One of the country’s largest Jewish foundations will close in two years and its assets will be divided among the foundations of its founder’s heirs.
The San Francisco-based Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, which has about $280 million in assets, will close at the end of 2012, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The 60-year-old foundation will continue to make grants until then, but after the end of next year its assets will be divided among the philanthropies of John and Douglas Goldman and their sister, Susan Gelman, the heirs of Richard Goldman, who died at 90 in 2010. Rhoda Goldman died in 1996.
The foundation has given out some $700 million since it was started by Goldman in 1951, with most of the gifts focused on environmental, health and Jewish causes.
In 2010, the foundation distributed $12.6 million to Jewish causes, including the Israel Project, the Chronicle reported.
Of the three funds that will receive the remaining assets, Gelman’s Morningstar Foundation is the most active in Jewish causes.
"My dad didn’t believe in the perpetuity of foundations," John Goldman told the Chronicle. "He always told us he thought it was important to have foundations recognize what was happening in a contemporary setting, with contemporary people."
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