Keeping What Counts: Should Limited-life Foundations Create Archives?

While there is no common playbook when it comes to archiving, foundations considering an archive might ask:

1. Do we have knowledge or experience that could benefit others?
2. Which people, organizations, and networks do we most want to reach with that knowledge?
3. Is an archive the right or best way to reach them?

This essay from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation seeks to help foundations confront these questions. Informed by interviews with funders and archivists, and the foundation’s own knowledge management journey, the essay examines what foundations leave behind when they close, the benefits and challenges of establishing archives, how and where archives live, and how foundations can begin the archiving process.