The Missouri attorney general’s office has cleared the Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of wrongdoing after a six-month investigation into its business practices.
The review was launched after several former board members of the foundation, one of the largest private charitable groups in the country, accused it of abandoning the vision of the founder.
Kauffman founded Marion Laboratories in 1950, a pharmaceutical company that was acquired by Merrill Dow. The foundation has about $1.6 billion in assets.
The Kauffman Foundation is a key backer of entrepreneurial programs in Illinois and around the country.
Last year, it announced a $25 million grant program, of which $4.5 million was awarded to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, that was designed to move traditional classes about starting and operating small businesses out of business schools and into the mainstream campus.
In a report, Missouri Atty. Gen. Jay Nixon said he found “the Kauffman Foundation continues to embody the hopes and promises of its visionary founder.”
However, Nixon issued a series of recommendations calling for a revision of the foundation’s bylaws, including provisions requiring a “specific substantial number” of board members to be from the Kansas City area and that a “substantial portion” of the foundation’s annual grants be directed toward Kansas City projects.
Currently 65 percent of the foundation’s grants are made to Kansas City-area charities.
John A. (Tony) Mayer, chairman of the Kauffman board, said in a statement that the foundation was “pleased” that the review had found the foundation is following the directions outlined by its founder.
