If you think that the closure of Lehman Brothers only affects the business world, guess again. Lehman Brothers also does it share of social work and donating to charity is certainly among their long list of past accomplishments. Actually, you may even call it a regular habit that they do and with the bankruptcy filing that they had done, even charitable institutions are bound to be affected by it.

A big question was whether commitments would be honored. “If it’s a commitment out of the Lehman Foundation, a separate charitable entity, it legally needs to be honored,” says Melissa Berman, president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. “At the same time, if the foundation has made more commitments than assets, it’s not clear what could be done.”

According to tax forms filed by Lehman Brothers Foundation, it had $23.7 million in total assets at the end of its 2007 fiscal year ending in November. At that time, it had $11.3 million in grants payable.

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On whether this was a commitment or not is really highly technical at this point. With no organization up to constantly disburse those funds for a worthy cause, that is one less donor to the world of charitable work. It is something that cannot be avoided but the only good thing that can perhaps be seen from all of it is the fact that at least you can see troubled companies doing their fair share for society regardless of the situation they are in.

Originally posted on September 15, 2008 @ 2:20 pm