The impressive growth in the number of community and private foundations was the catalyst behind a grant received by Grand Valley State University to enhance services provided by its Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation recently awarded GVSU a $445,000 knowledge management grant. Joel Orosz, Kellogg Foundation program director, said the grant will allow Johnson Center staff to publish literature, host conferences, and train foundation staff members around the state and country in the business of giving for the common good.
The current state of philanthropy is similar to a medieval trade, Orosz said. It's like a trade that you learn from a master and then teach to an apprentice.
When people begin working for a foundation, they ask, 'What can I read to help me learn this job?' Well, there's almost nothing.
There are about 60,000 foundations in the U.S., and about 10 percent of that number were established in 1999 and 2000. Orosz credits the growth to strong economic times and transfers of family estates to younger generations.
Some experts predict that a minimum of $41 trillion will pass by inheritance and if only 1 percent of that were to go to philanthropic organizations, that's still a huge number to deal with, he said.
Donna VanIwaarden, director of the Johnson Center, said the Kellogg grant will help foundations and other similar organizations manage their resources wisely.
This project will place the Johnson Center in the forefront of this nationally significant work, she said.
It was a 1992 Kellogg grant that helped established the Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership. The center is located in the DeVos Center on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus, and is named after Dorothy Dottie Johnson, the current GVSU Board of Trustees chair. For more information about the center, visit its Web site at www4.gvsu.edu/philanthropy.
