The R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation is the legacy of Howard Dobbs, Jr., a lifelong Atlantan who was a respected businessman, a civic leader, and a generous philanthropist. He did not have children of his own but was very close to his sister’s three children. As Mr. Dobbs grew older and began making decisions about the long-term future of the family foundation he’d established in 1959, he turned to his nephew and nieces for leadership. He asked them to join the foundation’s board and tasked them with responsibility for its stewardship after his death.
Editor’s Note: This is one of three “Family Office Spotlights” included in the National Center’s new report, Working Together for Common Good, available at our website at www.ncfp.org.
The Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds are a group of Baltimore-based family foundations whose...
The Springs Close Foundation is among the largest family foundations in South Carolina, and one of the oldest in the South. Assets at the end of 2009 were approximately $38 million, and over the past seven decades the foundation has invested nearly $100 million in the state – primarily in a rural...
When Karen and Jim Ansara contacted the Boston Foundation on January 14, 2010 to talk about how their family’s donor advised fund could best respond to the earthquakes in Haiti – which had happened less than 48 hours before – they were continuing both a longstanding commitment to international...
Summer’s over, but for many Massachusetts families, the memories linger on. That’s because from July 3 to September 4, Boston’s Highland Street Foundation sponsored Free Fun Fridays at each of 10 museums and other attractions across the state. Thousands of children and families enjoyed a free...
One Foundation’s Plan for Embracing the Next Generation
Lorre Polinger and her siblings are facing a common challenge in family foundations or funds: how to engage their combined nine children in the family’s philanthropy.
Founded in 1968 by their parents, Geraldine and the late Howard Polinger, the...
Finding and Fighting the Causes of Homelessness: The Melville Charitable Trust
In 1990, a family trust in Connecticut decided to pursue an audacious goal: to end homelessness in America. The board thoroughly studied the issue, and eventually committed themselves to an equally bold strategy– creating a...
How to Close a Foundation: The Pottruck Family Experience
With a tough economy comes tough decisions. That was true for the Pottruck Family Foundation board, which dissolved the foundation effective Jan. 30, 2009. As their assets shrank in the declining markets of 2008, the family decided that by...
Lessons from One Family’s Transition from Founder to Nonfamily Director
When Bill O’Neill Jr., president of the William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation in Cleveland, decided to step aside from being “chief cook and bottle washer for 20 years,” the family faced a common dilemma: how to shift the...
When the Tracy Family Foundation (TFF) set out to determine its strategic vision for the next five years, the Mount Sterling, Illinois family foundation included goals for Brown County, the surrounding region in western Illinois served by the foundation, and the Tracy family itself....
