How am I Troll, you slaves!
I very much doubt that. I suspect that what your country was in the shadow of was Stalinism. Just because the nice American man said you were living under communism doesn't mean anything as Americans generally can not tell the difference between Communism, Stalinism, and Socialism (and assume they're all Stalinism).
Whatever it was, it was bad. It was based on the communistic ideas and they got twisted, because that's their nature. Read Animal Farm.
Communism, like capitalism, is based on a model of the world which only works if everyone acts in exactly the way the inventor of the model thought they should. Neither work in reality; both need socialist elements to prevent them turning into a nightmare for all but the top 500 or so people in a country.
Why people think that the same can happen to foundations like this one? What would stop the chosen (by the foundation's board) community members to subside their own projects and to become "more equal" then the others?