Founder

There are several homographs written founder: OED lists six nouns, of which two are covered here (the rest are obsolete, or technical), and a verb, whose applications are largely outside academic writing.

• A founder is, first
• a person who founds something, in the sense of 'to lay the foundations of'. Figuratively it is used to mean the originator of something, such as an institution. Most Universities honour their founders, that is, those who set them up. In Hull, this is predominantly the wealthy local businessman T.R.Ferens (1847-1930), who also gave the Ferens Art Gallery to the city of Hull. Some of the older institutions of HE also commemmorate foundresses - for example, Queens' College, Cambridge commemorates its two foundresses, Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, who founded the college in 1448, and Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV, who refounded the college in 1465. However, some politically correct writers may object to such gender-based distinctions.

and second

• a founder is also a person who founds something - in the sense of 'to pour melted metal or glass into a mould'.

• 'To founder' is a verb applied mostly to ships, and in the past commonly to horses. It can also be used for structures. It has no connection with either of the nouns above.
  • A ship that founders is one that sinks from being full of water, and goes down while remaining upright, rather than overturning, or capsizing. Such a ship settles down to the bottom of the sea.
  • A horse (or its rider) that founders is exhausted, and collapses, goes lame, or drops dead.
    • Both horses and ships may be said to 'be foundered', meaning 'to have suffered [the relevant sense of] foundering'.
  • Buildings, or cliffs, that founder fall down, or subside.

Do not confuse founder with flounder.