This study of foundation funding in Appalachia examines how the Region compares to the rest of the nation in obtaining funding from all types of private foundations. The study is based on the most comprehensive data available from the Foundation Center in New York City. Based on this data, the report examines the distribution of grants from major foundations to all types of organizations in each state and city within the Region and the locations of both large and small foundations within the Region. Detailed state-by-state data are reported in accompanying appendices.

A brief summary is provided of the results from three conferences on foundation funding that the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) cosponsored with the Development District Association of Appalachia (DDAA), the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in the summer of 1998.

In addition, the study examines how successful the Local Development Districts (LDDs) and their affiliated nonprofit organizations within the Region have been in raising funds through private foundations and what could be done to enhance the grant-raising capacity of LDDs and other development organizations in the Region.

In short, the results show that Appalachia's regionwide grant total in 1996 was $298 million, up from $247 million in 1992 for all awards over $10,000 made by the top 1,000 foundations. As a point of comparison, Appalachia's share of all domestically awarded grants was 4.6 percent in 1996, far less than Appalachia's 8.2 percent population share of the United States. On a per capita basis, Appalachia had a per capita average of $13.68 in private foundation grants, as compared with the U.S. average which was $24.50 per citizen for the $6.5 billion of domestic grant awards made by the top foundations.

Located within the Region were nearly 2,000 foundations of all sizes that awarded grants of $1,000 or more during 1996. Total grants amounted to $592 million, although not all of these were awarded within the Region. The assets of these foundations amounted to nearly $12 billion in 1996. As a share of the assets of all foundations operating in the United States, Appalachian-based foundations hold about 4.5 percent.

These data indicate that Appalachia, as a region, is underperforming in securing private foundation grant funding. A high proportion of these grant awards is concentrated in one geographic subregion of Appalachia, with Pennsylvania-based recipients accounting for roughly half of all grants of $10,000 or more awarded in the Region, totaling $130 million in 1992 and $160 million in 1996. ARC's Local Development Districts and their affiliated nonprofit organizations have won relatively few grants, with perhaps Pennsylvania's and North Carolina's LDDs registering the best track record. Overall, there appears to be a great deal of room for improving the grant-winning capabilities of the vast array of community and economic development organizations within the Region.