The damage from Bernard Madoff's investment scam just keeps piling up. This time it has hit two Seattle area foundations hard. Both are relatively small foundations involved in conservation and education.

The Patrice and Kevin Auld Foundation of Seattle and the Kaleidoscope Foundation of Bellevue relied on Madoff for their investments. In its last tax filing, for the year ended in August 2007, the Auld Foundation reported holding $1.67 million in Madoff security investments, while listing its total assets as $1.75 million. The Kaleidoscope Foundation reported holding $3.16 million in Madoff investments, with total assets of $12.6 million at the end of 2007.

The foundations were first listed in a preliminary estimate of Madoff exposure among private foundations, compiled by Benefit Technology for the New York Times. The list included foundations across the U.S. based on data from tax returns.

Patrice Auld, a New York native who heads her family foundation, said the loss was devastating. "This is somebody we all felt we could trust."

The Auld Foundation has been a supporter of Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based organization working to protect biodiversity around the world. Its other recent beneficiaries include the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Lakeside School, Seattle Academy, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

"This is a real blow," said Carol Lewis, chief executive of Philanthropy Northwest. "When you have foundations like the Auld Foundation, which has done so much that is positive for the community, it just makes me very sad for the impact on them and on the organizations they support."

The Kaleidoscope Foundation of Bellevue is headed by co-presidents Richard Leeds and Anne Kroeker, who have supported wildlife preservation and were given a lifetime award by the Cascade Land Conservancy in 2006 for protecting open space.

Reached by phone today, Leeds said the Madoff issue is an ongoing legal matter for the foundation and he could not comment until it's resolved.

Leeds' parents, Gerard and Lilo Leeds of New York, built the company CMP Media, listed on the Nasdaq in 1997 and later sold to a British publishing firm, after arriving in the United States in 1939 as refugees from Hitler's Germany, according to information from the University of Colorado at Boulder. A $35 million commitment from the Leeds family endowed the university's business school. Richard Leeds is a graduate of the university. Among CMP Media's publications are InformationWeek and Computerworld.

The Kaleidoscope Foundation's major grantees include the Grays Harbor Audubon Society, Audubon Washington, Columbia Land Trust in Vancouver, Hoh River Trust, Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Bellevue Schools Foundation, and Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

The Kaleidoscope Foundation reported more than $235,000 in income from Madoff securities in 2007 and listed shares in dozens of blue chip companies in its Madoff account that were held only one or two months and sold, most of them for a short-term gain but quite a few for a loss.

The Auld Foundation reported $200,000 in gains through Madoff investment securities in 2007 and $150,000 in gains in 2006.

Now both foundations' losses are among the carnage of an alleged $50 billion fraud. The damage has already forced several charities to close (JEHT Foundation, Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation and the Chais Family Foundation), and others may be next. JEHT's closure has already hurt funding to address racial disparity in the justice system.

Auld said she hoped to be able to continue her foundation's work. "We're going to do the best we can," she said. "I care very much about these causes."