The Freddie Mac Foundation in McLean, Virginia, has had its share of management turmoil over the past two years, and its newly appointed chairman, Ralph Boyd, Jr., is launching a top-to-bottom review of the organization and its philanthropy to see how its operations can be improved, the Washington Post reports.

Funded by its corporate parent, mortgage finance firm Freddie Mac, the foundation has donated about $165 million to D.C.-area nonprofits, many working in the area of children and families, since 1991. Last year, it awarded $23 million in grants to more than one hundred organizations, including $450,000 to Child and Family Network Centers in Alexandria, Virginia, enabling the free preschool program to enroll sixty-four additional children. Over the years, it has also given $16 million to Healthy Families America, which works with new parents to help prevent child abuse, and it sponsors Wednesday's Child, a weekly television segment on news shows that features older foster children seeking permanent homes.

Boyd, a veteran criminal prosecutor in Boston and general counsel at corporate parent Freddie Mac, is the foundation's fourth board chair in less than two years. He replaces Freddie Mac CEO Richard F. Syron, who resigned as board chair to focus on corporate issues but will remain on the foundation's board. In addition to his dutuies as chair, Boyd will continue to work for Freddie Mac in the role of executive vice president of community relations, responsible for all philanthropic efforts, including corporate giving and employee voluntarism.

"Corporate America must lead by example, including by investing in the communities where we live and work. At Freddie Mac, the Freddie Mac Foundation is a major way we invest in our community. That's why I am pleased that a leader of Ralph's caliber will head this organization," said Syron. "He has the right combination of integrity, strategic focus, community awareness, and external relationship skills to lead the foundation to continued future success."

For his part, Boyd plans to re-evaluate the foundation's operations with an eye toward making them more effective and efficient. "It isn't as though you're looking at a program that's broken or ineffective or wanting," he told the Post. "But as with anything, you can figure out how to make it better."