Foundation Annual Reports

MARY REYNOLDS BABCOCK FOUNDATION
2920 Reynolda Road
Winston-Salem, N.C. 27106-5123
(336) 748-9222
http://www.mrbf.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2001.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1953 by Charles H. Babcock, an investment banker and businessman, and was named for his first wife, Mary Reynolds Babcock, the daughter of the tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds.

The foundation concentrates its giving in the U.S. Southeast, with an emphasis on communities that are particularly affected by chronic poverty and racial divisions. It makes grants in four program areas: community problem solving, enterprise and asset development, grass-roots leadership, and organizational development.

Through its program on community problem solving, the foundation makes grants that focus on the well-being of children, youths, and families; on bridging racial and class divides; and on investing in the human and natural resources of a given community. Typical recipients are organizations or coalitions that represent diverse groups working to solve a particular problem, and grants range from $10,000 to $50,000 per year for programs that last one to five years.

Grants to spur enterprise and asset development are made primarily to groups that provide lending, technical assistance, brokering, or other services to entrepreneurs and community-owned enterprises in communities with few resources. Maximum initial grants are $150,000 over two years, and grants may be renewed for up to three or more years.

Grants to help foster grass-roots leadership go to small groups that promote social change and nurture leaders in low-income communities, and to coalitions of grass-roots organizations that train community leaders to influence state and local policies. Typically, up to 16 organizations each year receive grants of approximately $30,000 over 18 months. Most grant recipients in this program have annual operating budgets of no more than $150,000.

Organizational-development grants help build the capacity of regional nonprofit groups through the improvement of specific skills, such as communications, leadership, and problem solving.

Grants in 2001 included $30,000 to the Center for Participatory Change, in Asheville, N.C., for its work to educate disadvantaged people about fund raising, starting a nonprofit organization, board development, evaluation, and project implementation.

Other allocations included $50,000 to Stop the Violence, in Spartanburg, S.C., a coalition of representatives from a variety of ethnic and professional groups that seeks to prevent violence through education and organiz-ing.

Application procedure: Grant recipients must be tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or have a tax-exempt fiscal sponsor. The foundation supports organizations working to benefit residents of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. It also makes grants to groups working in selected regions of Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia. Prospective grantees should send via regular mail a short summary — no longer than two pages — describing their organization’s work.

Additional information is available at the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Gayle Williams, executive director; Sandra Mikush, assistant director; Olita Alexander, systems and administration director; Gladys Washington, senior program officer; Danette Peters, grants manager and bookkeeper; Otis Johnson, president of the Board of Directors.

THE COMMONWEALTH FUND

1 East 75th Street
New York, N.Y. 10021-2692
(212) 606-3800
http://www.cmwf.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: The fund was endowed in 1918 by Anna Harkness, the widow of Stephen V. Harkness, an investor in petroleum refining. In 1986, the fund received the assets of the James Picker Foundation, founded by Jean and Harvey Picker.

The fund supports independent research on health and social issues and makes grants to improve health-care practice and policy. It maintains two national programs: improving the quality and delivery of health-care services, which received $10,750,597 in fiscal year 2002, and promoting universal access to health-insurance coverage and health-care services, which received $4,789,221.

The fund also operates an international health-policy program designed to stimulate innovative health policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries, which received $2,352,928.

In its home city of New York, the fund makes some grants to enhance health-care services, which totaled $322,500 in fiscal year 2002. Another program focusing on improving public spaces in New York is being phased out.

The program to improve the overall quality of health-care services focuses on programs to develop a cadre of physicians who can lead efforts to meet the needs of minority and disadvantaged populations; to examine various incentives that foster high-quality health-care services; to generate reliable information on the effects of health-system change upon academic health centers; to reduce disparities in health-care services available to low-income and racial or ethnic minority patients; to increase the availability of accurate information on the quality of health-care services and the performance of providers; and to augment the numbers of minority physicians who are well-trained in clinical medicine, health policy, public health, and health management.

The program on health-insurance coverage and access to care focuses on assessing state and community efforts to improve coverage, with the goal of disseminating useful lessons; developing feasible methods for expanding insurance coverage; mobilizing individuals and groups who are affected adversely by inadequate coverage; collecting new information and analysis on trends in health-care coverage, focusing on employment-based coverage; strengthening the ability of Medicare to guarantee access to health services for elderly and disabled people; and reducing the number of uninsured people in New York City.

For example, the University of California System, in Oakland, received $121,364 for a research project to compare the health-care experiences of newly insured employees to those who were uninsured.

