Case Studies

A few summers ago, the board of the Lawrence Welk Family Foundation issued a challenge to the fourth generation of Welk family members. They were told about a local shelter for homeless families which hosted a preschool and therapeutic learning center that needed a new air conditioner. It would cost around $1,000, and the children were going to help. … 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