Wall Street Journal 'Letter to the Editor'
Submitted July 30, 2008
Ralph F. Boyd, Jr.
Chairman and CEO, Freddie Mac Foundation
The Journal's recent editorial "Fannie Mae's Political Immunity" (Opinion, July 29), was wrong in the accusations it made about the Freddie Mac Foundation and its beneficiaries, and profoundly so.
While it is true that the Freddie Mac Foundation's philanthropic investments in 2007 totaled approximately $25 million, recipients of Foundation grants were neither "political groups," "think tanks," left or right-wing "activists," nor "Beltway outfits" as the editorial wrongly alleged.
The Freddie Mac Foundation invests in high performing non-profits that provide housing and supportive services for low-income families at risk for homelessness, raise academic achievement levels of underserved children, and find permanent loving homes for foster children, who predominantly are children of color or with disabilities. Without these non-profits, vulnerable children and families in the nation's capital and elsewhere would be left to make do without their most basic needs being adequately met.
In fact, a recent report by the Nonprofit Roundtable, underwritten by the World Bank, observed that many of our non-profit partners deliver critical services in far more cost-effective ways than public funding. An important element of our approach to philanthropic investing is that we work with grantees to develop metrics for measuring and improving their results. The return we expect is measurable human gain. And it works.
Fortunately, we'll be able to continue to make these important community investments. Our Foundation operates with a carefully managed endowment–not stock–provided several years ago by Freddie Mac, which had the vision to create a foundation that would better the lives of vulnerable children and families. Seventeen years after its creation, the Freddie Mac Foundation stands by its approach, philosophy, and most importantly, the results of our work.