Foundation Annual Reports

GEORGE GUND FOUNDATION

1845 Guildhall Building
45 Prospect Avenue West
Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 241-3114
http://www.gundfdn.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1952 by George Gund, a longtime Cleveland resident who was active in banking, real estate, and other businesses. Mr. Gund, who died in 1966, served on the boards of many nonprofit institutions, including the Cleveland Institute of Art and Kenyon College.

In 2002, the foundation committed 443 grants and one program-related investment totaling $19,706,406 in these program areas: education, which received $4,468,400; economic development and community revitalization, $3,613,653; human services, $3,476,337; the environment, $2,739,517; special projects, $2,650,600; the arts, $2,174,400; and civic affairs, $583,499.

The education program emphasizes improving education for low-income and minority youths attending primary and secondary schools, mainly in Cleveland and elsewhere in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Grant making also focuses on increasing the recruitment, enrollment, and retention of minority students at colleges and universities, primarily in northeastern Ohio. A limited number of grants are made to national organizations working to strengthen public education. Grants included $100,000 over two years to the Shaker Heights City School District, in Ohio, for efforts to narrow the academic “achievement gap” between African-American and white students.

Grants for economic development and community revitalization stress job creation and training, housing, and neighborhood-improvement and urban-design projects that benefit Cleveland residents. For example, Hard Hatted Women, in Cleveland, received $40,000 for services that prepare women for careers in construction and other high-skilled, well-paying trades.

Human-services grants focus on meeting the basic “safety net” needs of disadvantaged Cleveland residents — such as food, clothing, and shelter — and on improving local, state, and national policies designed to tackle systemic problems that poor people face. The foundation also continued its grant making in child and family development and reproductive health, and began to make some grants for projects on the interrelationship between family stability and the criminal-justice system.

Awards included $50,000 over two years to the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry Association of Greater Cleveland for a youth shelter, and $110,000 to the Equal Justice Foundation, in Columbus, Ohio, to provide legal assistance to low-income families.

The environmental program seeks to conserve watershed systems, forests, and other natural systems; to eliminate environmental toxics and waste; to promote leadership and organizational development; to advance principles of “smart growth”; to improve news-media coverage of environmental issues; and to encourage “green” buildings. Geographically, support goes to projects in northeastern Ohio, to programs that have statewide or regional implications, and, to a lesser extent, to national policy efforts. For example, the National Audubon Society, in New York, received $48,000 for bird-conservation programs in Ohio.

Arts grant making focuses on programs that benefit metropolitan Cleveland. Allocations included $90,000 to the Great Lakes Theater Festival, in Cleveland, for its education department.

The civic-affairs program emphasizes support for civic participation and diversity, fair-housing efforts, and improved gun-control policies. For example, $30,000 went to the Violence Policy Center, in Washington, for research and advocacy to help prevent gun-related violence.

David Bergholz, who had served as executive director of the foundation for 14 years, retired in January 2003. He was succeeded by David T. Abbott, former president of University Circle Inc.

Application procedure: Deadlines for proposal submissions are December 30, March 30, June 30, and September 30. The foundation does not accept proposals sent by e-mail or fax. Lists of previously awarded grants and detailed application guidelines are available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: David T. Abbott, executive director; Robert B. Jaquay, associate director and senior program officer, civic affairs and economics; Marcia Egbert, senior program officer for human services; Deena M. Epstein, senior program officer for the arts; Jeffrey M. Glebocki, senior program officer for education; Jon M. Jensen, senior program officer for the environment; Geoffrey Gund, president and treasurer of the Board of Trustees.

NEW YORK COMMUNITY TRUST
2 Park Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10016
(212) 686-0010
http://www.nycommunitytrust.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: Established in 1924 by a group of bankers, this community foundation primarily makes grants to benefit residents of New York City’s five boroughs. It also operates two suburban divisions, the Westchester Community Foundation and the Long Island Community Foundation, which administer the trust’s programs in those areas.

The trust currently oversees more than 1,600 charitable funds created by individuals, families, and businesses.

Fifty percent of the foundation’s assets are in the form of unrestricted funds, with 38 percent held in donor-advised funds and the remaining 12 percent in nonadvised funds. The remaining assets are designated as follows: field-of-interest funds, 33 percent; designated funds, 12 percent; and scholarship funds, 5 percent.

In 2002 the trust made allocations in the following program areas: education, arts, and the humanities, which received 46 percent of total grant dollars; community development and the environment, 20 percent; children, youths, and families, 16 percent; health and people with special needs, 16 percent; and special projects, 2 percent.

Grants for education, arts, and the humanities seek to improve public education in New York City; to promote diversity, access, and equity in the arts; to advocate civil rights and legal services for minority and immigrant groups; and to restore and preserve landmark buildings in low-income and minority neighborhoods. Grants included $75,000 to Primary Stages Company, in New York, to develop and produce plays by new American playwrights.

Community-development and environment grants focus on civic affairs, conservation and the environment, economic development, neighborhood revitalization, and technical assistance to help strengthen nonprofit groups. For example, Americans for Equitable Climate Solutions, in Washington, received $100,000 to develop policy recommendations on reducing carbon emissions, and to organize a group of specialists in economics, foreign policy, and the environment to advocate change in U.S. environmental policy.

Grants for children, youths, and families emphasize girls and young women, hunger and homelessness, social services and welfare, substance abuse, and youth development. Allocations included a two-year, $60,000 grant to the National Book Foundation, in New York, to expand its writers-in-residence program to two additional schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Grants for health and people with special needs focus on biomedical research; blindness and visual disabilities; children and youths with disabilities; elderly people; health services, systems, and policies; HIV/AIDS; and mental health and retardation. For example, New York’s Pathways to Housing — which provides vocational, housing, and other services to mentally ill and formerly homeless people — received $25,000 to open a thrift shop in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens.

