The Family Foundation Makes A Comeback

The Rockefeller, Mellon, and Mott families do it. So does former junk-bond dealer Michael Milken. And so does Stanley Lopata of St. Louis. Day to day, fathers and sons, daughters and cousins oversee the distribution of hundreds of thousands, often millions, of dollars through foundations formed by family leaders. Some support education and medical research; others, social programs or the arts or a customized package of causes. To many who run family businesses, forming a foundation is a way to do some good with a share of the company profits that would otherwise be appropriated by the IRS.

Family foundations come in all spheres of interest, operating philosophies, and sizes: from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, California, which will soon be worth $2 billion, to the Lopata Foundation in St. Louis, which in 1988 made some grants of as little as ten dollars. The Foundations of the Milken Families, headquartered in New York City (untouched by the insider trading charges facing brother Mike), have distributed $45 million since 1982.

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