Company Overview

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation consistently ranks among the top-ten grant-making foundations in the country. It provides funding for higher education, cultural affairs, the performing arts, museums and arts conservation, population and forced migration, the environment, public affairs, and cost-effective uses of technology in education. Generally, the Mellon Foundation aims to support “religious, charitable, scientific, literary, and educational purposes as may be in the furtherance of the public welfare or tend to promote the well-doing or well-being of mankind." The foundation dates back to 1940, when Andrew Mellon’s daughter Ailsa Mellon Bruce established Avalon Foundation as a charitable trust. It was incorporated in 1954 and in 1969 merged with the Old Dominion Foundation, established in 1941 by Andrew Mellon’s son Paul Mellon. In the process, the foundation took on its present name, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Some recent grant recipients include New York's City Parks Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the University of Chicago and Bryn Mawr College. The organization has made a series of grants from a special $50 million fund to assist New York City museums, parks, performing arts institutions, and libraries that were directly affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.