Focus of First Cargill Grants: the Environment, Arts, and Disaster Relief

The late Margaret A. Cargill, heir to the Cargill Inc. agribusiness fortune, set up her philanthropies, in part, to provide support for some of the things she was passionate about—the arts, the environment, animal welfare, and caring for the elderly.

Her Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, poised to receive a windfall of more than $4-billion over the next few years in the wake of a complex deal between the Cargill company and Mosaic, a public company largely owned by Cargill, is gearing up to give more to those and other causes.

The foundation, in Eden Prairie, Minn., already has a staff of 32, and that number is expected to least double in the next few years. To date, the foundation has made grants worth just $50,000, but it may eventually distribute $200-million a year or more.

The organization has already hired program directors for the first three grant-making efforts it plans: arts and culture; the environment; and disaster relief, recovery, and prevention.

Three other grant-making programs at the foundation—animal welfare, care for the elderly, and children and families—are still are a few years away from being developed, says Christine M. Morse, chief executive officer of all three of the Cargill philanthropies, in an e-mail response to The Chronicle’s questions.

Environmental Emphasis

Ms. Morse said it was “too early to say” whether spending on the six grant-making priorities will be split roughly equally, or whether some will command a larger share of the spending.

But Sallie L. Gaines, a spokeswoman for the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (the umbrella for the foundation and two other funds started by Ms. Cargill), says the environment program will make bigger grants than arts and culture because heavy spending will be required to make an impact on the “several major ecosystems” under consideration for grant making.

Ms. Morse outlined the foundation’s strategy: “Our methodology is to first examine the big issues, and have that research lead us to the most appropriate grantees, rather than to start with worthy organizations and simply fund what they already do.”

Foundation officials offered these details on how the organization will approach the three issues it intends to tackle first:

Environment. The foundation expects to announce specific goals and grantees as early as this summer. One area of focus, Ms. Gaines says, will be helping to preserve the boreal forests—characterized by long, severe winters—in northern Canada and Russia.

The foundation may eventually make grants to get young people more involved in outdoor recreation. “Ms. Cargill really wanted young people to feel reconnected to the outdoors, to get out of the house and turn off the video games,” Ms. Gaines says.

Arts and culture. Grants to arts groups will start being distributed by late this year or early 2012. The arts-and-culture program will start by making grants related to Native American arts and culture in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. As a young woman, Ms. Cargill had a Native American teacher who encouraged her interest in pottery, basket-weaving, and jewelry making, according to Cheryl Wilson, chief executive of the St. Paul’s Senior Homes & Services, a San Diego charity the philanthropist supported.

“We want to identify the arts and skills that are in danger of disappearing,” Ms. Gaines says “The artisans are getting older, and the knowledge is not being passed down to the younger generations.”

Subsequent grant making will focus on Native American arts in the American Southwest and upper Midwest.

Ken Gordon, executive director of the Potlatch Fund, in Seattle, which seeks to expand philanthropy in Native American communities in the Northwest, says the decision to focus on arts and culture may be wise, even though other pressing concerns—such as poverty and high rates of alcoholism—plague many Indian reservations.

“If people know about their own culture, their songs, their dances, then everything else in that community is also going to be stronger,” Mr. Gordon says.

Another set of grants, focused on folk art, could also be distributed in the next few years, Ms. Gaines says.

Disaster recovery, relief, and development. Like arts and culture, this program will begin operating by late 2011 or early next year. The foundation’s efforts in this area will focus on immediate disaster relief, long-term recovery from disasters, and actions to prevent or mitigate against the impact of future disasters.

One initial effort is likely to focus on 10 states in the Midwest. Grants for international efforts may start around the same time. One program will seek to make healthy drinking water more widely available and the other to promote sustainable agriculture.