July 23, 2008
Templeton Foundation Anticipates Big Asset Gain Following Founder's Death
By Ben Gose
The $1.3-billion John Templeton Foundation may see its assets increase by 50 percent by the end of 2009, following the death this month of its founder, Sir John M. Templeton, the mutual-fund pioneer.
Mr. Templeton, a billionaire whose foundation focuses to a large degree on reconciling science and religion, had much of his fortune in a series of trusts — and his estate may not be settled until late 2009, according to his eldest son, John M. Templeton Jr.
“I think it’s realistic that the assets could increase by 50 percent,” Dr. Templeton, a medical doctor who has been the full-time president of the Templeton Foundation since 1995, said in an interview with The Chronicle.
Dr. Templeton said the increase in assets would lead to expanded grant-making by the foundation, which is based in West Conshohocken, Pa. The foundation paid out approximately $70-million during 2007.
Scientific Concerns
The expansion may prove controversial with academic scientists, who are the primary beneficiaries of the foundation’s giving.
Several scientists have raised concerns about the foundation’s attempts to reconcile religion and science, and some believe the foundation primarily supports “pseudo-science” that furthers the foundation’s agenda.
Peter Woit, a mathematical physicist at Columbia University, acknowledges that the foundation supports some “legitimate science” but he also sees plenty of spending that he views as an attempt to “inject religion into science.”
“In this science/religion realm, they’re already dumping more money on universities than can reasonably be spent,” he says. “I’m not sure, if you were spending more money, if you could even find the people to give it to.”
But Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Arizona State University, and a Templeton Foundation trustee, says many scientists enjoy tackling the big questions that the foundation is focused on and that both science and religion deal with issues such as “How did the universe begin?”
“These are things that scientists love to think about, and they rarely get funded by mainstream agencies,” Mr. Davies says. “The fact that the foundation may have more money is wonderful.”
1987 Start
The elder Mr. Templeton, known as Sir John after being knighted by England’s Queen Elizabeth II for his philanthropic accomplishments, died on July 8 in Nassau, the Bahamas.
He began his career on Wall Street in 1937, and created several successful mutual funds. He eventually sold the Templeton Funds for $440-million in 1992.
Mr. Templeton started the Templeton Foundation in 1987, and stepped down as chairman of its board in 2006.
Dr. Templeton said his father always remained committed to a foundation that would exist in perpetuity and support research that explores the intersection of science and religion.
He says his father felt “in decades and even centuries to come, there will always be greater and greater opportunities to learn and to apply what you learn.”
Even so, the foundation has some significant changes underway.
The foundation is searching for program-related vice presidents to oversee the following five areas:
- Bio/neurosciences
- Philosophy, theology, and related scholarship paired with science
- “Virtue research” and character development
- Research on freedom and enterprise solutions to poverty
- Medicine, spirituality, and “human flourishing”
Currently about 75 percent of the foundation’s spending goes to unsolicited grants, but Dr. Templeton would like to eventually see half of its spending or more go to internally developed programs overseen by the vice presidents.
“We want to be more proactive in coming up with well-designed and significantly impactful programs,” Dr. Templeton said.
‘Comprehensive Evaluation’
The Templeton Foundation is also trying to more rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of its grant-making.
It is hiring a vice president for “comprehensive evaluation,” and has contracted with an outside company to assess the best systems in philanthropy for evaluating outcomes.
Historically, the foundation has evaluated research it supports by looking at measures such as academic citations over periods as short as three to four months following completion of the work.
But Dr. Templeton said the foundation’s most successful grants have proven their worth over a much longer period.
He cited the foundation’s support of research on the efficacy and nature of forgiveness. When the foundation began supporting such research in 1998, only a dozen or so academic papers had focused on forgiveness, Dr. Templeton says.
The foundation sponsored more than 38 projects, totaling more than $4.5-million, through 1995.
Now, he says, hundreds of independent articles and research projects on forgiveness exist.
“My father was once asked by a financial journalist what one word of advice he would have for investors, and he said that word was patience,” Dr. Templeton says. “Well-considered investments may take five or more years before you see the true success of your choices.”
Succession Plan
Dr. Templeton, who is 68, is required to step down as president at 78, under a succession plan drawn up by his father. The younger Mr. Templeton said the foundation’s 12-member Board of Trustees is already thinking about succession.
The board is taking on greater responsibilities in approving and evaluating grants, he said, and it is beginning to draw up a skill set it would like to see in the foundation’s next president.
Assuming Dr. Templeton’s health remains good, the board will begin the search for his replacement when he turns 76 — a full two years before he departs.
“This is not an easy position to advertise for,” Dr. Templeton says. “What the foundation stresses are not things that you can find in the Yellow Pages.”
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Templeton Foundation assets to increase by 50%
— clare Jul 25, 01:48 PM #