Foundations are organizations that aid research, cultural progress, and human welfare. Gifts of money from wealthy people and groups help establish and finance most foundations.

Many foundations are called corporations, endowments, funds, or trusts. There are more than 24,000 foundations in the United States, not including privately endowed colleges, hospitals, and learned societies. These foundations have assets of about $68 billion. Americans give about $80 billion to charity every year. The foundations give about $4 1/2 billion, or about 6 percent of this amount. Much of it is given in the form of grants to organizations and individuals. Canada, the United Kingdom, and the nations of Western Europe have a much smaller number of foundations than the United States has.

How foundations are organized

A foundation can be organized as a trust or as a nonprofit corporation. It is easier to set up a trust than a nonprofit corporation, because there are fewer legal formalities. A nonprofit corporation can operate with greater freedom, however, because the law does not restrict its powers so narrowly. Both trusts and nonprofit foundations are governed b

Health and medicine attract much aid from foundations. For example, the Carnegie Corporation sponsored a study of medical education by Abraham Flexner that resulted in a vast improvement in medical schools in the United States. The Rockefeller Foundation aids medical research and has sponsored valuable campaigns against hookworm, malaria, and yellow fever. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsors programs whose purpose is to improve the quality of health care in the United States and the public's access to it. The John and Mary R. Markle Foundation offers scholarships and fellowships for medical study and research. The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation gives several grants in medical research each year. Several community and private foundations aid people with physical disabilities, such as defective hearing, sight, and speech. The Foundation for Child Development supports this work.

Kinds of foundations

Some topics in this essay:
Rockefeller Foundation, Western Europe, Nation Foundations, St Louis, Cleveland Foundation, Ford Foundation, Corporation York, National Merit, Foundation Operating, Atlantic Foundation, ford foundation, carnegie corporation, carnegie corporation york, corporation york, foundations united, rockefeller foundation, nonprofit corporation, foundations organized, hospital sick, canadian foundations, community foundations, hospital sick children, mcconnell family foundation, foundation rockefeller foundation, trust nonprofit corporation,