The fund also made a number of large grants focusing on the healthy development of children. For example, the Boston University School of Medicine received $325,881 to develop a state-of-the-art curriculum and training model for pediatric residents that incorporates new research findings on early childhood development.

Over the next five years, the fund plans to allocate grants totaling $91-million. Of that amount, $49.3-million is earmarked for the program to improve the overall quality of health-care services; $25.2-million for the program to expand health-insurance coverage and access to care; $12.6-million for the program on international health policy and practice; and $4.3-million for other programs.

Application procedure: Prospective grantees should submit a brief letter of inquiry to Andrea Landes, director of grants management, to the address above or to gmo@cmwf.org. Program staff members will contact applicants if additional information or a proposal is required. Proposals recommended by staff members are considered and voted upon by the fund’s Board of Directors, which meets three times a year. Grants are made only to tax-exempt organizations and public agencies. Additional information, including more-detailed guidelines on letters of inquiry, is available on the fund’s Web site.

Key officials: Karen Davis, president; John E. Craig Jr., executive vice president and treasurer; Stephen C. Schoenbaum, senior vice president; Cathy Schoen, vice president for health policy, research, and evaluation; Anne-Marie J. Audet, assistant vice president; Robin Osborn, assistant vice president and director, international health policy; Mary Lou Russell and Edward L. Schor, assistant vice presidents; Paul K. Barry, director of communications; Andrea Landes, director of grants management; Diana Davenport, director of administration; Samuel O. Thier, chairman of the Board of Directors.

Senior program officers: Melinda Abrams, Anne Beal, Sara Collins, Barbara S. Cooper, and Mary Jane Koren.

COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF TEXAS

4605 Live Oak Street
Dallas, Tex. 75204-7099
(214) 826-5231
http://www.cftexas.org

Period covered: Fiscal year ending June 30, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: Established in 1953 as the Dallas Community Chest Trust Fund, this community foundation changed its name in 1981 to reflect the broader, statewide scope of its work. It currently manages more than 750 constituent funds. In a typical year, 80 percent of grants go to organizations in Dallas and elsewhere in northern Texas, with the remainder going to groups in other parts of Texas or outside the state. In fiscal year 2002, two-thirds of all grant dollars came from donor-advised funds; the rest were from unrestricted funds.

In fiscal year 2002, the foundation paid grants totaling $61,072,379, nearly twice the amount it awarded the previous year. Allocations were made in the following programs: education grants, which received $15,358,336, or 25.2 percent of funds awarded; health, $12,111,879, or 19.9 percent; social services, $11,044,581, or 18.0 percent; religion, $9,194,720, or 15.0 percent; inner-city and community improvements, $7,418,058, or 12.2 percent; culture, $4,839,774, or 7.9 percent; youths, $719,345, or 1.2 percent; and other grants, $385,685, or 0.6 percent.

Grants from donor-advised funds in fiscal year 2002 included $5-million to the Baylor Health Care System Foundation, in Dallas, to endow a program for immunology research in organ transplantation.

Grants from unrestricted funds in 2002 included $120,000 over two years to Girls Inc., in Dallas, to renovate program facilities in several locations, and $94,783 to Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation, in Dallas, for equipment for a program in minimally invasive cardiothoracic surgery.

The foundation annually awards scholarships that include several small grants and two college scholarships, each totaling $40,000 over four years, for two graduating high-school seniors.

The foundation administers the W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation, which was established in 1974 by the Dallas real-estate developer W.W. (Will) Caruth Jr., who died in 1990. His widow, Mabel Peters Caruth, continued the family’s association with the community foundation until her death in December 2000. She willed the bulk of her estate — $34-million — to the foundation, with the request that the money be used to build a new headquarters facility. The foundation broke ground on the building in October 2001 and plans to move into the facility in late spring.

Application procedure: The foundation makes awards to organizations that are classified as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Charities operating in northern Texas will be given preference. Proposals are accepted throughout the year, and grants are generally awarded twice a year, in the fall and spring. Additional information, including more-detailed proposal guidelines, is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Edward J. Fjordbak, president; J. Michael Redfearn, chief financial officer and vice president of finance; Jeverley R. Cook, vice president of grants; Marcia Williams Godwin, vice president of administration and corporate secretary to the Board of Trustees; Cheryl Unis Mansour, vice president of external affairs; Thompson H. Sawyer Jr., vice president of investments; Charles J. Wyly Jr., chairman of the Board of Trustees.