Foundation Annual Reports

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER ATLANTA
50 Hurt Plaza, Suite 449
Atlanta, Ga. 30303
(404) 688-5525
http://www.atlcf.org

Period covered: 18 months ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: Created in 1951 as the Metropolitan Atlanta Community Foundation, this foundation was incorporated under its current name three decades ago. It administers approximately 650 constituent funds and makes several types of grants to organizations that benefit residents of the 23-county metropolitan Atlanta region.

Because the foundation recently changed its fiscal year, the report covers an 18-month period. During that 2005-6 fiscal year, the foundation distributed 7,354 grants totaling more than $113-million. Of those grant dollars, the lion’s share — 74 percent — came from donor-advised funds.

The foundation’s overall grant making is carried out through eight program areas: arts and culture, civic affairs, community development, education, the environment, health, human and social services, and religion.

Competitive grants are made under the rubric of the Common Good Funds, and range from $5,000 to $25,000. These discretionary grants are made in five areas: human services, which received 45 percent of grant dollars; arts and culture, 21 percent; community development, 14 percent; health, 14 percent; and education and youth development, 6 percent.

Grants included $300,000 to Al-Farooq Masjid of Atlanta, for a construction project at this mosque, which serves the Atlanta area’s growing Muslim population, and $25,000 to the Trust for Public Land, in San Francisco, to help purchase Hyde Farm, a 95-acre parcel of fields, forest, and streams located in Georgia’s Cobb County.

Ten organizations received grants ranging from $21,000 to $100,000 each through the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, a partnership between the foundation and the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Grants from the fund, which assists arts groups with budgets of less than $1.5-million, were used to create staff positions, erase debt, or build the groups’ cash reserves. Beneficiaries included the Cobb Symphony Orchestra, in Kennesaw, which received $45,000, and the True Colors Theatre Company, in Atlanta, which received $50,000.

The foundation joined with the Healthcare Georgia Foundation to provide grants designed to help nonprofit groups start community-based activities to improve services for homeless people. For example, the Drug Courts Project — a collaboration between the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta and the Fulton and DeKalb County Drug Courts — received a grant for its work to develop protocols that can provide better diagnostic and referral services for mentally ill homeless people.

The foundation also serves as the fiscal agent for a $2.4-million planning grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Atlanta Public Schools that supports the reorganization of the city’s high schools into smaller, more personalized schools intended to provide students with more-rigorous instruction.

Application procedure: The deadlines for the foundation’s competitive-grants program fall during January and July of each year. The foundation encourages all potential applicants to attend one of its grant-orientation sessions before submitting an application. Detailed guidelines, application forms, and information regarding eligibility are available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Alicia Philipp, president; Lesley Grady, vice president for community partnerships; Rob Smulian, vice president for philanthropic services; Lauren Norton Welsh, vice president for marketing and communications; Lisa Williams, vice president for finance and operations; Kathy Palumbo, director of programs; Mary Simmons, regional-outreach manager; Michael Kay, chair of the Board of Directors.

JAMES IRVINE FOUNDATION
575 Market Street, Suite 3400
San Francisco, Calif. 94105
(415) 777-2244
http://www.irvine.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: James Irvine, a lifelong Californian and agricultural pioneer, established the foundation in 1937. Mr. Irvine arranged for the foundation to be the primary stock holder of the Irvine Company, which managed a 110,000-acre ranch in Orange County he had inherited from his father in 1886.

The ranch was a large-scale operation that encompassed an area equal to almost one-third of present-day Orange County, and was planted with crops that included barley, beans, grapes, oranges, and papayas.

Mr. Irvine died in 1947 and, in the mid-1970s, the foundation was forced to sell its share in the company to comply with new federal legislation.

In accordance with Mr. Irvine’s wishes, the foundation limits its grant making to organizations and programs that benefit California residents. And because he stipulated that his funds “shall be used for such charities as do not enjoy substantial support through taxation,” the foundation does not make grants to public agencies or groups that receive more than 50 percent of their revenue from government donations.

The foundation has winnowed its grant making to three core areas: the arts, the California Perspectives program, and youths.

Although it makes some grants throughout California, the foundation has designated three regions of the state — Los Angeles County, the San Joaquin Valley, and the “Inland Empire” area, which is located mainly in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties — as high-priority areas. They were selected because “they have been traditionally underserved by philanthropy, are experiencing major demographic shifts and rapid population growth, and are regions where low-income Californians reside in disproportionate numbers.”

In 2006 the foundation allocated 438 grants totaling $69.4-million.

The arts program strives “to promote a vibrant and inclusive artistic and cultural environment in California.” Awards included $50,000 over two years to the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, in Los Angeles, to develop and produce a graphic novel examining the causes of community conflict in South Los Angeles, and $300,000 over three years to the Margaret Jenkins Dance Studio, in San Francisco, to expand a program that assists both established and emerging choreographers throughout the state.

