AW Mellon Foundation was founded in 1969 and is based in New York City was named for one of Thomas Mellon's sons, It had an endowment of $8.16 billion as of December 2020 and awarded grants that year of $417 million. Andrew W. Mellon was a banker, businessman, art collector and politician who served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. The AW Mellon Foundation was formed from the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation. The Avalon Foundation had been established in 1940 by Andrew's daughter, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, and Old Dominion in 1941 by Paul Mellon, Andrew's son. They combined the two into the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to honor their father.