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Private Foundations Keep Up Grants to Strapped Charities

Orange County’s individual and family foundations kept up their giving recently even as the recession knocked down the region’s wealth.

The county’s 36 largest private foundations on our list, ranked by recent contributions, increased their grant making to charities by 40% to $140 million, according to the Business Journal’s list of individual and family foundations.

That’s significantly more than private foundation giving nationally, which was up 2.5% to $33 billion, according to the New York-based Foundation Center.

As private foundations don’t have to report full financial details every quarter, this list is a hodgepodge of giving during the past two years based on the most recent data available. Likely the recession has hit assets and giving in recent months more than the list reveals.

For the trends that were present in the list: OC’s private foundations boosted their giving to help charities meet an increased demand in services, representatives said. Some foundations also set up new programs.

“There is a tremendous desire to be responsive, to recognize this is our community’s rainy day,” said Shelley Hoss, president of the Irvine-based Orange County Community.

Private foundation assets on our list declined by about 6% to $1.6 billion.

Private foundations make up the bulk of foundation giving. The two other foundations types are corporate foundations and giving programs (see centerfold insert) and community foundations.

Locally, the Orange County Community Foundation, a nonprofit, is the county’s largest community foundation. Individuals and families set up funds at the foundation to target their giving.

The county also has several city foundations funded to focus on public projects, such as the Community Foundation of Orange.

Private foundations aren’t limited to the types of programs they can contribute to, but they are required by law to give at least 5% of their assets annually.

Most of the foundations on the Business Journal list are grant-making foundations, meaning they make grants to charities that go through a proposal submission process. Other foundations use their income to run their own charitable programs.

No. 10 Irvine-based Tiger Woods Foun-dation, founded by Tiger Woods, does both.

The Tiger Woods Foundation’s most recent grantees include the Assistance League of Santa Ana, which provides dental and eye care to poor children and other youth services, and the San Jose-based Silicon Valley Children’s Fund, a charity that helps foster youth.

In addition to making grants, the foundation also funds and operates the Tiger Woods Learning Center Orange County, a 35,000-square-foot educational center for kids in Anaheim.

The Tiger Woods foundation boosted its giving year-over-year 142% to $2.8 million as of September 2007, attributed to a new scholarship program named after Tiger’s father, the Earl D. Woods Scholarship.

The foundation also is one of the few on our list that increased its assets,up nearly 19% compared to a year earlier to $49 million as of September 2007.

The Laguna Beach-based Marisla Foun-dation, founded by Anne Getty Earhart, heiress of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, topped our list and upped giving to $48.1 million as of December 2008.

Marisla supports programs that help lift women out of homelessness or abuse. It also grants to environmental groups and other causes, primarily in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Its assets as of the end of 2008 were $74.6 million, according to a spokesperson for the foundation.

No. 6 Samueli Foundation boosted its giving by 20% year-over-year to $5 million in 2007, and most of that money went to OC charities.

The foundation didn’t take any new proposals this year so that it could direct its giving to OC charities struggling in the downturn, said Gerald Solomon, executive director for the Samueli Foundation.

Founded by Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli and his wife, Susan, the foundation gives to educational programs, especially math and science. It funds the Henry Samueli engineering schools at University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Los Angeles.

The foundation also funds programs that promote alternative medicine, such as acupuncture and homeopathy, youth preschool and after-school organizations, Jewish culture and religious organizations (Samueli’s parents are Holocaust survivors) and programs that help vulnerable populations in other countries, such women who are victims of the sex trade.

The foundation saw its assets decrease 15% to $212,000 in 2007.

The Samueli Foundation doesn’t fund an endowment. Rather, it makes grants as it goes, Solomon said.

Most of the foundations on our list have endowments through which they make grants. There is no tax advantage to either method, Hoss said. It’s just differing philosophies in giving.

Other foundations that significantly upped their giving recently included No. 5 Newport Beach-based Crean Foundation, which supports a variety of local causes, and No. 8 Irvine-based Croul Family Foundation, which gives to charities that helps poor people and is new to our list.

The Crean Foundation, founded by the late recreational vehicle maker John Crean and his wife, Donna, boosted its giving by 138% in 2007 to $5.7 million. Its assets decreased by 1% to $93 million during the same time period.

The Croul Family Foundation donated 186% more in 2007 than the year before, raising its giving to $3.5 million. It had a 4% decrease in assets to $21.5 million.

No. 2 Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foun-dation, based in Irvine, boosted its giving 16% to $28 million in the 12 months ended August 2008 and saw a 10% decrease in assets to $557 million through the same period.

No. 3 Irvine-based William and Sue Gross Family Foundation upped its giving in 2007 by 48% to $10.7 million. Its assets decreased by 9% in the same period to $254 million.

No. 7 Anaheim-based A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation boosted its giving 17% to $3.7 million in 2007.

No. 15 Ueberroth Family Foundation was another foundation that significantly increased its giving, upping its charity by 43% in the 12 months ended November 2008 to $1.9 million. Its assets dropped slightly to $35 million in the same period.

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