Our Mission

Broadly speaking, a foundation is a nonprofit corporation or a charitable trust that makes grants to organizations, institutions, or individuals for charitable purposes such as science, education, culture, and religion.

There are two foundation types: private foundations and grantmaking public charities.

A private foundation’s money comes from a family, an individual, or a corporation. An example of a private foundation is the Ford Foundation. Private foundations must meet a "payout requirement," meaning they have to give away a certain amount of their assets every year. That's why when you're looking for potential funders in our application, Foundation Directory, the private foundations you see are all active grantmakers.

A grantmaking public charity (sometimes called a "public foundation") gets its money from many different sources, such as foundations, individuals, and government agencies. An example of a grantmaking public charity is the Save the Children Federation. Most community foundations are also grantmaking public charities.