Total Assets: $58 million endowment[1]
Total Assets (2012): $31,994,459
Total Giving (through 2013): $37 million
Total Giving (2012): $4,460,823
Prominent Grants: Giving is limited to Long Island, NY. Prominent grants include $300,000 to establish the Child Care Council of Suffolk’s Parent Leadership Initiative, and $8 million in 2012 to fund Nassau County youth services agencies.
Summary: The Hagedorn Foundation was incorporated in November 2005 as a private family foundation that seeks to support and promote social equity on Long Island. The Foundation was started by Amy Hagedorn with $58 million left by her late husband Horace Hagedorn, founder of Miracle-Gro plant food. Beneficiaries have included more than 70 Nassau and Suffolk groups. The Foundation is based in Port Washington, New York.
The foundation was created to operate for a limited time so that it could maximize the amount it could give each year, said its executive director, Darren Sandow.
The expiration originally was set for 2021, but the recession reduced the endowment’s earnings, and officials moved the closing to the end of 2017, Sandow said. By then, the organization will have given out the remaining $27 million, he said.
The grantmaker is a signatory to Philanthropy’s Promise, an initiative of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). By signing on, the grantmaker has committed to allocating the majority of its grantmaking dollars to marginalized communities and at least 25 percent to social justice strategies, such as advocacy, community organizing, and civic engagement.
Aside from funding established nonprofits, the foundation started several of its own initiatives. They include the nonpartisan Long Island Civic Engagement Table, which seeks to involve voters in local issues through candidate forums, voter registration drives and educational workshops.