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Issue: 1089 Date: 7/7/2011
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Danforth Foundation Has Ended Its Giving But Not Its Influence
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| Dr. James Carrington, incoming president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (L) talks with former U.S. Senator John Danforth and his brother William Danforth after it was announced the Danforth Foundation will give $70 million to the Center in Creve Coeur, Missouri on January 7, 2011, before closing its doors in the spring. |
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The Danforth Foundation announced in January this year that it will spend down its remaining assets by making a $70 million gift to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. It then will wind up its affairs and close its doors by the end of May. Thus ended a great St. Louis legacy spanning three generations and 84 years.
Now that the Danforth Foundation has closed its doors after 84 years and more than a billion dollars in grants to the St. Louis area and elsewhere, don't go looking online to find its website. Of course, even before it shut down at the end of May, the foundation had no presence on the internet. Nor did it operate with a large staff or go out of its way to draw attention to itself. It preferred to speak through its grants to Washington University, the Danforth Plant Science Center and other institutions. And it never intended to be around forever.
The grandsons of William H. Danforth, who began the foundation in 1927 with securities including $100,000 in stock in his company, Ralston Purina, said such a low public profile was a good reflection of the man who started it all.
"He was a person who was very, very successful in business," said former Sen. John C. Danforth in a recent interview, "and he was also a person who was very unpretentious in the way he lived his life. "John Wesley said make all you can, save all you can, give all you can. That was the old Protestant ethic, and that was how our grandfather lived. He was not into amassing great wealth for himself."
Added his brother, Dr. William H. Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University: "My grandfather didn't talk much about his giving. He talked about programs he liked, but I learned about the foundation from other people. He talked about the accomplishments of the people to whom he gave."
With the foundation shutting down, will others step in to assume its role, in terms of both setting an example and providing resources to help ideas grow into institutions that make St. Louis a better place?
Those familiar with local philanthropy point out that the foundation's legacy is more than financial -- it's one of leadership, and if that lesson has been learned, concerns about the future are misplaced.
"I don't look at it as a glass that has gotten half-empty," said Gary Dollar, president and chief executive of the United Way of Greater St. Louis. "I look at it as: How do we invest our resources in the community and do it better and smarter? This is a very generous community. They have built a wonderful infrastructure with a wonderful foundation. Those are great tools for us. How do we take it and build on it?"
Attorney Walter Metcalfe Jr., a former trustee of the foundation, noted that while it set an ambitious, progressive agenda, its leaders never dictated to the community what the future should look like. "The Danforth Foundation was ahead of its time in recognizing opportunities and needs," he said. "Perhaps it's time for the rest of us to grow up and get to work on our own and not wait for the Danforths to tell us what is best for us to do."
Danforth Foundation is one of the largest private non-for profit foundations in the St. Louis Metropolitan region. The foundation has 1.5 billion USD in assets as of 2003. The foundation was begun in 1927 by William H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina Co., along with his wife, Adda, their son, Donald, and their daughter, Dorothy. Donald Danforth went on to become chief executive of Ralston Purina and to lead the foundation after his father death in 1955. Grandson William H. Danforth, a medical doctor and longtime chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, assumed the board presidency in 1965. In 1997, he handed off the leadership post to his younger brother, John C. Danforth, who had returned to private life in St. Louis after a distinguished career in politics, including three terms in the U.S. Senate.
The Danforth Foundation has awarded more than $1.2 billion in more than 4,700 grants over the years. It has been suggested that the foundation’s impact lies at least as much in leadership as in the size of the gifts it made.
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