Northwest Area Foundation (U.S.)

The Northwest Area Foundation makes grants to organizations and programs in eight states that were served by the former Great Northern Railway Company: Minnesota, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington. It was founded in 1934 by Great Northern chairman Louis W. Hill, Sr. as the Lexington Foundation, making grants for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes that were deemed to contribute to the public welfare. Funds constituting its capital assets were derived from gifts made by Hill during his lifetime and from the residues of both his estate and that of his wife, Maud Van Cortlandt Taylor Hill. The Foundation's first grants were awarded in 1937, and were mainly small contributions to established charities in the St. Paul area. The name of the Foundation was changed in 1950 to the Louis W. and Maud Hill Family Foundation, and in 1975 to the Northwest Area Foundation.

A. A. Heckman became the Foundation's first full-time executive director in 1951. John D. Taylor succeeded Heckman as executive director in 1970, and Heckman became Foundation president and a member of the board of directors. Terry T. Saario succeeded Taylor as president of the organization in 1984.

The foundation operated as a traditional grant-maker for nearly fifty years, reviewing several thousand requests each year to make about 120 grants in 39 categories, including projects in the arts and humanities, education, the environmental and physical sciences, medical sciences and health, the social sciences, and social welfare. Grants were made only to nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations. In 1998 the board of directors and senior management decided to focus their grant-making on projects involving long-term poverty reduction. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005 the foundation made grants totaling over $12.6 million, and ended the year with approximately $452.5 million in assets.

Louis Warren Hill, Sr. (1872-1948) was the son of St. Paul railroad magnate James J. Hill (1838-1916), builder of the Great Northern Railway. He married Maud Van Cortlandt Taylor (1870-1961) on June 5, 1901. Louis W. Hill succeeded his father as president of the Great Northern Railway Company in 1907, and served as chairman of its board of directors from 1912 to 1929.

From the guide to the Foundation records., 1934-2009 (bulk 1934-2006)., (Minnesota Historical Society)