Foundation Annual Reports

KRESGE FOUNDATION
3215 West Big Beaver Road
Troy, Mich. 48084
(248) 643-9630
http://www.kresge.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: Sebastian Kresge (1867-1966), who created the S.S. Kresge Company, a chain of “five and dime” stores, endowed the foundation in 1924 with an initial gift of $1.3-million. In all, Mr. Kresge contributed more than $60-million — most of his wealth — to the foundation prior to his death at the age of 99. The foundation’s board has always included members of the Kresge family, though they have never formed the majority.

In 2007 the foundation announced a major overhaul of its grant-making programs. For the past 20-odd years, 80 percent of its funds have gone to large capital projects — such as the construction or renovation of facilities, the acquisition of property, or the purchase of equipment — at arts and cultural institutions, health and social-service groups, and universities.

Under its new framework, the foundation will no longer give money only for bricks-and-mortar projects, and when it does it will no longer require that such grants come at the midpoint of a capital campaign or that grantees match the grant amount.

In addition, the foundation will now consider supporting other needs, including strategic planning and methods to help its beneficiaries gain access to “traditionally inaccessible sources of capital.” It will also consider such factors as the extent to which an organization’s project benefits low-income people and uses sustainable building and design practices, as well as the diversity of the group’s board and staff members.

The foundation also pledged to add support to its Detroit Program, which works to strengthen the city’s neighborhoods, revitalize the downtown area, promote the arts and culture, reinvigorate the regional economy, and enhance the environment and natural resources.

And, over the next year, the foundation will assess how it can best affect the following program areas: arts and culture, community development, education, the environment, health, higher education in South Africa, and human services.

In 2006 the foundation approved 230 grants totaling $152-million as follows: Community development and the Detroit Program received $40.3-million; arts and culture, $29.0-million; education, $24.3-million; human services, $21.9-million; health, $21.8-million; the environment, $9.1-million; international, $3.6-million; and miscellaneous, $2.0-million.

Community-development grants focused almost exclusively on Detroit, and included $750,000 to the Detroit Renaissance Foundation for an effort to attract new businesses and retain existing ones in the central business district and elsewhere.

Arts and cultural grants included $900,000 to the Wing Luke Asian Museum, in Seattle, to renovate a historic hotel that served for many years as a gathering place for Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese immigrants, and to expand its exhibits and programs.

Other grants included $737,500 to the YMCA of the USA, in Chicago, to work with its sister organization in Mexico to spur private philanthropy in that country.

Over the past four years the foundation has given approximately $14-million through its Green Building Initiative, which was begun in 2003 to encourage nonprofit leaders to examine their design and building processes and to consider how those processes use natural resources.

Rip Rapson, former president of the McKnight Foundation, in Minneapolis, became Kresge’s president and chief executive officer in June 2006. He succeeded John E. Marshall III, who retired after leading the foundation for 27 years.

Application procedure: Detailed application guidelines are available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Rip Rapson, president and chief executive officer; Elizabeth C. Sullivan, senior vice president of program; Edward M. Hunia, senior vice president and chief investment officer; Sandra McAlister Ambrozy and Ernest B. Gutierrez Jr., program directors; William F.L. Moses and Laura J. Trudeau, senior program officers; Amy B. Coleman, vice president of finance; Richard K. Rappleye, vice president of administration; Richard L. Dunlap, grants-management director; Elaine D. Rosen, chair of the Board of Trustees.

JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MacARTHUR FOUNDATION
140 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, Ill. 60603
(312) 726-8000
http://www.macfound.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: John D. MacArthur (1897-1978) endowed the foundation through his will, leaving it the great majority of his estate. According to the foundation, the billionaire was one of the three wealthiest men in America at the time of his death. Mr. MacArthur was the sole owner of the nation’s largest privately held insurance company, Bankers Life and Casualty, as well as numerous other businesses and extensive real-estate holdings in Florida and elsewhere.

In 2006, the foundation received 5,472 grant requests, made 490 grants, and supported projects both domestically and in 60 foreign countries. In addition to its Chicago headquarters, the fund operates offices in four countries where it directs much of its international grant making: India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Russia.

The foundation paid out $234.9-million through its four program areas: global security and sustainability, which received grants totaling $85.4-million; human and community development, $78.6-million; the general program, $58.9-million; and the MacArthur Fellows Program, $12.0-million.

The program on global security and sustainability is concerned with international issues, highlighting six areas: conservation and sustainable development, higher education in Nigeria and Russia, human rights and international justice, international peace and security, global migration and human mobility, and population and reproductive health. Within each of those areas, the foundation has identified geographic and other emphases.

