Foundation Annual Reports

BROWN FOUNDATION

P.O. Box 130646
Houston, Tex. 77219-0646
(713) 523-6867
http://www.brownfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1951 by two Houston couples, Herman and Margarett Root Brown and George R. and Alice Pratt Brown. Herman and George Brown were brothers who founded the construction company Brown & Root in 1919; Brown & Root was acquired by the Halliburton Company in 1962. Since its inception, approximately 80 percent of the foundation’s grants have gone to programs in Texas, with an emphasis on Houston.

During its 2002-3 fiscal year, the foundation allocated grants totaling $48,725,528 in five program areas: education, which received $23,781,798; the arts and humanities, $13,623,480; civic and public affairs, $4,476,750; medicine and science, $3,663,000; and human services, $3,180,500.

The foundation’s overall grant making currently focuses on public education at the primary and secondary levels. It awards grants to projects that use “nontraditional and innovative approaches” to improve public schools, particularly in Texas.

The largest grant was awarded through this program: a $10-million commitment to the Child-Centered Schools Initiative of the Greater Houston Area for the Houston A+ Challenge, an effort to revamp public schools in the city using the principles of “whole school reform.”

Other education awards included $50,000 to Reasoning Mind Inc., in Houston, for a project that uses the Internet to enhance math education in middle schools.

Arts-related grants emphasize art education and the visual and performing arts. Awards included $50,000 to the Byzantine Fresco Foundation, in Houston, for its museum, which displays two 13th-century frescoes from a chapel in Cyprus.

The foundation’s current grant making also stresses community-service projects that benefit children and families. For example, $10,000 went to the Children’s Advocacy Center of Hidalgo County, in Edinburg, Tex., for general operating support.

Grants allocated to nonprofit organizations outside Texas included $1.5-million to the University of Arkansas Foundation, in Fayetteville, to endow a professorship in English literacy, and $60,000 to the Peregrine Fund, in Boise, Idaho, for a program to restore the northern aplomado falcon.

Application procedure: The foundation’s trustees will consider grant requests only from tax-exempt organizations described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and classified as public charities under Section 509(a) of the code, or from governmental units described in Section 170 of the code. The foundation does not make grants to individuals, and it does not support religious projects, fund-raising events, marketing efforts, political lobbying, other private foundations, or debt relief. Detailed information on grant-proposal guidelines is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Nancy Pittman, executive director; Maconda B. O’Connor, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

JOYCE FOUNDATION
70 West Madison Street, Suite 2750
Chicago, Ill. 60602
(312) 782-2464
http://www.joycefdn.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1948 by Beatrice Joyce Kean, of Chicago, whose family fortune stemmed from lumber and sawmill interests. Mrs. Kean, who died in 1972, left 90 percent of her estate, valued at more than $100-million, to the foundation.

In 2003, the foundation allocated 223 grants totaling $24,-006,827 in these program areas: the environment, which received $8,297,231; employment, $4,827,-180; education, $3,829,595; money and politics, $3,050,000; culture, $1,396,880; gun violence, $1,250,-000; and discretionary and special-opportunities grants, $1,355,941.

Geographically, the foundation concentrates its grant making on programs that benefit the Great Lakes region, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. In rare cases, environment grants are made to Canadian organizations.

The primary goal of the environment program is to protect the Great Lakes ecosystem by financing the development, testing, and use of “policy-based, prevention-oriented, scientifically sound solutions to the environmental challenges facing the region,” particularly those that protect water resources and improve water quality.

Other program priorities include projects that support state-level efforts to respond to climate change, that promote transportation alternatives designed to reduce overreliance on automobiles, and that document the economic and environmental benefits of “clean” energy sources and promote their inclusion in state energy policies and utilities planning.

Grants included $54,000 to the Sand County Foundation, in Madison, Wis., for a project to evaluate the efficiency of using market-based incentives to reduce nitrogen discharge in watershed areas of the Great Lakes basin.

Employment grants focus on policies that improve educational, vocational, and related opportunities for low-wage workers and unemployed people and that enable them to move into stable, well-paying jobs with good benefits. Awards included $111,502 over two years to the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work, in Ann Arbor, to evaluate a transitional-employment program for ex-offenders in Detroit. Overall, grant dollars allocated to employment projects was up from $3,320,000 the preceding year.

