The Federal Judicial Center Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Congress in 1988 and chartered by the District of Columbia to receive gifts made to support the work of the Center. The Foundation is governed by a seven-person Board, whose members are appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. No member of the Board may be a active Judge. The Center provides staff assistance to the Foundation, as authorized by statute.
The current members of the Foundation's Board are as follows:
Philip W Tone, Esq, Chicago, Illinois, Chair
Robert D. Raven, Esq, Los Angeles, California
E. William Crotty, Esq., Daytona Beach, Florida
Dianne M. Nast, Esq., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Laurie L. Michel, Esq., Washington, D.C.
Richard M. Rosenbaum, Esq, Rochester, New York
Benjamin L. Zelenko, Esq, Washington, D.C.
The Center has identified several projects that would be advanced through the availability of non-appropriated funds received by the Foundation. Some of the projects that could be funded by gifts to the Foundation are:
- a foreign judicial fellows program under which a small number of foreign Judges would come to the Center for a period of three to six months for research and study and to learn education and training techniques
- a program for state Judges to come to the Center for short periods of time for purposes of research and study
- ethics and values seminars and other non-traditional seminars, such as those on science, the environment, and economics, for federal judges
- a program to support the attendance of foreign judges at regular Center seminars
In 1991, the Foundation received a generous gift from the Supreme Court Historical Society that will enable the Center's Federal Judicial History Office to conduct an oral history program of interviews with Justices of the Supreme Court. The program is expected to continue for two years.