The Boston Foundation

The Boston Foundation, founded in 1915, is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the United States. Serving the Greater Boston area, it is made up of some 1,000 separate charitable funds established by thousands of donors over more than 100 years. Funds are established either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes, such as supporting individual nonprofit organizations in perpetuity. With some $1 billion in assets, today the Foundation is one of the largest funders in New England. The Foundation and its donors make more than $100 million in grants every year. Since 2001, the Boston Foundation has also served as a major civic leader by commissioning and publishing research, providing a platform for discussion related to a wide range of challenges facing Greater Boston and the region and contributing to the development of public policy.

The Boston Foundation was founded in 1915 by Charles E. and Charles M. Rogerson, who were father and son. Originally called the Permanent Charity Fund, it was one of the first community foundations in the United States, but, thanks to a bequest of $4 million shortly after it was launched, it was the first with the resources to begin grant making. In 1959 another large bequest of $20 million catapulted the Foundation into an era during which it made early investments in some of the most important nonprofit institutions in Boston, from WGBH to the New England Aquarium to the clean up of Boston Harbor. 1985, the foundation was renamed the Boston Foundation, and Anna Faith Jones became the President—the first African-American woman to lead a major foundation in the United States. Today, it is led by President and CEO, Paul S. Grogan, who is credited with transforming the Foundation into a major civic leader for the city and region.

As Greater Boston’s community foundation since 1915, the Boston Foundation devotes its resources to building and sustaining a vital, prosperous city and region, where justice and opportunity are extended to everyone. It fulfills this mission in three principal ways:

The Foundation is overseen by a 20-member Board of Directors, selected to represent diverse community interests. The staff includes professionals in grant making, philanthropy, finance and administration, public policy and communications.

Over more than 100 years of grantmaking, the Foundation has been there at the beginning for numerous fresh ideas and new institutions by providing crucial seed capital and other support. Among its greatest accomplishments are grants that helped to launch WGBH-TV, now considered the nation’s premier public television station. It also made an early investment in the redevelopment of Faneuil Hall into a thriving marketplace, often credited with sparking the renewal of Boston in recent decades; and helped to shape Boston’s Longwood Medical Center area. The Foundation invested in the most extensive network of community health centers in the nation and made grants to a group called Save the Harbor/Save the Bay to clean up Boston Harbor. What was once one of the filthiest harbors in the world is now one of the cleanest. It also made early grants to numerous organizations that started in Boston and spread throughout the country, like City Year, Citizen Schools and Year Up.

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