Support for education-related projects was down from $7,690,393 in 2002. The foundation announced two new grant-making priorities for closing the “achievement gap” that divides disadvantaged children from their peers: ensuring universal access to high-quality early education for children ages 3 to 5, and improving the quality of teaching at public schools with low student-performance rates.

Early-childhood efforts focus on Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, while teacher-development efforts focus on public schools in Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee.

Foundation support for the program on money and politics was up substantially, from $1,635,909 in 2002. Grant making emphasizes campaign reform at both the state and federal level; news-media coverage of government, politics, and public-affairs issues that is fair, accurate, and in the public interest; and efforts to ensure independent, impartial judiciary systems. The largest award was a two-year, $400,000 grant to Georgetown University, in Washington, to administer a comprehensive campaign to advance judicial-reform activities in Illinois and Ohio.

The foundation’s cultural grant making focuses exclusively on institutions in metropolitan Chicago. For example, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater received $30,000 for an audience-development project to determine its potential to attract greater numbers of black, Indian, Latino, and Pakistani theatergoers.

The foundation made eight grants through its program to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by handguns and other firearms. The program currently emphasizes activities that promote comprehensive consumer oversight of the firearms industry and related health and safety regulations.

Application procedure: Before submitting a formal proposal to the foundation, prospective applicants should send a two- to three-page letter of inquiry outlining the proposed project to the appropriate program director or officer, who may then request a formal proposal. Additional information, including grant-proposal guidelines for specific programs, is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Ellen S. Alberding, president; Lawrence N. Hansen, vice president; Deborah Gillespie, vice president for finance and administration; Mary M. O’Connell, director of communications; Jane R. Patterson, director of investments; Margaret H. O’Dell, program manager, environment; Jennifer Phillips, program manager, employment; Gretchen Crosby Sims, program manager, education; Chindaly Griffith, grants manager; John T. Anderson, chairman of the Board of Directors.

Program officers: Roseanna Ander, education and gun violence; Michelle T. Boone and Sydney R. Sidwell, culture; Shelley Davis, employment; Lawrence N. Hansen, money and politics; James Seidita, environment.

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, 2003.

Purpose and areas of support: This community foundation primarily makes grants to nonprofit organizations located in New York City’s five boroughs. Established in 1924 by a group of bankers, the trust now administers more than 1,700 charitable funds. It also operates two suburban divisions — the Westchester Community Foundation, created in 1975, and the Long Island Community Foundation, created in 1978 — that handle the trust’s grant making in those regions.

The trust maintains four program areas: education, arts, and the humanities, which received 43 percent of total grant dollars; community development and the environment, 19 percent; children, youths, and families, 19 percent; and health and people with special needs, 17 percent. In addition, special projects received 2 percent of grant dollars.

Grants for education, arts, and the humanities focus on four areas: enhancing public education in New York City; advocating access, diversity, and equity in the arts; supporting restoration activities in low-income and minority neighborhoods and restoring historic sites that represent “significant and overlooked aspects of New York City’s history”; and safeguarding civil rights, providing legal services to disadvantaged people, and promoting harmony among different ethnic and racial groups.

For example, American Social History Productions, in New York, received a two-year, $60,000 grant for a training program for English and social-studies teachers at high schools in the Bronx; and LawHelp/NY, also in New York, received $50,000 to expand a Web site that helps people find free legal assistance with civil cases.

The community-development and environment program emphasizes civic affairs, conservation and the environment, economic and work-force development, neighborhood revitalization, and technical assistance for nonprofit groups. Awards included $53,000 to the Architecture Research Institute, in New York, to advocate a plan for rejuvenating lower Manhattan’s retail sector in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Grants for children, youths, and families concentrate on five issues: girls and young women, hunger and homelessness, social services and welfare, substance abuse, and youth development.

Grants for health and people with special needs are clustered in seven areas: biomedical research; children and youths with disabilities; elderly people; health services, systems, and policies; HIV/AIDS; mental health and retardation; and visual disabilities.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should first request the foundation’s “Guidelines for Grant Applicants” publication and one or more of the brochures that provide detailed descriptions of the four program areas. The foundation also suggests that potential applicants review copies of its grants newsletter, which provides examples of the types of grants the foundation is currently making. These materials may be requested by calling the foundation or by visiting its Web site.

Key officials: Lorie A. Slutsky, president; Joyce M. Bove, senior vice president for grants and special projects; Mercedes M. Leon, vice president for administration; Robert V. Edgar, vice president for donor relations; Kathryn Conroy, chief financial officer; Ani F. Hurwitz, 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.