Foundation Annual Reports

BURROUGHS WELLCOME FUND
One Copley Parkway, Suite 200
Morrisville, N.C. 27560-9693
(919) 991-5100
http://www.bwfund.org

Period covered: Year ending August 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

The fund makes awards to help scientists in the United States and Canada develop as independent investigators early in their careers and to support researchers working in fields in the basic medical sciences that are “undervalued or underfunded.”

The fund was created in 1955 as the corporate foundation of the Burroughs Wellcome pharmaceutical company. In 1993, the London-based Wellcome Trust — the foundation of the British parent company, Wellcome Foundation Ltd. — allocated $400-million to be paid over five years to the fund. This donation enabled the fund to become fully independent of the company, which was acquired by the pharmaceutical firm Glaxo in 1995. The fund has no affiliation with the pharmaceutical enterprise now known as Glaxo Wellcome or with any other corporation.

In fiscal year 1997-98, new grants totaling $38.9-million were allocated as follows: career-development programs for scientists received $16.1-million; pharmacological sciences, toxicology, and experimental therapeutics, $10.3-million; emerging infectious diseases, $6.7-million; science education, $2.7-million; improving the “environment for science,” $1.5-million; reproductive science, $1.2-million; and “interfaces” between the biological sciences and the chemical, computational, and physical sciences, $0.4-million.

In all, the fund supported nearly 600 new and continuing grants at more than 200 academic and other non-profit institutions located in the United States and Canada.

Career-development awards support four major programs: Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences, Hitchings-Elion Fellowships, Life Sciences Research Fellowships, and BWF Research Travel Grants.

The Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences is the fund’s largest professional-development program; 25 postdoctoral investigators received awards totaling $12.8-million in its fourth year of operation.

The fund made 10 inaugural awards totaling $7.5-million to support clinical scientists working on translational research — the two-way transfer of knowledge between laboratory-based research and patient care.

The program on emerging infectious diseases focuses on human diseases caused by parasites and pathogenic fungi and supports research on molecular parasitology, mycology, and malaria.

Science-education grants support creative, hands-on activities for middle- and high-school students in North Carolina through the Student Science Enrichment Program, and visiting professorships in the basic medical sciences and microbiology.

The fund made its first award through the Reproductive Scientist Development Program, which supports U.S. obstetrician-gynecologists working in the basic reproductive sciences.

The address given above is temporary; effective November 17, the fund will move to new headquarters. That address is P.O. Box 13901, 21 T. W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, N.C. 27709-3901. The fund’s telephone and fax numbers will not change.

Application procedure: The fund makes approximately 90 per cent of its grants through competitive award programs. Most of its award programs are open to scientists who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States and Canada; a few programs are open only to U.S. scientists. Most awards are made to degree-granting institutions in behalf of individual researchers, who must be nominated by their institutions. All institutions receiving awards must be tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are not eligible for awards. The fund does not support activities that are primarily clinical in nature (such as disease diagnosis and treatment) or primarily related to health care and health-care policy. Guidelines and deadlines for competitive award programs are available on request. Information can be obtained by sending an e-mail message to mailback@bwfund.org; type the word “menu” on the subject line for a list of programs. To request a specific program brochure to be delivered by regular mail, send a message to info@bwfund.org. Program information is also available on the fund’s World-Wide Web site.

Key officials: Enriqueta C. Bond, president; Scott G. Schoedler, vice-president for finance; Martha G. Peck, vice-president for programs; D. Carr Agyapong, senior program and communications officer; Martin Ionescu-Pioggia, Victoria P. McGovern, and Nancy S. Sung, program officers; Tom Burroughs, communications manager; Samuel L. Katz, chair of the Board of Directors.

WILLIAM AND FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION

525 Middlefield Road, Suite 200
Menlo Park, Cal. 94025-3495
(650) 329-1070
http://www.hewlett.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

The foundation was created in 1966 by the industrialist William R. Hewlett, his late wife, Flora Lamson Hewlett, and their eldest son, Walter B. Hewlett. It is wholly independent of the Hewlett-Packard Company.

Although the foundation has no stipulated geographic limitations, a percentage of its disbursable funds is earmarked for projects in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1998, grants totaling $73.8-million were authorized, a significant increase from the previous year’s authorization of $51.6-million. Distribution was as follows: population received $19.2-million; education, $11.3-million; conflict resolution, $9.3-million; the environment, $8.8-million; family and community development, $6.9-million; performing arts, $6.9-million; U.S.-Latin American relations, $5.2-million; special projects, $4.7-million; and interdisciplinary projects, $1.5-million.

