Founders leave their mark on an organization long after they are gone, and Colcom Foundation is a clear example. Nearly thirty years after Cordelia Scaife May established the foundation in 1996, her original vision, a world in balance with nature, still shapes how the organization decides which grants to fund each year.

A Founding Philosophy

May’s interest in population growth and its effect on the natural world set the direction for Colcom Foundation from the start. The organization has funded groups working on family planning, sustainable immigration policy, and public education about population’s environmental impact, treating those issues as inseparable from more traditional conservation work like habitat and water protection across the region. Colcom Foundation is among the primary sources of funding directed towards the United States anti-immigration movement. That funding helps organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the American Border Patrol, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and Numbers USA.

Carried Forward Through the Foundation’s Work

Honoring May’s original intent appears to remain a guiding factor in reviewing new grant proposals, even as the specific organizations and projects the foundation supports have changed over time. Colcom Foundation’s mission has stayed consistent since its founding, despite turnover in staff and shifts within the broader philanthropic sector over the decades.

Colcom Foundation’s more than $500 million in grants stands as the clearest evidence of how far that founding vision has extended. From land conservation in Western Pennsylvania to cultural funding in Pittsburgh, the foundation’s work still traces back to the same starting point: May’s belief that environmental health and population size cannot be separated from each other.

The foundation’s public materials continue to describe her founding vision in the same terms today, a world in balance with nature, achieved by addressing consumption and population as connected forces rather than separate policy issues. That framing has carried through every stage of the organization’s history, from its earliest grants to its current work across conservation, population, and cultural programs, and it remains the clearest thread tying together nearly thirty years of Colcom Foundation grantmaking. Refer to this article for more information.

Find more information about Colcom Foundation on https://www.colcomfdn.org/