Case Studies

With a family business that goes back 152 years, the Laird Norton family has a lot of history to chronicle. That’s why they’ve chosen several ways to do it, including some novel approaches. In 1855, two brothers, Matthew George Norton and James Laird Norton, and their cousin, William Harris Laird, formed the Laird Norton Company, the first of many Laird… Read More

It’s moving day at the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation. It’s a hectic but exciting time. After 10 years in the same three-room office space, the Frueauff Foundation is moving to a new 4300-square-foot headquarters complete with board rooms and conference space in Little Rock’s booming River Market district. And they’re taking several Arkansas nonprofits with them. The Frueauff Foundation’s new… Read More

Charles Bronfman returned from a trustees’ meeting of the Mount Sinai Medical Center with an idea. Bronfman, Chairman and co-founder with his late wife Andrea of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, had heard of the Medical Center’s efforts in the emerging field of personalized medicine. Dr. Jeffrey Solomon, President of the Philanthropies, recalls, “He came back to the foundation… Read More

“Mr. Johnson felt he had been ‘lucky.’ Those were his words: ‘You know, we’ve been lucky with money.’” Theodore “Ted” Johnson returned from service as a gunnery officer in World War I and took a job with Merchants Parcel Delivery, a private messenger and delivery service. Johnson would work his way through college and up in the company, obtaining an… Read More

Arthur B. Hill, a pharmaceutical salesman with no formal education who worked his way to the board of directors of Johnson & Johnson, created the Arthur B. Hill Foundation in 1959. For years, the foundation would operate as a “kitchen table” philanthropy with volunteer family members managing the assets and supporting personal interests. Ashley Snowdon, Arthur Hill’s great-granddaughter and now… Read More

In August, Profiles in Family Philanthropy features the Claude W. and Dolly Ahrens Foundation of Grinnell, Iowa. The foundation was established in 1993 by the late Claude W. Ahrens. Mr. Ahrens enjoyed a long, successful business career in the playground and agricultural manufacturing fields and desired to return some of the fruits of his labor, with a focus on his… Read More