Foundation Annual Reports

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN

333 West Fort Street, Suite 2010
Detroit, Mich. 48226
(313) 961-6675
http://www.cfsem.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: Created in the mid-1980s, this community foundation benefits residents of seven counties in southeastern Michigan: Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw, and Wayne, where Detroit is located. The foundation comprises more than 660 funds, and donors established 42 new funds in 2003.

Also that year, the foundation awarded approximately 2,000 grants totaling more than $25-million, the largest dollar amount it has allocated in a single year. Grant making stresses support for programs in the arts and culture, civic affairs, education, environment and land use, health, human services, neighborhood and regional economic development, and work-force development.

The foundation places priority on efforts that incorporate one or more of the following strategies: developing or testing innovative solutions to community problems, bolstering the effectiveness and efficiency of nonprofit organizations, responding to a special opportunity to “move the region forward,” facilitating collaboration among groups, and promoting volunteerism and civic development.

One of the foundation’s largest grant initiatives has been Touch the Future, a program initiated in 1998 that ended this summer. The program stressed the need for regional nonprofit groups to build endowments through planned giving, and provided relevant training and other assistance. As a result, participating groups have received planned gifts totaling more than $74-million for their endowments.

The GreenWays Initiative is a five-year program designed to enhance southeastern Michigan’s natural landscape. Specific projects include biking and hiking paths, conservation corridors, and the preservation of habitats within and between communities. For example, Fort Gratiot Township received $32,000 to help acquire a 10-acre parcel of land as part of St. Clair County’s Bridge to Bay Trail.

Initiated in 2003, the Great Outdoors is a three-year program to mobilize children ages 6 to 12, their parents, and community institutions to provide extracurricular outdoor learning activities for youngsters. The foundation allocated grants totaling more than $2-million to 12 organizations, including a $200,000 award to the Detroit Zoological Society to create outdoor programs for families at the Belle Isle Nature Zoo.

In a related effort, the foundation has begun a new program to address the fact that more than one-third of children in Michigan are overweight or obese. It is collaborating with other institutions to help nonprofit groups develop projects designed to reduce and prevent childhood obesity.

Grants made through other programs included $18,000 to Jewish Apartments and Services, in West Bloomfield, for a smoking-cessation effort aimed at elderly people, and $50,000 to the Arab American and Chaldean Council, in Lathrup Village, for a commercial-revitalization project.

Application procedure: The foundation accepts grant requests from organizations serving southeastern Michigan that are tax-exempt public charities under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Grant guidelines are available on the foundation’s Web site, and grant inquiries and applications are welcome at any time. The foundation’s trustees make all grant decisions at meetings held quarterly.

Key officials: Mariam C. Noland, president; Robin D. Ferriby, vice president, donor relations; Karen L. Leppanen, vice president, finance and administration; Richard C. Marcy, vice president, marketing and communications; Mark E. Neithercut, vice president, program; Katie G. Brisson, senior program officer; Anne S. Weekley, program officer; Ronald E. Whiteside, grants manager; Eugene A. Miller, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

DUKE ENDOWMENT
100 North Tryon Street, Suite 3500
Charlotte, N.C. 28202
(704) 376-0291
http://www.dukeendowment.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: The Duke Endowment was created in 1924 by James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925), a North Carolina industrialist whose fortune originated with a small tobacco business. In tandem with his older brother, Benjamin Newton Duke, Mr. Duke capitalized on the mechanized mass production of cigarettes. The Dukes also invested heavily in the textile and hydroelectric-power industries.

The endowment’s four grant-making divisions continue to support the specific institutions and causes in North and South Carolina stipulated by Mr. Duke. That said, Mr. Duke also gave the endowment’s trustees broad discretion to make grants for similar charitable purposes.

In 2003, the endowment allocated $108,112,996 as follows: the health-care division received $41,297,768; the education division, $36,537,941; the child-care division, $12,900,000; the rural-churches division, $11,754,456; and endowment-wide programs, $5,622,831. The amount given to each program area was proportional to the previous year’s grant making.

Health-care grants benefit nonprofit hospitals and health-care organizations in North Carolina and South Carolina. There are four areas of emphasis: reimbursing hospitals for care provided to indigent patients; preventing and treating chronic and long-term illness; expanding access to preventive and other services; and strengthening and improving hospital programs.

For example, $49,136 went to Craven Regional Medical Center Foundation, in New Bern, N.C., to develop a program for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and $200,000 went to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, in Beaufort, S.C., to create cancer and cardiology centers.

The endowment’s education grants are restricted to four institutions. Duke University, located in Durham, N.C., received the lion’s share — $26,992,203. Furman University, in Greenville, S.C., received $3,298,112; Davidson College, in Davidson, N.C., received $3,233,112; and Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte, N.C., received $3,014,514.

