Foundation Center

Foundation Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in New York City. The Center’s stated mission is "to strengthen the social sector by advancing knowledge about philanthropy in the U.S. and around the world." Foundation Center maintains comprehensive databases on grantmakers and their grants; issues a wide variety of print, electronic, and online information resources; conducts and publishes research on trends in foundation growth, giving, and practice; and offers education and training programs online and at its five regional library/learning centers and more than 470 Funding Information Network locations.

The president of the organization is Bradford K. Smith.

In the mid-1950s, John Gardner, F. Emerson Andrews, and other foundation leaders decided to create a "strategic gathering place for knowledge about foundations," positing that transparency would be the best defense against congressional inquiries about private foundation activities and spending. Hence the Foundation Center – known then as the Foundation Library Center – opened in New York City on November 26, 1956. Its founding president was F. Emerson Andrews of the Russell Sage Foundation and author of Foundation Watcher. To achieve its goal of providing broad, open access to foundation information, the Center began in 1959 to establish depositories of information in other libraries – now known as the Funding Information Network – nationwide. In 1960 it published the first Foundation Directory, which is still being published annually. In 1968, the organization’s name was officially changed to The Foundation Center, signifying expansion of its services and activities beyond that of a library. In 2014, "The" was dropped from the name.

The organization collects detailed data on U.S. foundations through a variety of means, including grants lists supplied by foundations electronically and in other formats, foundations' publicly available IRS Forms 990-PF, annual reports, web sites, and mailed questionnaires. Today, the organization engages in an increasing amount of global data collection, too. The Center continues to be publisher and distributor of its own directories, research reports, and nonprofit management and fundraising guides, and makes its databases available via Foundation Directory Online, Foundation Maps, and other online resources.

Foundation Center provides both free and paid training services to help organizations and individuals seeking funding. Educational programs include the funding research process, proposal writing, grantmakers and their giving, nonprofit management and sustainability, and related topics. Many foundations, including the largest in the U.S., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, refer their grant applicants and grantees to Foundation Center for further assistance in finding funding.

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Wikipedia