The Lattner Family Foundation

The Lattner Family Foundation

The Lattner Family Foundation is a private foundation based in Delray Beach, Florida, that traces its endowment to the late Forrest C. Lattner. Lattner was a Wall Street investment banker who later founded and operated utility companies, generating the capital that seeded the foundation. Today the foundation is governed by a board of four trustees drawn from succeeding generations of the family: Forrest C. Brown, Richard M. Harris, Andrew L. Harris, and Susan B. Walker. Its grantmaking footprint reflects the family's geographic ties, with awards flowing to organizations in Kansas, Florida, and Georgia. The foundation's programmatic focus is direct and uncomplicated. It makes grants across three core areas: education, human services, and general philanthropy and voluntarism. Unlike private foundations that layer program-related investments or mission-aligned venture capital onto their giving, the Lattner Family Foundation appears to operate as a straightforward grantmaker. Public records indicate it does not maintain a separate investment team or publish a detailed portfolio allocation. Its endowment — which sustains the grantmaking — is managed internally as part of the foundation's operations, but the foundation discloses neither its asset mix nor its investment managers. Scale is modest by institutional foundation standards. While the foundation does not publicly report its endowment or annual payout, it operates from a single location in Delray Beach with a lean governance structure centered on the four family-member trustees. There are no known adjacent vehicles, donor-advised fund platforms, or philanthropic LLCs affiliated with the Lattner family. The foundation maintains a minimal web presence, listing its mission and grantmaking priorities without naming specific grantees, staff, or investment policies. The foundation's defining structural feature is its quiet continuity. It has remained a tightly held family philanthropy across decades, governed by descendants of the founder rather than professionalized staff or external advisors. This governance model — a small, family-composed board directing a modest endowment toward a focused set of grantmaking priorities — is common among regional private foundations but stands in contrast to the multi-generational institutionalization seen at larger peers.