Bill Cummings and his wife Joyce move philanthropy through the Cummings Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in New England. The foundation has given away more than $200 million in the Greater Boston area and also manages several subsidiaries, including the nonprofit New Horizons retirement communities. The couple are Giving Pledge signatories.

Bill Cummings graduated from Tufts University. In the 1960s, Cummings paid $10,000 for his first business, a company that supplied fruit punch to colleges and health care institutions, and eventually sold it for more than $1 million. He was the publisher of several community newspapers. Cummings went on to create Cummings Properties in Woburn, Massachusetts, outside Boston. That commercial real estate business, which began in 1970 with one small building, now boasts 11 million square feet in nearly a dozen communities north and west of Boston.

Nearly all the buildings managed by Cummings Properties are owned by and operated for the benefit of the Cummings Foundation, which Bill and Joyce Cummings established in 1986. When the couple established the foundation, they pledged to give 10 percent of their income each year to it. Over time, however, they committed most of the family's commercial real estate holdings to the foundation. With nearly $2 billion in assets, it's now one of the largest foundations in New England.

The foundation has a strong focus on Greater Boston and about a dozen communities north or west of the city. Grants go to charities aiding the community through education, healthcare, human services, and social justice programs.

Grantees include Brazilian Worker Center, Artists for Humanity, Boston Shakespeare Project, Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, The Children’s Center of Methuen, Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester, Catholic Charities of Boston, and Winchester Music School. Cummings has been a major donor to his alma mater Tufts University, home to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

The foundation runs several subsidiary programs. The Institute for World Justice supports the "post-genocide recovery and rebuilding of Rwanda," and uses "education to help prevent future genocides and other intercultural violence and injustices there and elsewhere." The foundation also developed New Horizons retirement communities in Massachusetts.

Cummings is in his 80s and his giving is going strong. Through the years, the foundation's circle of leadership has broadened beyond family members and now two-thirds of the foundation's trustees come from outside the family or business. Look for even more community involvement down the line.

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