The Boston Foundation

History

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.

Mission

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:

Governance

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.

Grant Making

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.

Today, the Foundation and its donors make grants each year to hundreds of nonprofits in Greater Boston, across the country and around the world. In addition to placing a special strategic focus on the areas of Education, Health and Wellness, Jobs and Economic Development, Neighborhoods and Housing, and Arts and Culture. It also provides leadership for special initiatives, such as the Success Boston College Completion Initiative and SkillWorks.

Civic leadership

Through its Understanding Boston series, the Boston Foundation commissions research from universities, think tanks and other organizations and shares this information through a series of forums that are attended by thousands of people every year. Issues addressed through Understanding Boston embrace a broad range of issues, including public education, housing, the workforce, health, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, the arts and the urban environment.

In addition to providing fresh information and bringing people together to discuss findings, the Foundation also creates Task Forces and Action Agendas to produce positive change. A number of issues have been influenced by this process. The Commonwealth Housing Task Force created a Smart Growth housing effort to address the current shortage of housing in the state. The program has led to dozens of towns and cities building thousands of new units of housing. The Foundation’s civic leadership also helped lead to the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, which has provided millions in state funding for cultural facilities. Its work examining the current Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system has led to a complete re-evaluation of the system by state law makers. The Foundation’s research and public information campaign related to public education has influenced former Governor Deval Patrick's approach to education across the state. Other issues that have benefited from the Foundation’s civic leadership includea new collaborative for the life sciences, issues related to health and health care and the revenue-raising capacity of Massachusetts cities.

Boston Indicators Project

The Foundation’s civic leadership also extends to its Boston Indicators Project, which it directs in partnership with the City of Boston and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The project relies on the expertise of hundreds of stakeholders gathered together in multiple convenings to frame its conclusions, and draw data from the wealth of information and research generated by the region’s excellent public agencies, civic institutions, think tanks, and community-based organizations. The Boston Foundation will release a biennial report, with supplemental updates and outreach, through the year 2030, Boston’s 400th anniversary.

The Boston Indicators Project offers new ways to understand Boston and its neighborhoods in a regional context. It aims to democratize access to information, foster informed public discourse, track progress on share civic goals, and report on change in 10 sectors: Civic Vitality, Cultural Life and the Arts, the Economy, Education, the Environment, Health, Housing, Public Safety, Technology and Transportation.

The Project’s first report, The Wisdom of Our Choices, was released in 2000. The second report, Creativity and Innovation: A Bridge to the Future, was released in early 2003, along with the launch of the Project’s interactive website, which received the International Tech Museum Award that year for using technology to further equality. The third report, Thinking Globally/Acting Locally: A Regional Wake-Up Call, was released in 2005, with an enhanced website. The most recent report, released in 2007, is titled A Time Like No Other: Charting the Course of the Next Revolution.

All Boston Indicators Project reports are available online at http://www.bostonindicators.org. The website provides sector highlights, indicators with data available for download, and features such as the Hub of Innovation, Links & Resources, and a Data Portal to other data-rich sites. New research from area and national sources is posted on a regular basis.