Also in 2006, the foundation made grants totaling more than $4-million to 12 arts institutions outside California’s major urban areas, as part of the new Arts Regional Initiative. The program seeks to help such groups weather cutbacks in private and government support while increasing the diversity of their audiences.

The foundation’s California Perspectives program emphasizes efforts “to improve decision making on significant state issues by informing public understanding, promoting broader civic participation, and encouraging more-effective state governance.”

Large-scale efforts included the new California Votes Initiative, intended to boost voter turnout among people in the foundation’s priority regions who vote infrequently, with a focus on individuals from low-income and ethnic neighborhoods.

Other grants included a two-year, $300,000 award to the Environmental Health Coalition, in National City, to encourage discussions between San Diego County residents and public officials on land-use policies in distressed urban neighborhoods.

Grants to benefit young people stress programs “to increase the number of low-income youth in California who complete high school on time and attain a postsecondary credential by the age of 25.”

For example, ConnectEd, in Berkeley, received $1.5-million to expand a network of innovative career-preparation and technical-education programs in California high schools.

Application procedure: Program staff members initiate the majority of the foundation’s grants, as they work to identify organizations doing exemplary work that aligns with the foundation’s program priorities. However, the foundation does accept proposals and encourages all potential applicants to first review its Web site, which offers up-to-date information about priorities and grant making. The foundation is currently redesigning its competitive grant process, called the New Connections Fund, and new guidelines for grant seekers will be available on its Web site later this year.

Key officials: James E. Canales, president and chief executive officer; Martha S. Campbell, vice president for programs; Amy Dominguez-Arms, program director, California Perspectives; John E. McGuirk, program director, arts; Anne B. Stanton, program director, youth; John R. Jenks, chief investment officer and treasurer; Jeffrey Malloy, director of finance and administration; Daniel Olias Silverman, director of communications and corporate secretary; Kelly Martin, grants manager; Gary B. Pruitt, chair of the Board of Directors.

HARRY AND JEANETTE WEINBERG FOUNDATION
7 Park Center Court
Owings Mills, Md. 21117
(410) 654-8500
http://www.hjweinbergfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending February 28, 2007.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was endowed in 1959 by Harry Weinberg (1908-90), an entrepreneur who had emigrated to Baltimore with his family at the age of 4 from Galicia, a region in East Central Europe that is now divided between Poland and Ukraine.

Despite the fact that Mr. Weinberg had no formal education past the sixth grade, he went on to amass a fortune that stemmed from mass transit, securities, and real estate in Hawaii and elsewhere.

The foundation received the vast majority of Mr. Weinberg’s billion-dollar estate upon his death. (His wife, Jeanette, had passed away the year before.) A sizable portion of the foundation’s investment portfolio continues to consist of retail and other commercial real estate.

In accordance with the couple’s wishes, the foundation strives to assist poor people, primarily through operating and capital grants to groups that provide direct services in Maryland, Hawaii, northeastern Pennsylvania, New York, Israel, and the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Weinberg also stipulated that 25 percent of all grants go to Jewish organizations, that 25 percent go to non-Jewish organizations, and that the remaining 50 percent be left to the discretion of the foundation’s trustees.

The foundation had also announced guidelines for its grant allocations.

Under the goal of “meeting basic needs,” programs to assist older adults now receive 33 percent of grant dollars, disabled people 10 percent, and programs on health and hunger 7 percent. Under the goal of “building self-sufficiency,” programs involving work-force development receive 15 percent; education, children, and families, 13 percent; and homelessness and addiction, 3 percent. The remaining funds go to Hawaii grants (10 percent) and general community support (9 percent).

During its 2007 fiscal year, the foundation made charitable distributions totaling $81,834,775. Grants included $80,000 to the Heart of America Foundation, in Washington, to distribute books in Maryland schools, and $280,000 to Melabev, Community Clubs for Eldercare, in Jerusalem, to purchase a building that will house a “memory club” for English-speaking people with Alzheimer’s symptoms.

In January 2007, the foundation issued its first request for proposals. Community-based health centers in Maryland that provide primary health-care services on a sliding scale or no-fee basis were eligible to apply for grants designed to help low-income, insured patients obtain needed prescription medications, diagnostic tests, and specialty care.

The foundation operates a second office in Honolulu that administers its grant making in Hawaii, where the Weinbergs resided for the last 25 years of their lives.

Application procedure: The foundation accepts letters of inquiry from organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and that principally serve low-income people in the regions where they live. The foundation has also begun to issue formal requests for proposals, inviting nonprofit organizations to apply for grants that deal with specific subjects. The fund’s Web site provides detailed information regarding eligibility criteria and guidelines for letters of inquiry.

Key officials: Shale D. Stiller, president; Alvin Awaya and Donn Weinberg, vice presidents; Barry I. Schloss, secretary and treasurer; Rachel Garbow Monroe, chief operating officer; Stan Goldman and Amy Michelle Gross, program directors; Ted Gross, program director and director of the Weinberg Fellows Program; Marilyn Officer, grants administrator.