While the foundation was organized in 1958, serious functioning as a private family charitable foundation did not commence until 1989.  At that time, the board of trustees took significant steps to develop the direction and scope of our funding.

By adopting the mission statement "To Alleviate Human Suffering",  we decided to support as many charities as possible within that scope, to carefully review all grant applications, large or small, to invest the foundation endowment funds prudently in accordance with modern portfolio theory, thus perpetuating the names and philanthropic wishes of our benefactors as often and as long as possible.

To that extent, we organized the committees appearing elsewhere on this site, each chaired by a trustee.  We developed and reviewed many times our guidelines for grant seekers and our application process, and we insist on strict compliance with each. Yet we purposely have made our application and reporting process as easy as possible.  While some organizations and their requests require little review, most applications test the review skills of our trustees and require much time before a trustee can decide to make a recommendation to the entire board.

Because of the dedication and hard work of all our trustees, we have enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing we are contributing to the betterment of our community.

PaulSpencer@thebrownfoundation.org