The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Foundations: Their Types and Structure

In his book Philanthropic Foundations, F. Emerson Andrews (1956), a former director of the Foundation Center, the premier information source on U.S. philanthropy, defined a U.S. philanthropic foundation as a “nongovernmental, nonprofit organization, having a principal fund of its own, managed by its own trustees or directors, and established to maintain or aid social, educational, charitable, religious, or other activities serving the common welfare.” U.S. foundations are the legal descendants of the fundatio incipiens principle in that they are endowed with private funds but established to serve a public purpose. In practice, this principle allows people who have been successful in creating wealth in the ...