is the annual, three-part Foundations Today Series, consisting of Foundation Giving Trends, Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates, and Foundation Yearbook. It also publishes Key Facts snapshots of national corporate, family, and community foundation giving and unique reports on regional, international, and special-topic giving trends. FC Stats provides data tables on U.S. private and community foundations and their funding patterns as downloadable PDF files.
Leadership
Bradford K. Smith, President
In October 2008, Bradford K. Smith became president of the Foundation Center, succeeding Sara L. Engelhardt.
Mr. Smith, formerly president of the Oak Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, also developed and for ten years led the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice Program. Prior to his work at the Ford Foundation, he directed the Brazil program of the Inter-American Foundation and worked for the YMCA of the USA, where he became manager for world development at its Center for International Management Studies.
Mr. Smith holds an M.A. in economics from the New School for Social Research in New York and a B.A. in anthropology and ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan.
Presidents
<ul><li>Bradford K. Smith - 2008-
<li>Sara L. Engelhardt - 1991-2008
<li>Thomas R. Buckman - 1971-1991
<li>Manning M. Pattillo, Jr. - 1967-1970
<li>F. Emerson Andrews - 1956-1967</ul></li>
Source
Bibliography
Andrews, F. Emerson. Foundation Watcher. Lancaster, PA: Franklin and Marshall College, 1973. pp. 175-279.
Foundation Center. “40th Anniversary: A Retrospective.” Foundation Center, 1996.
Foundation Center. "2006 Annual Report." New York, NY: Foundation Center, 2007.
Foundation Center. “2007 Annual Report.” New York, NY: Foundation Center, 2008.

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