President's Note I have included below the Founder's and President's Letter from our 2010 Annual Report, which was released in May of 2011. If you would like to review our 2010 Annual Report, a complete copy can be found on the Library & Resources page of this website.
Founder's and President's Letter
Dear Friends and Colleagues: The past year has been a very productive one for The Brinson Foundation. Our Board and staff engaged in challenging discussions about how to best advance the Foundation’s mission and continue to enhance our grantmaking. Among other benefits, these deliberations led us to adopt a revised mission statement, which appears on the cover of this Annual Report; undertake a more critical analysis of our past grantmaking; and redouble our effort to more clearly articulate our grantmaking goals. As 2010 came to a close, our Board and staff had a full plate of important issues to analyze and debate in 2011. This past fall we retained the Center for Effective Philanthropy to survey our grantees and prepare a Grantee Perception Report. We sincerely appreciate the thorough and thought-provoking input that was provided by so many of our grantees during this effort. While the report contains much positive feedback, it also identifies areas where we can improve our practices. After our Board and staff have the opportunity to absorb and analyze this data more fully, we intend to develop an appropriate responsive plan of action. Once this is complete, we will share our thoughts with grantees, grant seekers and friends. Despite the complex and diverging pressures on the various segments of the financial markets during 2010, our investment portfolio experienced a return of 10.74% and an inflation adjusted return of 9.1%. As a result, the Foundation’s total assets grew by almost 5.5%, after grants. Even though this positive financial trend continued early in the first quarter of 2011, we remain cautious about the potential for future growth. As a result, our 2011 budget projects a minimal increase in new grantmaking. As the year progresses, we will carefully review our portfolio’s performance and prospects to determine whether any change in this approach is merited. Please refer to the investment section of this Annual Report for a more comprehensive discussion of financial markets and our observations. On May 1, 2011, we will observe the Foundation’s tenth anniversary. As we approached this milepost, we decided to undertake a retrospective review of our grantmaking, which surpassed the $31 million mark at the end of 2010. This review is being done in part to determine the extent to which we should refine our grantmaking goals, strategies and evaluation methods. At the same time, our staff is reevaluating our due diligence procedures to ensure that we are properly absorbing and applying the wealth of knowledge that is held by our grantees as well as the broader communities in which they operate. We hope and expect that these efforts will help us allocate our finite resources in a way that will advance our mission and promote our vision as we move into our second decade of operations. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.
Sincerely,
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