“Foundations are not created as small businesses but as organizations with a long-term view. Most boards are still strongly committed to the vision of a perpetual endowment.”
So says Hilary Pearson, CEO of Philanthropic Foundations Canada, in an interview she did last October for Hirji & White Consulting. Her remarks provide some measure of relief to Canadian non-profit and charitable organizations that traditionally rely on foundation support to survive.
According to Pearson, although the recession has made foundations reluctant to consider new requests or promise multi-year funding, they are generally still committed to maintaining support to existing recipients at pre-recession levels. She contrasts Canada to the USA, where there’s been a trend among foundations towards reducing support to long-term beneficiaries.
“We don’t have data for the Canadian foundation community,” says Pearson, “but anecdotally this doesn’t seem to be a preferred strategy, certainly not for family foundations…There is an instinct for preservation of things as they are – unless the crisis is truly dramatic.”
Read the full interview with Hilary Pearson here.
Philip Lewis, writer-researcher
©2009 Le blogue PIB / The GDP blog
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