Nord Family Foundation

ABOUT The Nord Family Foundation is a successor to a charitable trust established in 1952 by the entrepreneur and industrialist W.G. Nord. Mr. Nord and his family believed that it was both responsible and prudent for a business to invest in the community it served, and formed a private foundation to be consistent in that investment even as the business reflected the cyclical nature of its earnings. The U.S. Automatic (and later Nordson) Foundation contributed more than $101 million to a wide variety of charitable causes between 1953 and 2014, primarily in Lorain County, Ohio. Walter Nord’s widow left the bulk of her estate to the Foundation, which consisted largely of stock in Nordson Corporation. In 1988, Nordson Foundation was dissolved, and The Nord Family Foundation was one of two entities created to follow it. Members of the Nord Family Foundation consist of the adult descendants of Walter and Virginia Nord as well as their spouses and adopted children. Now numbering more than fifty persons, they meet annually to participate in the development of the Foundation’s policies and grant making strategies, and to elect the Board of Trustees. Nine of the Trustees are chosen from the Membership; three additional Trustees are drawn from the community at large. In more than twenty-eight years of activity, The Nord Family Foundation has contributed more than $111 million for charitable and philanthropic purposes in Lorain County and in several other communities of interest to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Walter and Virginia Nord. OUR MISSION The Nord Family Foundation, in the tradition of its founders, Walter and Virginia Nord, endeavors to build community through support of projects that bring opportunity to the disadvantaged, strengthen the bond of families, and improve the quality of people’s lives.