Today the Charles Koch Foundation released its Annual Giving Report, detailing its gifts from 2016. The Foundation’s grants in 2016 totaled $77 million, just shy of doubling its 2015 grant-giving. The report also details that the Foundation is on track to top $90 million* in grants during 2017.
The increase in giving reflects the growth of the programs we support and the refinement of our focus on issues that impede individuals from realizing their full potential—particularly to include criminal justice, foreign policy and free expression. Foundation Director of University Relations John Hardin adds, “as more scholars have learned of our support in these areas, our opportunities to provide funding for exciting and critical research and education initiatives has expanded significantly.”
Grant support in 2016 included commitments to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to help establish the Center for Advancing Opportunity and continued support of the Notre Dame International Security Center.
As Brian Hooks, president of the Foundation, writes in his opening letter, “The tie that binds these projects is the recognition that when we work together to understand how to liberate people from the internal and external barriers preventing them from realizing their potential, we all benefit. With that in mind, we enthusiastically believe our society’s best days can be ahead of us.”
*Number has been adjusted from $120 million to $90 million to reflect current data.