What Can We Learn About Exits From Spend Down Foundations

Most foundations handle their affairs with an eye toward preserving their assets in perpetuity. A few, however, have decided to spend their full assets over a set period. What lessons can we learn from funders facing the ultimate exit scenario?

To find out, GrantCraft convened a meeting and conducted supplementary interviews with grantmakers from current or former spend down foundations: the Vincent Astor Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, the Beldon Fund, the Aaron Diamond Foundation, Girl’s Best Friend Foundation, and the Albert A. List Foundation. Here are some thoughts with relevance to any grantmaker:

• On being mindful of time
  “We’re inherently impatient because we don’t have a lot of time. We dropped an issue that’s near and dear to our hearts because we thought that, in the window of time we have to work with, given the situation in the field, it was unlikely that we’d see a lot of headway on it. That was a tough, tough practical call we made."
• On letting grantees know that you can be a resource
  “We regularly remind grantees that we’re cutting grants while the foundation is still staffed so that we’re available to help in various ways, including serving as references to other grantmakers.”
• On using evaluation to refine your strategy
  “We don’t have the luxury of backing up and starting over. We feel that evaluation is kind of an ongoing snapshot look at how we’re doing.”
• On developing internal expertise
  “Rightly or wrongly, we wanted to be experts in our field. We wanted to use our investment in staff time and expertise to be a kind of bellwether for other funders. We hope that by doing our homework really well, and convincing other funders of that, we can draw in people to fund the stuff we’re doing after we’re gone.”
• On seeing the value of “legacy” projects
  “For years, the foundation had funded a local group that maintained a public garden. The garden got more and more beautiful, but there was a chain link fence around it and you could hardly see it. So, near the end, the board said, ‘Let’s give a wrought iron fence to the garden,’ and there it is today. I know it sounds frivolous, but the point is that it’s good to have a certain spontaneity about ending things in a positive way.”