Ford Foundation plans $1B bond sale for grants

The Ford Foundation is set sell $1 billion of bonds this month to provide grants to nonprofits struggling to recuperate from the virus-related shutdowns that have halted most fundraising.

“We will have a tsunami of sorts that hits this community in the coming months,” foundation President Darren Walker said of nationwide nonprofit organizations. “Through this bond offering, we will be able to provide grants to the organizations we support that will help strengthen their balance sheets and make up for the loss that they know they will have to absorb.”

Nonprofit organizations have been reeling from the impact of the virus-related shutdowns as fundraisers are canceled and many have had to shut their doors to paying visitors.

Charitable giving has slowed as donors fear an economic recession. Even some of the largest, most well-funded organizations aren’t immune. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has furloughed more than 300 staff members, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York cut 200 full-time staff members and put another 250 on indefinite furlough.

The Ford Foundation usually allocates between $550 million and $600 million a year in grants and expects the coming bond offering will “significantly” augment their capacity to give money, Walker said. This year the foundation has provided 557 grants to 500 organizations totaling about $136 million. Recipients ranged from the American Ballet Theater to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice group working to reduce incarceration in the U.S.