For example, through its international peace and security unit, the foundation awarded grants totaling $8-million to Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and Princeton Universities and the Georgia Institute of Technology to boost the number of faculty members and researchers who “can provide objective technical analysis of international security issues.”

The program on human and community development focuses on projects in the United States, stressing affordable housing; community and economic development; education, with an emerging interest in the use of digital media; juvenile justice; and policy research and analysis on important domestic issues.

The foundation announced a new commitment of $60-million to support and spur promising models of juvenile-justice reform, with Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington State each receiving $10-million.

The foundation’s general program makes grants to arts and cultural institutions in Chicago, supports public-interest news-media projects designed to make diverse viewpoints available, and operates a program on intellectual-property rights and the public domain.

In August 2006, nine organizations in five countries received the inaugural MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions; the organizations, which received up to $500,000 each, included the Resources Himalaya Foundation, in Kathmandu, Nepal, which works to preserve the region’s complex biodiversity in the face of poverty, tourism, and other pressures.

The president’s essay comments on the foundation’s work to strengthen the International Criminal Court and other means of deterring crimes against humanity, to improve legal institutions and groups that help prevent and document human-rights abuses, and to revamp juvenile-justice systems in the United States.

In May 2007, the foundation appointed Barry Lowenkron, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, to head international grant making. He succeeded John Hurley, who is retiring.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should send a one-page cover sheet and a brief letter of inquiry, mailed to the Office of Grants Management at the foundation’s Chicago address or e-mailed to 4answers@macfound.org. Detailed information is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Jonathan F. Fanton, president; Elizabeth T. Kane, chief of staff; Barry Lowenkron, vice president, global security and sustainability; Julia M. Stasch, vice president, human and community development; Elspeth A. Revere, vice president, general program; Daniel J. Socolow, director, Fellows Program; Susan E. Manske, vice president and chief investment officer; Joshua J. Mintz, vice president and general counsel; Arthur M. Sussman, vice president; Marc P. Yanchura, vice president and chief financial officer; Richard J. Kaplan, associate vice president for institutional research and grants management; William E. Lowry, senior adviser to the president; Andrew Solomon, director of public affairs; Robert E. Denham, chair of the Board of Directors.

EUGENE AND AGNES E. MEYER FOUNDATION
1400 16th Street, N.W., Suite 360
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 483-8294
http://www.meyerfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was endowed in 1944 by Eugene Meyer (1875-1959), the first president of the World Bank and publisher of The Washington Post, and his wife, Agnes, a journalist and education activist. The couple’s children included Katharine Graham, who would go on to lead the Post for more than two decades.

Grant recipients must be located in and must primarily serve the metropolitan Washington area. In 2006, the foundation allocated 281 grants totaling $8,596,999, including 206 grants totaling $6,815,500 through “general grant making” and 75 grants totaling $1,781,499 through the Nonprofit Sector Fund.

The foundation’s general grant-making program has evolved over the years, and currently emphasizes 10 areas: the arts, heritage, and culture; children, youth, and families; civic engagement; education; employment and skills training; health and mental health; homelessness and hunger; housing and community development; immigrant communities; and law and justice.

Arts and cultural groups garnered the largest percentage of grant dollars — $1,849,500, or 27 percent of general grants. The largest award by far was $250,000 to the National Children’s Museum, to help build this new museum slated to open in 2012 along the Potomac River.

Organizations working on neighborhood-development and housing issues received the second-largest percentage $1,517,500, or 22 percent of general grant dollars. Awards included $110,000 to Reston Interfaith for its work to provide child care, emergency assistance, housing, and social services to needy people in the Northern Virginia towns of Reston and Herndon.

Allocations in other categories included $300,000 to CASA of Maryland, in Silver Spring, for its capital campaign and programs to assist and advocate for low-income Latino and other immigrants.

The Nonprofit Sector Fund makes grants to help groups strengthen their leadership, provides short-term loans to groups experiencing cash-flow problems, pays for training and other technical assistance for local organizations, and works to increase the overall “visibility and influence” of the local nonprofit sector.

The foundation presented its inaugural Exponent Awards, which provided $100,000 each to five chief executives of Meyer grantee organizations for leadership-development activities. The recipients included Jim Knight of Jubilee Housing and Jayne Park of the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center.

Application procedure: The foundation uses a two-step application process. Eligible candidates are required to first submit a letter of inquiry. Detailed information on application guidelines, deadlines, forms, and instructions for submission may be obtained at the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Julie L. Rogers, president; Kristen Conte, vice president, finance and administration; Albert Ruesga, vice president, programs and communications; Katherine T. Freshley, senior program officer; Richard L. Moyers, director, Nonprofit Sector Fund; Jane Robinson Ward, grants manager; Edward H. Bersoff, chair of the Board of Directors.