Just over 20 years ago, the French American Charitable Trust (FACT) was founded by my family to address fundamental inequalities and injustices in our society. During this time we have been proud to support the development of networks of community-led groups in the U.S. and France that equip people directly affected by social, economic and environmental injustice to speak up, hold officials to task, and promote policy change.

Our foundation was created to bring the family together and learn how to give back to low-income and marginalized communities in France and the U.S. After many years of discussing whether or not to exist in perpetuity, we emerged believing that we would be more effective making larger grants now than if we spent less over a longer period of time. We eventually agreed that making FACT the work of a single generation would allow us to accomplish more with the foundation's funds and also to honor our parents in their lifetime.

With the current generational transfer of wealth, new foundations emerge every day and those in existence today have a responsibility to be as strategic and impactful as possible. Closing our foundation in a relatively short number of years really forced us to be disciplined and focused about our grant making and look at our overall results. We felt that we would have much more impact as a $4 million a year foundation than as a $2 million foundation. In this manner, we brought more money to the groups and more influence to the table when partnering with other foundations. We also invested in capacity building – through our strengthening organizations program that yielded results in terms of grantee effectiveness.

With our last grants in 2011 (for 2011 and 2012 combined), FACT will close its doors, just as we intended. Our decision will not be news to grantees or colleagues, who have known of our plans for several years. But we wanted to share with all of you, some of the steps we are taking in our final years to promote and ensure sustainability of the organizations and networks we have supported, and to document what we have learned along the way.

• Our strengthening organizations report, written by FACT Senior Program Officer Laura Livoti, describes our efforts to help grantees with a wide range of supports to help them strengthen their organizations.
  
  
• Through a competitive request for proposals, our Fundraising Assistance Program (FAP) has awarded grants in 2010 and 2011 to selected grantees to strengthen and diversify their fundraising practices and ensure their sustainability over time. Please see a list of grantees in the orange Download box.
  
  
• By the end of 2011, we will publish a link to our revised and permanent website www.factservices.org that will include our final report "A Journey in Progressive Grant making," as well as outcome reports of our Management Assistance Program (MAP) and Fundraising Assistance Program (FAP).
  
  
• We helped create a foundation spend down working group to share information and strategies among donors who have chosen alternatives to perpetuity. We are always available to share our lessons and reasons for spending down with interested parties. Please contact us at fact@factservices.org.
  
  
• We will share FACT's lessons with foundations and individual donors through presentations at philanthropic gatherings through 2011.

Before we close our doors, we will sponsor two conference calls with funder colleagues to share the work of our grantees and highlight our grant making strategies.

Endings are difficult, and we approach our closing with mixed emotions. We hope that our work will inspire other donors to support the movement toward social and economic justice.

For more information on the Spend Down Working Group, please contact me directly at dfeeney@factservices.org.

Sincerely,

Diane Feeney