William Ahmanson is the president of the Ahmanson Foundation, which financier Howard F. Ahmanson and his wife, Dorothy Grannis Ahmanson, established in 1952. The foundation funds capital projects such as construction, equipment and acquisitions rather than operating support, splitting its giving roughly evenly among arts and culture, health and human services, and education. Ahmanson spoke with the Business Journal about the state of foundation giving and how a former loan underwriter sizes up a grant. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you view the state of foundation giving?
As a foundation leader, I appreciate that it can be difficult for grantees, only because we all operate a little differently, kind of in a nuanced way. I think that the state of foundation giving is affected by the number of foundations that have changed their focus away from donor intent, which has not necessarily been beneficial to the community as a whole. And I do think that the unprecedented number of years of stock market gains has been very beneficial, and that all of our boats have risen because of that tide.
What needs are you seeing in the requests that come in?
A third art and culture, a third health and human services — it’s all rough numbers — and a third education. But what we have seen a lot of recently is a lot of security requests. We have a couple going through on our next board requests, and that’s been a through line for a good couple of years. Organizations just don’t feel as though their facilities are safe.
What do you think is behind that?
Rising crime in the city of Los Angeles, or — well, the statistics don’t bear that out. Public sentiment does not feel safe.
Has the reduction in government funding changed what you’re being asked for?
I’m not sure that the federal funds covered that kind of capital. What we have seen is prior to the federal government reducing (funds), that the state of California did that (beforehand), and some of our customers did express concerns as a result of the state of California cutting back before the federal government. We have seen with the reduction of government dollars, organizations that are primarily disaster-related, like search and rescues, are unable to get the equipment they need to do their jobs. So, we’ve been doing some of those.
What are the unmet needs in L.A.?
I think some of the unmet needs are — and I’m going to say generally, not specifically in philanthropy — we don’t seem to value quality education to the point where our youth, while they might be getting recruited to colleges, they have to be remediated because they don’t have the basic skills. And if you want equity, there’s nothing that creates better equity than a quality education. So, I think we’re missing that. We’re missing an open pipeline to many of the trades. Some trades, they’re very unionized, and it’s like a private club, and it’s who you know.
You worked in banking and wealth management. How has that shaped the way you evaluate grantees?
Well, my main role prior to wealth management was in residential loan underwriting, and when we look at a grant application, it’s very much like that. You’re evaluating the project and the equipment like somebody’s buying a home, and we’re looking at the financial solvency of organizations, and we want to make sure that they’re going to be there for longer than that grant would be useful.
How do you stay true to the founders’ mission as needs shift?
Howard and Dorothy, their funding and grant making was largely for organizations that help improve people’s lives, and it was either improved by beauty or by health or by education. And we like to think that we are today improving people’s lives by beauty, health or education. So some mission drift we might have had, but it’s a very minor bit of our funding, is in public safety and disaster preparedness. But I’d like to think that Howard would give me a thumbs up on that, only because in the times where that crisis comes, people’s lives will be made better immediately.
Every request that comes through these hallowed halls gets reviewed and discussed on a Wednesday, and it’s all done by human hands, nothing by AI. We’re on track to get 1,300 by the end of our fiscal year.
The foundation has issued many large grants including $7.5 million to the California Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. What doesn’t get as much attention?
What you’re not listing is the $12,500 grant we just made to a school that needed funding to replace its fire alarm system, and we got that in and approved it within five hours.
How do you measure impact?
Most of what we do are smaller grants, and you asking how to measure for impact — that’s the million-dollar question. For us, because we are capital-based, we ask, “What are you going to do with it?” up front. And when we look at the next grant, we’ll review the last one, in addition to the reports that they have to provide, to determine, is that van still being used? Now, unfortunately, I can’t measure the impact of, because somebody went to a Boys & Girls Club, now they’re a CEO of a company. I can’t measure that impact. We are not making a grant for equipment that people are not actually going to use.
