Kirsch Foundation: Grants in 1999

You have the legal right to viewing the giving record of any private foundation. You can request this information from the foundation and they are legally required to provide it.

We think there is a lot of benefit to going beyond that by a) making it easier for you to view where we made our donations by posting this to our website b) explaining the rationale behind each grant we made. It is our hope that this information will be useful to people applying to us for grants as well as useful to other individuals and foundations who, after reading our description, may wish to also contribute to these causes.

We hope that you find this information useful and you encourage other foundations to follow our lead.

<< To do: jazz up this page with a JPG for each project >>

$100K: Spacewatch Program, University of Arizona
This is my annual commitment to discovering asteroids 1km or larger in size that could impact the earth. The chances of an impact in any given year are 1 in 100,000. Such an impact could wipe out half the life on earth. This is a small price to pay for collision insurance for planet earth. The effort needs about $2M in funding a year to identify all asteroids within 10 years. So there is a shortfall in funding (NASA provides insufficient funding each year to get the job done within 10 years). If you'd like to help save the world, contact [email protected]. The Spacewatch program was written up in an article Time magazine.

$1M: United Way charities in Santa Clara County
An $11M funding shortfall caused by mismanagement of the Santa Clara County United Way created a financial crisis for over 100 local social services charities. By setting up a separate fund at the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, we were able to sidestep the United Way related issues, and focus on providing money directly to the charities. We were the first to step up to the plate with a $1M donation to cover the shortfall. Others followed our example with donations of $1M or more and the funding crisis was over within a few weeks.

<there are a lot more...I'll add them later>