Madeline Ives Goddard lived what might be considered a "double life." On one hand, she was born into an illustrious Rhode Island family and ultimately married a French aristocrat, living much of her life in a chateau in France. In her other life, however, she was a nurse trained at Rhode Island Hospital and stationed at various military installations during the Spanish-American War and World War I. Madeline Goddard, now the Marquise D'Andigne, set up a Red Cross-like organization in France, and subsequently received many medals for her contributions to nursing.

The experience proved critical to her later philanthropy. Already ill with cancer, Madeline Goddard returned home to Rhode Island, and died in 1931. In her will, she left $100,000 to The Rhode Island Foundation - to that point the largest donation ever made to the Foundation - as a "field of interest" fund for "the relief of incurables."

"A field of interest fund is exactly the expression of the flexibility of a community foundation," notes Carol Golden, the Foundation's Vice President for Development. "In today's world we're looking at new organizations and solving new problems that Madeline could never have anticipated. We're able to redirect those funds in the spirit of how she wanted to use them but to meet the critical issues of today.'

The Foundation was focusing on life threatening diseases such as polio and tuberculosis in the 1930s; today it is looking at Alzheimer’s and AIDS, and more home-like hospices for long-term care. In the last three years, the Fund, which now exceeds $900,000, has distributed more than $140,000 to such organizations as AIDS Project Rhode Island, Autism Project of Rhode Island, Homefront Health Care, Make a Wish Foundation of Rhode Island, and VNS Home Health Services.

Adds Jeffrey Austin, executive director of Sunrise House, a grantee: "If Madeline were alive today, I think she would be very proud of the work the Foundation has done in stewardship of that initial bequest."