President Asks Foundations to Aid Early Education and Young Minority Men

Philanthropic leaders say they are ready to respond to President Obama’s invitation to support early-childhood education and programs to increase opportunities for young black and other minority men—a pitch he made in his State of the Union address last month.

But they are still waiting for word about exactly what role he wants them to play, and whether Congress will help foot the bill.

Robert Ross, president of the California Endowment, a founding member of a federation of about 25 foundations that have been sharing information about grant-making programs to help black boys and men, says the statement “demonstrated a level of seriousness of White House engagement on the issue.”

But, he said, “as for what it means pragmatically, we’ll find out.”

The California Endowment last year pledged to devote $50-million to its Sons and Brothers campaign to improve reading, change “zero tolerance” school-discipline rules, and promote the development of young male black leaders.

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Obama told Congress he wants foundations to participate in efforts to “help more young men of color facing especially tough odds stay on track and reach their full potential.“

He also said he planned to set up a coalition that would include philanthropists to “help more kids access the high-quality pre-K that they need.”

White House Meeting

Foundation and nonprofit leaders say those comments follow overtures that the administration has made behind the scenes on both issues.

Mr. Ross says he and several other foundation leaders met with high-level officials in the White House last October to discuss programs they had developed to promote literacy, reduce drop-out rates, and improve employment chances for young black men.

According to Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the administration’s representatives were about as high-level as you can get: President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Mr. Ibargüen—whose organization has awarded $4.3-million to BMe, a project that helps black men network and mentor each other—did not attend the meeting but is involved in the foundation federation that discusses programs for black men.

After that meeting, Mr. Ross says he kept in touch with administration officials, who hinted that Mr. Obama might mention young minority men in his State of the Union speech.

Now, says a White House official, who asked not to be identified, the president will “use his phone in the coming days to reach out to foundations, corporate executives, nonprofit and faith-based leaders, and others to lift up the lives of these young men.”

Waiting for Congress

The president’s comments on early education follow almost two years of meetings between nonprofit leaders and the White House and Department of Education, says Andrew Brenner, a spokesman for the First Five Years Fund, a nonprofit that promotes pre-kindergarten education.

President Obama first pushed for a major early-education effort in his State of the Union address last year and drafted a proposal to spend $75-billion over 10 years in grants to help states enroll low-income children in high-quality programs. He proposed to pay for it by raising the federal cigarette tax. But his plan has not gotten far in Congress.

Government Dollars

This year, Mr. Obama said he wanted to put together a coalition of philanthropists, elected officials, and business leaders “as Congress decides what it’s going to do.”

Carla Thompson, vice president for program strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which provides grants to early-childhood education programs, says she hopes Congress steps in, as philanthropic dollars can go only so far.

Her foundation has about $173-million in active grants on a range of programs to help children, a figure that is dwarfed by the $75-billion that Mr. Obama proposed for a pre-kindergarten effort.

“Government has the deep pockets,” she says. “If it’s not funded, it doesn’t get done.”

Response to Obama

President Obama’s overture to philanthropists has pitfalls, some nonprofit experts warn.

Writing about the State of the Union address on the Forbes website, Howard Husock, director of the Manhattan Institute’s Project on Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship, said foundations that take part in White House efforts risk being treated “like a piggy bank from which elected officials have the authority to make withdrawals.”

Often, partnerships with government programs “become bureaucratized and rule-bound and attract less committed and idealistic staff members than those supported strictly through private sources,” he wrote.

Mr. Ibargüen has invited foundations working on programs for black men to a meeting in Miami this month to help develop a response to Mr. Obama’s plea.

Until a plan is developed, Mr. Ibargüen says, the president can use the “bully pulpit” to push the issue. Short of getting Congress to chip in more cash, he says, the president can direct federal departments to divert money to programs that improve the lives of young black men.

“There may be additional appropriations down the pike if those things prove to be effective,” he says.