Kemper And Leila Williams Foundation

The Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation is a private operating foundation in the truest sense — it exists primarily to fund and operate the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC), one of Louisiana's most significant cultural institutions. With $470 million in assets and $21.7 million in annual total giving, the foundation directs approximately $18.3 million per year toward HNOC's museum operations, exhibitions, publications, research center, and educational programming. External grantmaking is intentionally narrow and largely governed by the founders' wills rather than open competitive processes.

For grant seekers, this creates a highly specific opportunity landscape. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals from nonprofit organizations and is flagged as "preselected only" in its application process. The two external competitive programs — the Diane Woest Fellowship and the Kemper Williams Prize — are available only to individual scholars and published authors, respectively, not to organizations.

First-time applicants should understand that the path to this foundation runs through HNOC itself, not through a traditional grant portal. The Williams Research Center at 410 Chartres Street holds over one million items — documents, maps, photographs, art, and ephemera related to New Orleans and the Gulf South. Any scholar seeking the Diane Woest Fellowship must demonstrate substantive engagement with these specific collections, not merely cite HNOC as a potential resource.

The foundation's philosophy, established through Kemper and Leila Williams' wills, centers on three pillars: preservation, education, and community access. Both Kemper (a prominent New Orleans attorney) and Leila built a collection with the explicit intent of making it freely accessible to the public. HNOC charges no admission. This ethos of democratized access to historical knowledge is central to the institution's identity, and fellowship proposals that reinforce this value — research that will ultimately be shared publicly — resonate most strongly with the board and selection committees.

Board Chairman Bonnie Boyd and President/CEO Daniel Hammer (compensated at $335,000 in FY2025) lead a stable governance structure. There are no indications of strategic pivots or new external grantmaking initiatives in the near term.

The Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation presents an unusual financial profile for a philanthropy-categorized entity: while its total annual giving of $21.7 million (FY2023–2024) rivals mid-size community foundations, approximately 99% of that figure is internal operational expenditure on HNOC programs, exhibitions, and staffing. Only a small fraction reaches external recipients.

External grant activity breaks down as follows based on IRS 990 data and grantee records:

• Kemper Williams Park (St. Mary Parish Police Jury): ~$37,000/year paid semi-annually, mandated by the founders' wills since a July 26, 1978 act of donation. This is not competitive — it is a perpetual obligation.
• Diane Woest Fellowship: $4,000 per fellow per award cycle, typically awarded to 2–3 scholars per year. Total annual outlay: $8,000–$12,000.
• Kemper Williams Prize: $1,500 awarded annually to the best published work on Louisiana history.

Historical grantee data from the foundation's 990 filings shows the following across 13 documented external grants: total external grant dollars of $143,873, average grant of $11,067, and a median of $4,000. The range is $1,500 (prize) to $111,373 (cumulative park payments). Individual fellowship awards are uniformly $4,000 each.

Total foundation assets have trended: $332M (FY2013), $374M (FY2015), $420M (FY2019), $541M (FY2021 peak), $533M (FY2022), $509M (FY2023), $470M (FY2024). The FY2021 peak reflects extraordinary investment returns ($116.6M net investment income). The subsequent decline to $470M reflects market normalization. Net investment income has stabilized at $7–9M annually, well below the peak.

Total giving has grown modestly: $13.9M (FY2013), $15.6M (FY2015), $18.5M (FY2019), $19.1M (FY2021), $21.0M (FY2022), $21.7M (FY2023–2024). Officer compensation totals approximately $974,000–$947,000, representing 4–5% of total expenses, which is consistent with an operationally intensive museum foundation.

The following table compares the Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation to five peer foundations of similar asset scale, all categorized under Philanthropy & Grantmaking (NTEE T):

Among asset peers, the Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation is the most operationally restricted for external grant seekers. While peers like the Peter Kiewit Foundation and Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation maintain active open LOI processes and fund hundreds of external organizations annually, the Williams Foundation concentrates virtually all resources on a single institution it directly operates. This is structurally similar to the Yawkey Foundation II and Bisciotti Foundation, which also favor invitation-only grantmaking — but unlike those foundations, the Williams Foundation's external competitive programs are limited to individual scholars and prize recipients, not nonprofit organizations.

The foundation's most notable recent activity continues to center on HNOC's programming rather than external grantmaking. In FY2023–2024, HNOC mounted six major exhibitions including "Spanish New Orleans & the Caribbean," "Notre-Dame de Paris: The Augmented Exhibition," "Making Mardi Gras," "Backstage at A Streetcar Named Desire," and "French Quarter Life: People and Places of the Vieux Carré." These exhibitions drew 64,447 visitors, complemented by 28 public programs and 98 on-site field trips.

The foundation completed semi-annual park funding payments to the St. Mary Parish Police Jury in FY2023 ($29,725 grants paid) and FY2022 ($46,033). The Diane Woest Fellowship was awarded in FY2023 to three scholars: Susan Penman, Eloy De Guzman Romero Blanco, and William D. Jones ($4,000 each). Kathryn Olivarius won the Kemper Williams Prize in 2025; Jessica Marie Johnson won it in a prior cycle ($1,500).

A significant development is the ongoing closure of the Merieult House at 533 Royal Street (the foundation's registered address) for a multi-year preservation and campus re-envisioning effort. This represents a major capital allocation toward HNOC's built environment.

Leadership compensation data from FY2025 filings shows Daniel Hammer's salary rose to $335,000 (from $300,000 in prior filings) and Michael Cohn's to $243,338, suggesting institutional stability. Bonnie Boyd serves as current Board Chairman at $60,000 compensation, having succeeded R. Andrew Jardine who now holds Emeritus status.

Because the Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation is a private operating foundation with a preselected-only grantmaking policy, the following tips apply specifically to the two competitive programs available to external applicants: the Diane Woest Fellowship and the Kemper Williams Prize.

Diane Woest Fellowship — For Scholars: - Before applying, spend meaningful time in the Williams Research Center (410 Chartres St., Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.) or explore its online catalog at hnoc.org. Applications must demonstrate that HNOC's holdings are substantively central to the research — not incidental. - Contact reference@hnoc.org in advance of applying. Archivist relationships matter. Staff can guide you to specific collections and confirm your project's fit before you invest in a formal application. - Proposals that center underrepresented Louisiana voices — enslaved people, Afro-Creole communities, Indigenous peoples, immigrant groups — align with HNOC's stated commitment to correcting gaps in the historical record. - Fellowship stipends are $4,000 per award cycle. This is a research support grant, not a project completion grant. Frame your proposal around a defined research phase, not a completed work. - Avoid proposing research that does not require HNOC's physical or digital holdings. Reviewers are HNOC staff and affiliated scholars — they will recognize if your work could equally be conducted at another institution.

Kemper Williams Prize — For Authors: - The submission deadline is January 9 each year for works published in the prior calendar year. Submit promptly — late entries are not considered. - Only books focused on Louisiana history are eligible. Works with broad Gulf South or Southern U.S. scope may not qualify unless Louisiana is the clear primary subject. - The $1,500 prize is awarded to published authors, not proposals. Your book must already be in print before submission. - Past winners include Kathryn Olivarius and Jessica Marie Johnson, both historians whose work engages with Louisiana's complex social history. Academic press publications appear favored.

For Nonprofit Organizations: There is no viable path to external organizational funding from this foundation at this time. Do not invest resources in cultivating this relationship for institutional grants.