Child-care grants go to nonprofit children’s homes in North and South Carolina and to programs that support those institutions. The endowment emphasizes collaborative programs, early-intervention and family-preservation programs, general operating support, organizational effectiveness, and training and education. Allocations included $51,000 to the Crossnore School, in Crossnore, N.C., to hire an on-site psychologist, and $59,500 to Family Services of Davidson County, in Lexington, N.C., to expand a program for parents designed to prevent child abuse.

The rural-churches division offers capital and program support to United Methodist churches in rural regions of North Carolina, the Duke University Divinity School, the two North Carolina conferences of the United Methodist Church, and selected retired ministers of the United Methodist Church in North Carolina and their surviving dependents.

The largest grant made by the division was $1,989,200 to Duke’s Divinity School to provide stipends for student pastors. Other awards included $75,000 to the Hinton Rural Life Center, in Hayesville, N.C., to construct two retreat houses and a commons building.

Application procedure: After reviewing the endowment’s guidelines, potential applicants may send a letter describing the proposed project to the president of the endowment. Eligible inquiries will be forwarded to the appropriate program officer, who may request a full proposal, including a description of the project, a budget, a list of sources of funds, a list of board members, and other pertinent materials. Detailed information on the endowment’s guidelines and application process is available on its Web site.

Key officials: Elizabeth H. Locke, president; Eugene W. Cochrane Jr., executive vice president; J. Porter Durham Jr., staff counsel and director of the education division; Rhett N. Mabry, director of the child-care division; W. Joseph Mann, director of the rural-churches division; Mary L. Piepenbring, director of the health-care division; Stephanie S. Lynch, chief investment officer; David H. Roberson, director of communications; Janice C. Walker, chief financial officer and treasurer; Toni L. Freeman, administrator of project research; Russell M. Robinson II, chairman of the Board of Trustees; Mary D.B.T. Semans, chairman emeritus.

McKNIGHT FOUNDATION
710 Second Street South, Suite 400
Minneapolis, Minn. 55401
(612) 333-4220
http://www.mcknight.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: William L. McKnight, a president and chief executive officer of the 3M Company, and his wife, Maude, created the foundation in 1953. The foundation initiated its formal grant-making program in 1974 when Virginia McKnight Binger, the couple’s only child, took over operations with its first chief executive, Russell Ewald. Erika L. Binger, a 32-year-old great-granddaughter of the founders, is the current board chair.

The foundation marked its 50th anniversary in 2003. It paid out 729 grants totaling $75-million in the following program areas: region and communities, which received 25 percent of grant dollars; children and families, 23 percent; the Minnesota Initiative Foundations, 13 percent; research and applied science, 11 percent; the arts, 10 percent; the environment, 8 percent; international programs, 3 percent; and other, 7 percent.

In all, 47 percent of grant dollars went to organizations in Minneapolis and St. Paul; 31 percent went to groups elsewhere in Minnesota and to statewide programs; 15 percent went to groups in other states; and 7 percent went to foreign organizations.

The region and communities program seeks to minimize sprawl, achieve balanced growth, create low-cost housing, develop economically healthy communities, preserve open spaces, and promote alternative transportation options. For example, the foundation approved a $10.5-million commitment to the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, in St. Paul, to help increase the supply of affordable housing.

Also that year, the foundation contributed $3.2-million toward a three-year effort to identify gaps in early-childhood care and education in 36 Minnesota communities, and to create strategies to meet local needs.

Research and applied-science grants stress two areas: collaborative research on food crops important to developing countries and the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience.

The arts program makes grants designed to improve the quality of the arts in Minnesota and to expand access to arts and cultural programs for all Minnesotans. It also awards fellowships and the annual McKnight Distinguished Artist Award.

Environmental grants emphasize maintaining a healthy environment in the Mississippi River basin and on promoting energy conservation and the use of alternative energy in the Midwest. To that end, the foundation committed $8-million over three years to a new renewable-energy program in seven Upper Midwest states, in collaboration with the Energy Foundation, in San Francisco.

International grants focus on economic opportunities for women in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, as well as programs in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam that deal with agricultural and community development, assistance for land-mine victims, health care, leadership, and microenterprise.

Application procedure: Letters of inquiry are accepted throughout the year, but may not be sent via fax or e-mail. Application guidelines for individual program areas are available on the foundation’s Web site. The foundation considers applications in research and applied science only by invitation or in response to a special announcement.

Key officials: Rip Rapson, president; Carol Berde, executive vice president; Richard J. Scott, vice president for finance and administration; Gretchen Bonfert, Neal Cuthbert, and Jodi Sandfort, program directors; Kathleen Rysted, manager of information systems and research programs; Gayle Thorsen, communications director; Daniel Bartholomay, Louis Hohlfeld, and Nancy Latimer, senior program officers; Kristin Batson, director of organizational development; Stephanie Duffy, grants-administration coordinator; Erika L. Binger, chair of the Board of Directors.