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May 30, 2013 at 08:11 AM
U.S. private foundations with less than $50 million in assets increased their grantmaking by 9.2% last year, spurred by a rebounding market and increases in their endowments, according to a new report from Foundation Source, released Wednesday.
Small and midsize foundations make up 98% of the 86,000 private foundations in the U.S., according to Foundation Source, which provides comprehensive services for private foundations.
The firm’s report was based on the transactions of 732 Foundation Source clients, collected between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2012, according to a statement. It said the data, which are generalizable to the broader foundation community, represented actual, publicly reportable foundation transactions (not surveys or estimates) recorded by Foundation Source as it processed grants and paid expenses on behalf of its U.S. clients and recorded investment information.
The report found that in the aggregate, assets held by the foundations in the sample grew from $1.9 billion at the end of 2011 to $2.1 billion by the end of 2012, a 10% increase.
This was not the result of reduced grantmaking, as some might speculate, the report said. Rather, it owed to two factors:
- Donors replenished foundation coffers by adding $1.06 for every dollar spent on grants and charitable expenses, up from 93 cents for every dollar spent in 2011.
- In 2012, foundations enjoyed investment returns of 9.3%, up from a 1.5% loss in 2011 and a 4.3% loss in the period 2008 to 2011. Investment returns included interest and dividends earned and both realized and unrealized capital gains, but not new capital contributed by donors.
Small and midsize foundations in the study sample awarded grants of $215.7 million in the aggregate in 2012 compared with $197.5 million in 2011.
Foundations with asset of less than $50 million distributed an amount equal to 11.7% of the average value of their assets over the course of 2012, up from 11.2% for the same foundations in 2011.
