Smith Richardson Foundation
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The Smith Richardson Foundation (SRF) is was funded in 1935 by the charitable contributions of Henry Smith Richardson, Sr., the principal creator of the Vicks Vaporub fortune. The foundation reported assets of $494 million in 2001 and gave away $23 million.
The Foundation became especially active in supporting free market, pro-democratic and anti-communist causes in 1973 when R. Randolph Richardson became its president. Under Mr. Richardson's leadership, SRF was an early supporter of such intellectual movements as supply-side and monetarist economics, and neo-conservatism in general. An internal family conflict resulted in a 12 year legal battle between several branches of the family between 1990-2002. As a result of this conflict, Peter Richardson (nephew of R. Randolph) became president in 1992, while a much smaller entity, The Randolph Foundation, (TRF), was created in the same year controlled largely by R. Randolph Richardson and his daughter, Heather Higgins. SRF's policy orientation became slightly more centrist at this time, while TRF, under Ms. Higgins as president, largely abandoned economic and foreign policy, choosing instead to pursue projects associated with social conservatism.
SRF has awarded grants of $99,686,911 to a total of 266 organizations, including:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies, $3,135,061
- American Enterprise Institute, $2,942,532
- Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins; $2,680,334
- Brookings Institution, $2,629,870
- RAND Corporation, $1,854,061
- Hudson Institute, $1,595,510
- National Institute for Public Policy, $1,534,334
- Urban Institute, $1,492,624
- Freedom House, Inc., $1,109,500
- Council on Foreign Relations, $883,023
