The Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation was started by its namesake in the mid-1960s. Kauffman founded Marion Laboratories, a $1 billion pharmaceutical company that he sold to Merrell Dow in 1989. Kaufmann also established Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals in his hometown, and was a perennial fixture on Forbes Magazine’s List of the 400 richest Americans. At his death in 1993, he left half of his estate to the Foundation.