Despite losing billions of dollars in assets in 2018, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation remains the largest regional grant maker in the United States, according to a survey released today.
Over all, community-foundation assets flatlined in 2018, according to the annual Columbus Survey, which was conducted by CF Insights, a project run by Candid, a foundation research group.
Silicon Valley had $8.9 billion in assets at the end of 2018, a precipitous fall from the $13.5 billion it reported the previous year.
The Tulsa Community Foundation ranked second, with $4.5 billion in assets.
The figures include assets held in donor-advised-fund accounts that are managed by community foundations.
In a statement posted on its website, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation said the decline in its assets was due “entirely” to an accounting change related to cryptocurrency. Instead of valuing its digital currency assets at the end of the year, the foundation switched to account for them using their value at the time they were received as gifts.
However, the organization also noted that the fair market value of its cryptocurrency assets plunged from $4.5 billion in 2017 to $815 million in 2018.
Cryptocurrency generally had a terrible year in 2018, with Bitcoin plunging about 80 percent.
Fundraising Powerhouse
Under the leadership of Emmett Carson, the foundation was known as a hard-charging fundraiser that was tightly connected to the Bay Area’s technology elite. After building an asset base that topped the Ford Foundation, Carson left in June of 2018 after employee complaints about a toxic culture at the fund led the foundation’s board to conclude that it had failed to “provide a safe and inclusive workplace environment.”
In total, the 250 community foundations that participated in the survey reported $86.8 billion in assets, almost the same mark they hit last year. The stall in the growth of assets follows several years of heady growth. In 2017, assets increased 12.6 percent, and in 2016 assets rose 8.3 percent over the previous year.
According to CF Insights, foundations that closed their books in June or earlier made gains of 9 percent, Those that operate on a calendar year saw a median 3 percent decrease in assets from 2017, an indication that turbulence in the stock market in late 2018 drove down assets, according to the report.
Gifts to community foundations rose in 2018, from $9.7 billion to $10.5 billion. Grants also increased, from $8.3 billion to $9 billion.
