foundation (redirected from fundament)

foundation, institution through which private wealth is contributed and distributed for public purpose. Foundations have existed since Greek and Roman times, when they honored deities. During the Middle Ages in Europe the church had many foundations, and in the Arab lands the waqf, or pious endowment, developed with the growth of Islam. In modern times European foundations, generally smaller than their U.S. counterparts, have been closely regulated by the state (e.g., the Nobel prizes; see Nobel, Alfred Bernhard).

In the United States there were a few early foundations, notably those endowed by Benjamin Franklin in 1791 to provide funds for loans to "young married artificers of good character" and by James Smithson in 1846 for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution; however, it was not until after the Civil War that foundations developed rapidly. Social disintegration in the South and the establishment of early foundations such as the Peabody Education Fund and the John F. Slater Fund (both designed to provide educational opportunities for African Americans in the South) promoted the movement. The rapid growth of northern industrial enterprise in the postbellum years brought with it an accumulation of huge private fortunes. By the turn of the century, persuasive preachers of the "social gospel" urged the wealthy to meet their charitable obligations to society. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, Sr., in the period 1896 to 1918, led the way in creating foundations that could distribute their enormous wealth in what was considered to be the most efficient and socially beneficent manner.

Favorable income tax laws in the 1940s further spurred philanthropic activity. During the early 1950s many American foundations were attacked by right-wing journalists and Congressmen; between 1950 and 1953 the House of Representatives conducted two separate investigations into "subversion and Communist penetration" of the nation's philanthropic foundations. Attacks on the foundations began to subside, however, with the passing of the so-called McCarthy era. Although a number of foundations have been restricted by their charters to specific philanthropic functions, the larger U.S. foundations have devoted themselves to broad areas (see separate articles on Lilly Endowment, Inc.; Ford Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation; Sloan Foundation; and Commonwealth Fund). The 1980s and 90s saw a doubling in the number of grantmaking foundations, including those developed by financier George Soros and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Due in part to economic prosperity, foundation giving doubled between 1990 and 1998 to $19.5 billion. In 1997, the largest recipients of grant dollars were education, health, and human services.

See also philanthropy.

Bibliography

See M. Cuninggim, Private Money and Public Service (1972); W. A. Nielsen, The Big Foundations (1972) and The Endangered Sector (1979); D. N. Layton, Philanthropy and Voluntarism: A Bibliography (1987); Foundation Center Staff, Guide to U.S. Foundations, Their Trustees, Officers, and Donors (2 vol., 1999).

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foundation

Part of a structural system that supports and anchors the superstructure of a building and transmits its loads directly to the earth. To prevent damage from repeated freeze-thaw cycles, the bottom of the foundation must be below the frost line. The foundations of low-rise residential buildings are nearly all supported on spread footings, wide bases (usually of concrete) that support walls or piers and distribute the load over a greater area. A concrete grade beam supported by isolated footings, piers, or piles may be placed at ground level, especially in a building without a basement, to support the exterior wall. Spread footings are also used—in greatly enlarged form—for high-rise buildings. Other systems for supporting heavy loads include piles, concrete caisson columns, and building directly on exposed rock. In yielding soil, a floating foundation—consisting of rigid, boxlike structures set at such a depth that the weight of the soil removed to place it equals the weight of the construction supported—may be used.

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foundation

Nongovernmental, nonprofit organization with assets provided by donors and managed by its own officials and with income expended for socially useful purposes. Foundations can be traced back to ancient Greece. The late 19th century first saw the establishment of large foundations with broad purposes and great freedom of action, usually originating in the fortunes of wealthy industrialists. Today foundations are classified as community (having support from many donors and located in a specific community), corporation-sponsored, and independent. Notable examples include the Smithsonian Institution (1846), the Carnegie Corp. of New York (1911), the Rockefeller Foundation (1913), and the Ford Foundation (1936), one of the largest in the world. Nongovernmental organizations are known colloquially as “NGOs.”

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foundation

1. the charter incorporating or establishing a society or institution and the statutes or rules governing its affairs

2. Cards a card on which a sequence may be built

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foundation [fau̇n′dā·shən]

(civil engineering)

The ground that supports a building or other structure.

The portion of a structure which transmits the building load to the ground.

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foundation - The axiom of foundation states that the membership relation is well founded, i.e. that any non-empty collection Y of sets has a member y which is disjoint from Y. This rules out sets which contain themselves (directly or indirectly).