ABSTRACT
Will Kellogg, who created the foundation that bears his name, now one of the ten largest, was as a personality one of the strangest, most driven, and most joyless figures among the golden donors. He gave it a general direction and philosophy based on his own convictions and personal experience. The Kresge Foundation of Michigan is one of the older and larger of the big foundations. Its simple, single, and unwavering practice of using nearly all its funds for capital grants differentiates it from almost all the other foundations encompassed in this analysis, a program approach that some find entirely defensible, and others highly debatable. The Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis, Indiana, is a case of heavyweight assets and lightweight leadership. The heavy involvement of Lilly and Mott in redevelopment efforts in Indianapolis and Flint illuminates a number of fundamental questions of economic justification and of the role, or responsibility of very large foundations.
