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DURHAM -- Squeezed by a struggling economy and declining assets, the Duke Endowment has been forced to significantly reduce its grants to institutions across the Carolinas.
The Charlotte-based endowment -- which is separate from Duke University, but managed by an investment group controlled by the school -- announced Monday that it has awarded more than $56 million in grants to 185 organizations, including $12.5 million in general support to the university itself and nearly $2 million to Duke's Center for Child and Family Policy and $1 million to its Sanford School of Public Policy.
Last year, however, the endowment awarded nearly 400 grants totalling more than $204 million.
Gene Cochrane, the endowment's president, said weak financial markets affected the number of projects the endowment could fund. Assets for the endowment -- which had grown steadily in previous years -- had dropped to $2.2 billion at the end of 2008 from $3.3 billion a year earlier, a decline of a third.
Since then, as the financial markets have recovered somewhat, the endowment has regained about 10 percent of its losses, Cochrane said.
And, he pointed out, "the list of 2009 grants includes support for many important efforts that will positively impact our communities. At hospitals, schools, children's homes and churches, our grantees continue to work hard to address needs and grapple with challenges."
Although the decline in grants was the largest year-to-year drop Cochrane could recall, he noted that the drop off -- technically, a decline of around 73 percent in funds from last year -- wasn't actually as steep as it looked.
"It's not really a 73-percent drop," he said.
Last year's grants included $50 million to the Duke University School of Medicine to help build a medical education facility and create a "hospital within a hospital" for pediatric patients.
"That was announced last year, and was counted last year, but is being paid out over a number of years," Cochrane said. "And there were other, similar grants as well. Those accentuated the differences, and probably inflated last year's total."
To cope with its decline in assets, the endowment decided to reduce the total number of grants, but chose to keep the average grant at roughly the same size.
"Once you accept a project you have two strategies you can follow," Cochrane explained. "You could cut every project back some or fund fewer projects. But once you invest in something, you really don't want to cut it back. So generally speaking, we haven't."
This year's $56 million worth of grants included $24 million for education and $18 million for health and wellness programs.
Locally, the grant to the Center for Child and Family Policy is designed to help measurably reduce child abuse and neglect rates in Durham.
Other local institutions to receive grants included the Duke Divinity School, which received nearly $1 million to provide scholarships for the summer assistant pastors program; and $677,500 for the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, which supports community projects in Durham.
The endowment, established in 1924 by industrialist James B. Duke, is the largest private foundation in the Carolinas.
"Our founder was a man of vision and genius, with dreams and expectations for the Carolinas," said Russell M. Robinson II, chairman of the endowment's board. "We celebrate his remarkable philanthropy every year, but especially when times are challenging."
