The Lia Fund Legacy Report Documents Life of The Lia Fund
The Lia Fund, a private foundation, has closed its doors after six years of making grants to social-change organizations. To memorialize the life of the Foundation, The Lia Fund has issued The Lia Fund Legacy Report. Founder Randy Lia Weil made two highly unusual decisions about the $5 million she left to be donated after her death. The first was that she appointed 14 people she knew and trusted to select the organizations and individuals who would receive funding. The second unusual thing was that she left no instructions for how or to whom they should give her bequest.
She trusted them to decide. After spending a year planning to establish the foundation, The Lia Fund awarded grants to 107 organizations from 2007 to 2013. Most of the grants ranged from $5,000 to $25,000. In total the Foundation gave away $5 million. This report is the story of what The Lia Fund did, how they did it, and what they learned. It describes the impact of this type of grantmaking on some of the most important issues of our time. It also looks at what foundations and individual donors might learn from this adventure in philanthropy.