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- Assets: $7,331,997,198 (2006)
- Grants Received: $292,724,699 (2004)
- Grants Awarded: $319,000,000 (2006)
Will Keith Kellogg, who created the Kellogg cereal company, established the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in 1930. As a matter of principle, he generally opposed most forms of economic assistance, placing greater value on the long-term process of striving to overcome obstacles and become prosperous through hard work. Believing that education was the key to all long-term success, most of Kellogg's early donations were geared towards helping children.
After Kellogg died in 1951, his Foundation drifted leftward politically, and then made a major move in that direction in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it began to focus heavily on funding groups and causes that sought to counteract what they deemed the widespread injustices against minorities in the United States. To this day, the Foundation strives “to facilitate and assist in the process of social change for the betterment of people in society, particularly in the interest of the most vulnerable and marginalized populations.” Making large grants to organizations that advocate on behalf of such "vulnerable" groups as American Indians and illegal aliens, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation seeks to bridge the gap “between poor and rich, between informal and formal leaders, ... between social activists and business leaders,” and "between the haves and the have-nots.” These efforts are focused in three regions of the world – the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and southern Africa.
The Kellogg Foundation's perception of America as a racist nation is given voice by its CEO and President, William Richardson, who has implemented mandatory "racism workshops" for all Foundation staff members, to help them "loo[k] at some tough issues, including white male privilege and the subtle ways that racism manifests itself in modern organizations." Richardson adds that recent years "have seen an increase in the inequality in income and a growing concentration of wealth. ... We've also seen an increasing disparity between what's been called 'the information haves and the information have-nots. ... Across America, we see other symptoms of imbalance in the social structure. ... The prison rate among young blacks is approaching epidemic proportions. ... The national unemployment rate for Native Americans is approximately 50 percent ... Among American blacks, unemployment has historically been twice as high as it is for whites. ... Wherever we look, our society seems increasingly divided, by the color of our skins, by our cultural heritage, and by the balance in our savings accounts, if we even have one. We continue to hear about practices such as redlining -- illegally restricting home purchases by people of color, racial tracking in schools, and racial profiling. Minorities and the poor even suffer from environmental discrimination. Toxic waste is often found near low-income neighborhoods since their residents have usually lacked the political influence to protest successfully."
The Kellogg Foundation’s Board Chair is Hanmin Liu, a longtime community organizer who has been a Trustee on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Board of Directors since 1996, and who is also President of the United States-China Educational Institute.
Among the recent recipients of Kellogg Foundation grants are the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN); the United States Student Association; the Waterkeeper Alliance; the Council on Foundations; Save The Children Fund; the American Civil Liberties Union; the Center for Community Change; World Vision International; the National Council of La Raza; the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Childrens Defense Fund; the Center for Rural Affairs; the Environmental Defense Fund; National Public Radio; the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy; the Food Alliance; the World Resources Institute; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; the Environmental Grantmakers Association; the Earth Island Institute; Friends of the Earth; the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; the Consumers Union; the Urban Institute; the World Wildlife Fund; the Urban League; the Nature Conservancy; the Alternative Energy Resources Organization; Ecotrust; the Population Resource Center; the Rockefeller Family Fund; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the Women's Action Group; the Southern Coalition for Educational Equity; the Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program; the World Hope Foundation; the Womens Funding Network; Vigorous Interventions In Ongoing Natural Settings (VISIONS); the United Nations Foundation; the Trust for Conservation Innovation; the Southern Coalition for Educational Equity; the Public Sector Consultants; New Paradigm Partners; the Native American Rights Fund; the National Resource Center for the Healing of Racism; the National Congress of American Indians; the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; the Interfaith Hospitality Network; the Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture; Humana People to People in South Africa; the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan Network; the First Nations Development Institute; Duke University; Columbia University; the Centers for New Horizons; the Center for Afro Study and Research; Business for Social Responsibility; Black Veterans for Social Justice; the Aspen Institute; Americans for Indian Opportunity; and the American Farmland Trust.
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