Foundation Helps to Ease Loss of Grants
from Boston.com (The Boston Globe):
Area nonprofits that depended on donations from Boston’s Carl & Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation have either made cuts or found alternative funding sources – many with the foundation’s help – since the philanthropy, a victim of the Ponzi scheme run by former financier Bernard Madoff, said last year it would make no new grants.
The foundation, which lost $145 million in the collapse of Madoff’s scheme, has issued a series of bulletins offering to help former grant recipients find new funders, link with other groups to share resources, or find volunteers and interns.
… It may take some time before the foundation returns to its role as one of the area’s most generous philanthropies. The Shapiro family, trustees of the foundation and longtime friends of Madoff, personally lost about $400 million and could lose more. A decision this week from a US Bankruptcy Court judge may compel the family to return a portion of the $1 billion in profits they reaped from Madoff. The family’s foundation listed assets of $112.3 million in 2008, the most recent numbers available.
