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The following is excerpted from Sustaining Tradition: The Andrus Family Philanthropy Program, by Deanne Stone. The Surdna Foundation is one of the oldest family foundations in the United States. Founded in 1917 by John Emory Andrus I, it recently embarked on a bold new program to engage the extended family in the family's philanthropic activities. The trustees' task was formidable. At last count, the eight branches of the Andrus family, including spouses, numbered 343 and ranged in age from infancy to 91. Some 200 members of the fourth and fifth generations are over age 25. The sixth generation will be even larger. Working out an equitable and practical system for engaging so many family members required the Surdna trustees to rethink the foundation's notions about inclusion and succession. Broader family involvement had not been in the minds of those who led the Surdna Foundation during most of its history. In fact, only a select few in each generation were tapped to serve not on one, but on several of the family's charitable boards simultaneously. To the rest of the extended family, the activities of the Andrus' charities were a mystery. They knew that some relatives in New York gave away money but the family's philanthropies were far removed from their lives and thoughts. The current Surdna board wanted to change that. They believed that the time to open the philanthropies to the extended family was long overdue. When the trustees began the family involvement effort in 1998, the Surdna Foundation was in its fourth generation. At this stage, some foundations run into trouble. Successors' interest in serving may flag or disagreements mount, leading some families to divide the foundation among its branches, close its doors altogether, or turn it over to outside directors to run. Those were options the Surdna board was determined to avoid. The stakes are high. With assets approaching $700 million and annual giving exceeding $31 million, the Surdna Foundation is not only among the largest family foundations in the United States but it possesses the financial power to make significant social contributions on a wide scale. Two other family charitable institutions established as tributes to the founder of the Surdna Foundation and his wife--the Julia Dyckman Andrus Memorial and the John E. Andrus Memorial-- provide essential services to children and the elderly. The newest family foundation, the Helen Benedict Foundation, supports projects in the field of aging in Westchester County and New York City. The trustees have a deep emotional investment in all these institutions and a fierce pride in their accomplishments. They feel an even fiercer determination to maintain the high standards they have established for each of these institutions. Over the years, the Surdna trustees had discussed different ways to prepare younger family members, in particular, to serve on the boards of the family's charitable institutions. At a retreat in February 1998, they recognized that their goal was larger than succession planning. They also wanted to encourage the extended family to participate in community service. While their main target was the fifth generation, they hoped to engage new fourth generation family members as well. The board established a Family Involvement Committee to research the issues and recommend a plan for realizing their goals. The committee members quickly realized that they had wandered into uncharted territory. No family foundation they knew had faced the same set of challenges. Over the next 18 months, the Family Involvement Committee, ably supported by the board and staff, developed a plan. Working with many of the board's original ideas, the committee rearranged the parts and fashioned them into something entirely new. In its final configuration, the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program, as they called it, represented a breakthrough approach--a model for integrating a large extended family into a network of philanthropic and community service activities. The 18- month process had been a profound learning experience for the Family Involvement Committee members and the Surdna board, and there was general agreement that what they had learned could and should be shared with others. The trustees recognized that they were advantaged by Surdna's financial resources and staff support. By publishing their deliberations, their discoveries, and their insights, they could pass on that advantage to other foundations. To do so, however, meant breaking with the Surdna trustees' historical preference for maintaining a low profile. In fact, when John Andrus founded the Surdna Foundation in 1917, he chose not to give the foundation his own name but, rather, to spell Andrus backwards (S-U- R-D-N-A) to deflect attention from himself. The significance of the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program is best understood in the context of the history of the Surdna Foundation and of the Andrus family. As way of introduction, this monograph begins with an overview of the foundation's development and the family's most prominent personalities. Then it turns to the main subject of the monograph, chronicling the two-year planning process the Surdna board followed in its efforts to engage the extended family in philanthropic and community service. The ultimate creation, the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program, had not been in their minds when they started out but, as you will see, it was a culmination of a process marked by intuitive bursts and careful planning that shifted the foundation from a traditional hierarchical form to one relying on networks and relationships among its various programs. The Surdna Foundation's story holds lessons for foundations concerned with continuing a tradition of family philanthropy and with being more inclusionary. The Andrus Family Philanthropy Program is a model for instilling family members with a desire for service and equipping them with the knowledge and skills to do the job well. Large family foundations may want to replicate the entire Andrus Family Philanthropy Program; medium and small foundations can adapt relevant aspects of it to their purposes. The Andrus Family Philanthropy Program is also a model for how trustees can take action and create programs that enrich their family, their foundation, and the field of philanthropy. It would be misleading to minimize the hard work and commitment required to develop the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program, especially on the part of the Family Involvement Committee. At the same time, the work was exhilarating. Caught up in the excitement of the project, the committee members took pleasure in the creative process and pride in their accomplishments. The Surdna board's family involvement effort was fired by a vision of a large family connected through philanthropy and community service. The promise of that vision led the trustees into new territory. Through this monograph, they invite other adventurous families to explore it with them. © 2003 National Center for Family Philanthropy. All Rights Reserved.
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