PROVIDENCE – At $10.7 million in grants, 2017 tops the van Beuren Charitable Foundation’s 32-year history as the year in which the most funds were awarded.
The data, which was released Wednesday in the 2017 annual report, shows the total amount of grant money awarded in 2017 exceeds the last record – $7 million awarded in 2017 – by $3.7 million.
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A large majority of the funds awarded in 2017, $9.25 million, were awarded to projects and communities in and around Aquidneck Island – also the home of the foundation and the focal point of the charity group’s work.
Of the 60 Newport County grants awarded in 2017 by the van Beuren Charitable Foundation, the largest were a $3 million award to Newport Hospital for renovations to its emergency department and intensive care unit and a $1.045 million award to The Preservation Society of Newport County to fund phase one of the landscape rehabilitation at The Breakers.
The remainder of the grants, none of which individually exceeded $1 million, can be read about in the organization’s report.
The annual report states van Beuren Charitable Foundation net assets stood at $253.3 million – 19 percent or $49 million of which account for restricted funds with the remaining $205 million in unrestricted monies as of Dec. 31.
Also as of the close of 2017, the organization boasted $48.5 million in support (21 percent of the $48.5 million) and revenues and income (79 percent of said funds).
Expenditures by the van Beuren Charitable Foundation totaled $12.1 million as of Dec. 31 and was broken down as follows: charitable programs (89 percent), operating (6 percent), professional fees (4 percent) and excise tax (1 percent).
Last year also marked a turning point for the foundation. Per a July 12 letter paired with the report and penned by Archbold D. van Beuren, foundation chair, and Elizabeth R. Lynn, foundation executive director, the group will “focus more on community outcomes than grant categories.”
Currently, the foundation works toward four community-oriented goals: “Strong Starts, Healthy Lifestyles, Community and Prosperity, and Excellence in the Commons.”
Previously, applicants needed to categorize their request by either education, health or landscape and the built environment.
However, “what we find, often, is that those outcomes work across those domains and categories,” said Lynn in a Wednesday interview with Providence Business News.
Going forward, with an eye to community outcomes, she added, the group will be “much more open” about how applications are categorized and eventually reach those in need.
Since its founding in 1986, the van Beuren Charitable Foundation has issued $90.9 million in grants. Information from the 2016 van Beuren Charitable Foundation annual report can be read in the PBN archive.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
