Architects have many avenues by which to do good, such as providing pro-bono services to nonprofits and mentoring young designers. Some firms have set up their own private foundations, primarily as a way of influencing design education.
Established in 1979, the SOM Foundation is the oldest-known private foundation created by an architecture firm, and it has distributed almost $2 million in travel and research fellowships to students and recent graduates. From the outset, the mission of the foundation was to improve American design education, explains firm partner Mustafa Abadan, who today chairs the 501(c)(3). “This is a purely philanthropic gesture. A firm is not entirely based on profit motive.”
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