The trust and the United Way of New York City established the September 11th Fund in 2001 to help meet the needs of victims, their families, and communities affected by the terrorist attacks. The fund collected more than $518-million, of which $402-million was distributed by the end of 2002.

Application procedure: Detailed guidelines for grant applicants for each program, as well as bimonthly grants newsletters, are available on the trust’s Web site. Proposals sent by e-mail or fax are not accepted.

Key officials: Lori A. Slutsky, president; Joyce M. Bove, vice president for grants and special projects; Mercedes M. Leon, vice president for administration; Kathryn Conroy, chief financial officer; Robert V. Edgar, director, donor relations; Ani F. Hurwitz, senior consultant and director of communications; Catherine Marsh, executive, Westchester Community Foundation; Suzy D. Sonenberg, executive, Long Island Community Foundation; Liza Lagunoff, grants administrator; Anne P. Sidamon-Eristoff, chairman of the Distribution Committee.

Program contacts: Patricia Jenny, program director for community development and the environment; Len McNally, program director for health and people with special needs; Jane R. Stern, program director for education, arts, and the humanities; Patricia A. White, senior program officer for children, youths, and families.

DAVID AND LUCILE PACKARD FOUNDATION

300 Second Street
Los Altos, Calif. 94022
(650) 948-7658
http://www.packard.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1964 by David Packard (1912-1996), co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard company, and his wife, Lucile Salter Packard (1914-1987). Following Mr. Packard’s death, the foundation was named the beneficiary of a major portion of his estate and subsequently received stocks that, at the time, more than doubled its endowment.

In 2002, the foundation awarded 836 grants totaling $198,858,516, primarily in the following program areas: science, which received 74 grants totaling $53,178,922; conservation, 153 grants totaling $46,541,044; population, 86 grants totaling $44,140,500; children, families, and communities, 156 grants totaling $26,100,780; organizational effectiveness and philanthropy, 206 grants totaling $13,680,545; special opportunities, 35 grants totaling $9,615,900; and the arts, 67 grants totaling $4,370,825.

In 2002, the foundation merged its conservation and science programs into a single program that makes grants in four areas: the conservation of oceans and coastal regions; the atmosphere; “sustainability science,” the pursuit of new knowledge about environmental problems and their solutions; and the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering. Grants for projects on the atmosphere and climate change are handled through the Energy Foundation.

In 2002, the foundation discontinued interdisciplinary science and conservation science as distinct programs, and phased out its work to preserve land in the U.S. West.

Grants included $450,000 to Environmental Defense, in New York, for an advertising campaign that encourages consumers to choose seafood harvested from sustainable sources, and $200,000 to Pronatura Noroeste-Mar de Cortés, in Ensenada, Mexico, to create a new protected marine area, the Bahia de Los Angeles National Park.

The population program works to slow the current rate of global population growth, and to expand reproductive-health options available to poor women and families. Grant making concentrates primarily on five developing countries — Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines — and on the United States. For example, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in New York, received $2-million over three years for training and organizing activities of its Responsible Choices Action Agenda program.

The foundation is no longer making grants for reproductive-health programs in Mexico, Myanmar, or Sudan, or for specific grants that focus on youths or links between population and the environment.

The program on children, families, and communities focuses most of its activities in California, but also supports some nationally oriented grants that are in keeping with its program goals. Specifically, the program aims to ensure that all 3- and 4-year-olds have access to preschool; to guarantee that all children have access to health insurance; and to provide after-school programs for children at elementary and middle schools. Awards included $100,000 to the California Council of Churches, in Sacramento, for the second phase of a faith-based project to develop high-quality child-care programs.

Due to a significant reduction in funds available for 2003, the foundation plans to phase out, over the next two years, several areas of its children, families, and communities program, including child protection, food policy, health care policy, and welfare restructuring.

Organizational-effectiveness grants support well-defined projects to improve governance and management of nonprofit organizations, and are awarded only to current or recent grantees of the foundation.

The foundation has greatly reduced grant making in its philanthropy program, and the majority of future grants will be initiated by the foundation.

The foundation will continue to provide limited grants for arts education and for visual- and performing-arts groups in its local area, which encompasses Northern California’s Monterey, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties.

Special-opportunities grants support activities and projects that do not fall within traditional program guidelines or that meet special or emergency needs. For example, the Communications Consortium Media Center, in Washington, received $40,000 to design a methodology for evaluating, assessing, and demonstrating the “return” that nonprofit groups receive on funds spent on strategic communications.

The foundation also makes some grants to benefit regions of interest to the Packard family, including Pueblo, Colo.; Los Altos, Calif.; and the four Northern California counties mentioned above. Allocations in 2002 included $10,000 to the Care & Share Food Bank, in Colorado Springs, for operating support of the Pueblo County community food bank.

Application procedure: Detailed guidelines on application procedures and grant-making programs, lists of recent grants, and annual reports are available on the foundation’s Web site.

The foundation recommends that potential applicants carefully review the guidelines and geographic limitations for their specific program interest before preparing any letter of inquiry or proposal.

Staff members review letters of inquiry and proposals year-round.

Key officials: Richard T. Schlosberg III, president; Carol S. Larson, vice president and director of programs; George Vera, vice president and chief financial officer; Barbara Wright, secretary and general counsel; Chris DeCardy, director of communications; Mindy Roberts, grants manager; Susan Packard Orr, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Key program officials: Sarah Clark, director, population program; Nancy Glaze, director, arts and the Los Altos Community Fund; Jim Leape, director, conservation and science program; Lois Salisbury, director, children, families, and community program; Mary Shipsey Gunn, director, Pueblo, Colo., program.