Population-related grants are made primarily to U.S.-based institutions and emphasize activities in developing countries that support three priorities: increasing the involvement in population issues of public and private groups, the news media, and educational institutions; strengthening family-planning and reproductive-health services; and assessing the effect of educational and economic-development activities on fertility rates.

Education grants are made to advance higher education in the United States and to improve elementary and secondary education in the San Francisco Bay Area and, in some cases, elsewhere in California. Grants for higher education are made in five areas: “pluralism and unity,” liberal-arts institutions, undergraduate education at research universities, the cost-effective use of technology in scholarship, and historically black private colleges and universities.

The foundation’s conflict-resolution program emphasizes general-support awards to conflict-resolution groups and research centers. Recipients included the National Association for the Promotion of Labor and Management Cooperation, in Jamestown, N.Y., and the California Dispute Resolution Institute, in Menlo Park.

The environmental program primarily supports organizations working on issues that affect ecosystems in the American West — Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming — and the western provinces of Canada and the bordering northern states of Mexico.

Family- and community-development allocations are made for Bay Area projects in five categories: neighborhood improvement, community service and service learning, responsible fatherhood and male involvement in the family, welfare restructuring and the transition to work, and employment development.

Proposals for the program on U.S.-Latin American relations are considered by invitation only.

David Pierpont Gardner, the foundation’s president since January 1993, retired this summer. He will be succeeded by Paul Brest, dean of the Stanford Law School, on January 1, 2000.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should first send a letter of inquiry, addressed to the president, containing a concise statement of the need for funds and enough factual information to enable staff members to determine whether or not the application falls within the foundation’s areas of interest or warrants consideration as a special project. There is no fixed minimum or maximum with respect to the size of grants made; applicants should provide a straightforward statement of their financial needs, taking into account other possible sources of support. While the foundation will consider specific projects in its areas of interest and will occasionally provide general support for organizations of special interest, it works primarily through support of organizations active in its main programs. One exception is the foundation’s family- and community-development program, through which it makes some small grants for specific projects that meet an immediate community need. All inquiries are reviewed first by the appropriate program officer, who may request further information and a formal proposal.

Key officials: David Pierpont Gardner, president; Marianne Pallotti, vice-president and corporate secretary; William F. Nichols, treasurer; Susan Alexander, manager of grants and information systems; Walter B. Hewlett, chairman of the Board of Directors; William R. Hewlett, chairman emeritus.

Program officers: Raymond F. Bacchetti (education), Melanie Beene (performing arts), Michael L. Fischer (the environment), David E. Lorey (U.S.-Latin American relations), Alvertha Bratton Penny (family and community development), J. Joseph Speidel (population), and B. Stephen Toben (conflict resolution).

LYNDHURST FOUNDATION

517 East Fifth Street
Chattanooga, Tenn. 37403-1826
(423) 756-0767

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

The foundation was incorporated in 1938. It makes grants in the Southeast, with an emphasis on Chattanooga, Tenn.

The foundation’s current focus is on arts and culture, community development, and public education in Chattanooga, and on environmental protection through the southern Appalachian region.

For example, $750,000 went to Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise to help inner-city residents renovate or buy homes, and $15,000 went to Georgia Forestwatch for its main office in Ellijay, Ga., and for outreach services in the Armuchee Ranger District, south of Chattanooga.

Other grants included $29,000 to the Urban Art Institute, in Chattanooga, a new non-profit school that offers instruction in dance, music, painting, photography, print making, and sculpture.

The foundation continued its support of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, in Durham, N.C., with a $2,250,000 award for the publication of its magazine, Doubletake.

The Lyndhurst Prize carries a three-year stipend and is awarded to individuals who have made significant contributions in the arts — particularly writing and photography — and in community service and leadership. In 1998, a total of $240,000 was awarded to six recipients, including Sister Helen Prejean, the author of Dead Man Walking, and Stephen Mitchell, who has translated many works, including The Book of Job and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.

Application procedure: The foundation is culminating a five-year cycle of grant making this year, and will then initiate an evaluation and planning process for determining new priorities and guidelines for its next grant-making cycle. During this transitional period, the foundation will not review requests for support for new grant applicants. The foundation expects to have information on its new guidelines and procedures ready for distribution by the end of the year.

Key officials: Jack Murrah, president; Benic M. Clark III, vice-president; Susan M. Crimmins, associate; Sarah Morgan, coordinator of the Community Impact Fund; Alice L. Montague, chairman of the Board of Trustees.