I was going to post a comprehensive diary on this topic, but my first three efforts disappeared suddenly before completion. Instead, here are some links dealing with the subject.
The first is the "root" link, the story which ran in Sunday's NYT relating the closing of the Olin Foundation, a major funder of many conservative think tanks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/politics/29olin.html?hp&ex=1117425600&en=944cec619548ba02&
amp;ei=5094&partner=homepage
James Piereson, the longtime director of Olin, offered his view of the process in an essay in the magazine Commentary.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=11905048_1
A list of grant-making foundations: http://fdncenter.org/research/trends_analysis/top100giving.html
(I find the number of medicine/drug foundations interesting. It would be interesting to examine those from the perspective of guilt.)
The foundation's webby: http://www.jmof.org/