# Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation

Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in Los Angeles, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** Los Angeles, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** 707 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 4960, Los Angeles, CA 90017, United States
- **Founded:** 1949
- **Assets under management:** $150M – $250M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** dohenyfoundation.org
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/carrie-estelle-doheny-fndtn

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Edward L. Doheny struck oil near downtown Los Angeles in 1892, kicking off a Southern California petroleum boom that reshaped the region. When he died in 1935, his widow Carrie Estelle absorbed his share of the wealth and, after her own death in 1942, her estate seeded the foundation that formally launched in 1949. The vehicle remains anchored in downtown Los Angeles, at 707 Wilshire Boulevard, and the wealth origin stays tightly coupled to the city the Dohenys helped build. Grantmaking concentrates on four areas — education, medicine, religion, and science — with an explicit focus on organizations serving the disadvantaged in Los Angeles County. On the investment side, the foundation diverges from standard-issue endowment portfolios. Public tax filings and grant databases confirm it allocates to private equity via direct buyouts, fund commitments to outside managers, and secondary purchases, a construct that embeds illiquidity tolerance and active-manager selection deep into the portfolio posture. Geographic commitment remains heavily California-weighted, though Catholic-ministry grants occasionally reach beyond the state. Confirmed grantees include St. Vincent de Paul Church, the parish the Dohenys personally funded and built, and Mount St. Mary's University, which now owns the Doheny Mansion at Chester Place. The foundation lists Michael S. Feeley as President and Chair of the Board, with Nina S. Shepherd serving as Chief Administrative Officer and CFO. It holds memberships in FADICA — Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, a tight network of Catholic philanthropies — and Southern California Grantmakers, tying it into regional philanthropic coordination. The Doheny Eye Institute, originally part of the foundation's medical mission, now operates as a separate affiliated entity advancing vision research, illustrating a pattern of incubating then spinning out focused charitable vehicles. Profit and piety coexist in the Doheny architecture. Few Catholic foundations of this vintage fuse a private-equity-heavy investment stack with tightly localized grantmaking the way this one does. The separation between the Doheny Eye Institute and the foundation proper creates a multi-vehicle legacy structure — a medieval-church-holding-company of a family office, born of California crude and steered by a small board from a Wilshire Boulevard high-rise.

## Sectors

- Education
- Healthcare Services
- Secondaries & Special Situations

## People

- Michael S. Feeley — President and Chair of the Board
- Nina S. Shepherd — Chief Administrative Officer and CFO

## Questions

### How is the foundation structured on the investment side?

Instead of a passive 60/40 public-markets portfolio, the foundation allocates to private equity through direct buyouts, fund-of-funds commitments, and secondary purchases, based on public grantmaking records and tax filings. This active, illiquid posture resembles a family-office investment strategy more than a standard foundation endowment and requires in-house manager-selection capability or close relationships with external advisors.

### How is the foundation connected to Mount St. Mary's University?

The Doheny family's historical Chester Place estate now belongs to Mount St. Mary's University, which operates its downtown Los Angeles campus there. The foundation has a long record of financial support for the university, continuing a donor relationship that began with Carrie Estelle Doheny herself and continues through its education-focused grantmaking.

## Related profiles

- [U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities](https://altss.com/profile/u-s-endowment-for-forestry-communities-inc)
- [Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/connecticut-state-colleges-and-universities-foundation)

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Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/carrie-estelle-doheny-foundation

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology