Title: The Effects of Family Culture on Family Foundations | Council on Foundations
Headings: The Effects of Family Culture on Family Foundations
The Effects of Family Culture on Family Foundations
Organizational Cultures
Values
Norms
Traditions
Conformity

Content: The boy or girl raised in a family in which mother and aunts are professional women is exposed to a very different family culture from the one their grandparents knew. Organizational Cultures
In the 1980s, management theorists and consultants popularized the concept of organizational culture. They described corporations in anthropological terms, pointing to their social structure, norms and laws, language, dress codes and even their artifacts. Organizations with distinct cultures invariably bore the imprint of their founders. The corps of clean-shaven IBM executives dressed in white shirts and blue suits reflected the personality, beliefs and style of Thomas Watson, Sr., just as the bearded Apple employees wearing jeans, T-shirts and Birkenstock sandals reflected those of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Like corporations, family foundations have distinct organizational cultures, and they are as varied as the families that generate them. They run the gamut from formal, with tightly run meetings held in foundation boardrooms, to informal, with gatherings around a family member’s dining-room table. As in corporations, the values and norms of the founders and their families determine the focus of the foundation as well as how it is governed, how conflicts are handled and how emotions are expressed. To recognize the effects of family culture on the style and direction of a family foundation, Chapter 1 will look at four particular cultural attributes: