Foundation Annual Reports

BENTON FOUNDATION
1625 K Street, N.W., 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20006
(202) 638-5770
http://www.benton.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was incorporated in 1948 by William Benton (1900-73), a businessman, politician, and publisher. Mr. Benton was the owner and publisher of The Encyclopedia Britannica for nearly three decades, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, and co-founder of the advertising firm Benton & Bowles. Mr. Benton is considered a progenitor of modern advertising and consumer research. The foundation was originally named the William Benton Foundation; in 1981 it was restructured as the Benton Foundation.

In accordance with Mr. Benton’s interest in the role of communications in education and democracy, the foundation seeks “to articulate a public-interest vision for the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems.” The foundation uses the income from its endowment for its operating projects and also raises funds from numerous foundations and corporations.

The foundation’s current priorities are threefold: to promote a public-policy framework for digital technologies in which the public interest is held paramount, to increase awareness among grant makers and nonprofit groups about their stake in these policy issues, and to help communities and nonprofit organizations produce diverse media content that is responsive to local concerns.

The OneWorld U.S. program is a joint venture of the foundation and OneWorld International. It operates as one of 12 regional or country affiliates worldwide that serve as networks for individuals and groups working on human-rights and sustainable-development issues. In 2002, One World U.S. initiated Global Women’s Voices, a project designed to elevate the coverage of women’s issues in discussions on contemporary global challenges.

Also that year, the foundation worked with community leaders, researchers, and policy makers to prepare the launch of its 21st Century Skills Initiative. This program will identify, develop, and promote effective community-based strategies that use media and technology to improve learning and skills training for disadvantaged teenagers and young adults.

In February 2004, the foundation and the Education Development Center, in Newton, Mass., announced the creation of the Center for Media & Community. The center, which will be based at EDC, will focus on the innovative use of media and technology to strengthen both “actual and virtual communities,” promote related skills training for underserved youths, and foster lifelong education. Andrea L. Taylor, who has served as president of the Benton Foundation since October 2001, left to join EDC as a vice president and director of the new center. The center will administer two Benton-initiated projects, the Digital Divide Network and the related Digital Opportunity Channel, in addition to other activities.

Application procedure: The foundation does not accept unsolicited grant applications or offer general grants. The foundation’s funds are earmarked for operating programs initiated by staff members in support of its missions.

Key officials: Karen Meni-chelli, executive vice president; Norris Dickard, director, public policy; Jim Kohlenberger, senior fellow; Kevin Taglang, editor, communications-related headlines; Michael Litz, program director, OneWorld U.S.; Roshani Kothari and Alison Raphael, senior associates, OneWorld U.S.; Charles Benton, chairman of the Board of Directors.

CALIFORNIA WELLNESS FOUNDATION
6320 Canoga Avenue, Suite 1700
Woodland Hills, Calif. 91367
(818) 593-6600
http://www.tcwf.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was endowed in 1992 after the conversion of Health Net of California, a large health-maintenance organization, from nonprofit to for-profit status.

The foundation supports programs to benefit California residents through enhanced health promotion, health education, and disease prevention. During its fiscal year 2003, the foundation received approximately 1,800 letters of interest and awarded more than 400 grants totaling nearly $35-million in its eight priority areas: diversity in the health professions, environmental health, healthy aging, mental health, teenage-pregnancy prevention, women’s health, work and health, and violence prevention.

The foundation has also established five cross-cutting themes that guide its grant making — leadership, public policy, sustainability, underserved populations, and youths — and makes more than half of grant allocations for core operating support.

Grants to promote greater diversity among health-care professionals in California included $120,000 over three years to the Association of Black Women Physicians, in Marina del Rey, to continue providing mentoring services and scholarships to female, African-American medical students.

Environmental-health awards support groups working to lower the disproportionately high rates of exposure to environmental hazards that affect low-income California residents. For example, the Coalition for Clean Air, in Los Angeles, received a three-year, $120,-000 grant for its efforts to reduce toxic air pollutants statewide, with a special emphasis on communities in Southern California.

Grants in support of healthy aging stress support for adult immunizations, consumer education, family-based caregiving, food and nutritional services, leadership development, the management of chronic diseases, preventive services, and recreational programs. The foundation also works to educate policy makers about affordable housing, elder abuse, prescription-drug costs, and other issues that affect older Californians.

Mental-health grants concentrate on services for homeless adults, immigrants, and other disadvantaged populations, as well as on preventive services for older teenagers, including those who are runaways or involved in the foster-care or juvenile-justice systems. The foundation also emphasizes leadership development and public education around mental-health issues.

The narrative portion of the annual report concentrates on the progress to date of the foundation’s 10-year, $60-million Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative. The goal of the initiative, which was approved by the foundation’s board in March 1995, is to decrease the rate of pregnancy among California teenagers by increasing the number who abstain from sexual activity or who use contraception effectively.

Violence-prevention grants support efforts to curtail domesticviolence, violence committed by and against youths, and firearms-related injuries and deaths. Allocations included $150,000 over two years to Commonweal, in Bolinas, to monitor, document, and analyze spending in California for programs to prevent youth violence.

Grants to improve women’s health are typically awarded to organizations that provide underserved women with clinical services, community-based health education, culturally appropriate care, mobile health-care services, prenatal care, screenings, and self-help groups. For example, the Network on Women in Prison, in San Francisco, received $90,000 over three years to continue a program that advocates high-quality reproductive-health services for female prisoners in California.

Grants that address the relationship between work and health focus on employees’ access to preventive health care, the prevention of workplace injuries and illnesses, work-based health-promotion programs, technology training for low-income youths, and related leadership-development and educational activities.

Application procedure: The foundation makes grants to organizations in California that are classified as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and that are not private foundations as classified under Section 509(a). It also makes grants to government agencies in California. Potential applicants should first submit a one- to two-page letter of interest to the director of grants administration. Those encouraged to submit a full proposal will then receive further guidance. Additional information is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Gary L. Yates, president and chief executive officer; Magdalena Beltrán-del Olmo, vice president of communications; Margaret W. Minnich, vice president of finance and administration; Cristina M. Regalado, vice president of programs; Joan C. Hurley, director of grants administration; Ruth Brousseau, director of evaluation and organizational learning; Ruth Holton, director of public policy; Fatima Angeles, Saba Brelvi, Pauline Daniels, Nicole J. Jones, and Sandra J. Martínez, program directors; Earl G. Mink, chair of the Board of Directors.

ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS

225 Water Street, Suite 1510
Jacksonville, Fla. 32202-5185
(904) 359-0670
http://www.jvm.com/davis

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2002.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundations consist of three funds created by Arthur Vining Davis, former chairman of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and an investor in real estate and other financial ventures in Florida. Mr. Davis established the first fund in 1952 under a living trust. Two other funds, patterned after the first, began operations in 1965, following Mr. Davis’s death in 1962. The first fund was merged with the second in 2001. The remaining two foundations exist as separate legal entities but function as a single grant-making organization.

The foundations currently award grants through five main programs: private higher education, which received $3,397,500; religion, $1,198,720; public television, $1,145,000; secondary education, $1,130,212; and health care, $855,316. Grants for miscellaneous purposes totaled $1,013,305.

The program in private higher education primarily supports four-year, liberal-arts colleges that place a strong emphasis on teaching and whose students tend to choose majors in the humanities, mathematics, and science. The foundations also make grants to support historically black colleges, American Indian tribal colleges, and similar institutions that educate traditionally underserved students. Allocations included $200,-000 to Salish Kootenai College, in Pablo, Mont., to construct a science and mathematics facility.

The religion program concentrates its grant making on institutions of graduate theological education that are fully accredited by the Association of Theological Schools and whose primary mission is to prepare students for ordination to the ministry. For example, Wartburg Theological Seminary, in Dubuque, Iowa, received $148,720 for its Center for Youth Ministries.

The public-television program primarily provides partial support for major educational series that are assured of national broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service. The foundations prefer proposals for “capstone” grants needed to complete production and rarely make grants for initial research or preproduction support.

Grants for secondary education support innovative professional-development programs for teachers working in grades 9 through 12. Awards included $150,000 to the Exploratorium, in San Francisco, for activities for novice high-school science teachers.

Health-care grants focus on projects that have positive effects on physician-patient relationships and that encourage compassionate, caring attitudes in the delivery of health-care services. The foundations give preference to projects that have the potential for widespread duplication.

Application procedure: All proposals must come from the president or other primary executive of the applicant institution. The foundations prefer to receive a simple statement describing the proposed project rather than an elaborate initial project presentation; a budget for the project should also be included. The foundations make grants only to U.S. organizations for projects in the United States. There are no deadlines for proposals and grant applications may be submitted at any time of the year. Additional information is available on the foundations Web site.

Key officials: Jonathan T. Howe, executive director; Jane M. Estes, chief financial officer; Doreen A. Flippin, vice president for administration; William C. Keator and Cheryl A. Tupper, program directors; J.H. Dow Davis, chairman of the Board of Trustees.