Foundation Annual Reports

ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION
701 St. Paul Street
Baltimore 21202
(410) 547-6600
World-Wide Web: http://www.aecf.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was endowed in 1948 by Jim Casey, one of the founders of United Parcel Service, and his siblings, George, Harry, and Marguerite, who named the foundation in honor of their mother.

Grants are made for projects to foster public policy, services, and major community institutions that benefit disadvantaged and vulnerable children and families nationwide. To achieve that goal, the foundation stresses efforts to help states, cities, and neighborhood-based groups fashion and adopt innovative and cost-effective services. The majority of recipients are invited to participate in the foundation’s programs.

In 1997, allocations totaling $90,492,741 were made in five areas: reforming public systems, which received 35 per cent of grant dollars; Casey Family Services, 22 per cent; demonstrating reform in states, cities, and communities, 17 per cent; promoting accountability and innovation, 17 per cent; and transforming neighborhoods, 9 per cent.

Within those areas, grants focused on child-welfare and foster-care reform; alternatives to juvenile detention; preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among teen-agers; mental-health services for urban children and families; education reform; employment and welfare-to-work programs; helping working-poor families stay self-sufficient; health care; reconnecting estranged fathers with their families; violence prevention; and neighborhood revitalization.

The foundation will devote approximately half of its grant-making resources over the next decade to the new Neighborhood Transformation/Family Development Initiative, which works to rebuild distressed neighborhoods and turn them into positive environments for children and families. The foundation will select sites for neighborhood-revitalization efforts and work with neighborhood groups and state and local governments to improve social and health services, increase employment opportunities, and bolster economic development.

For example, $194,500 went to Home, Safe in Tacoma, Wash., to duplicate its program in which teams of professionals and neighbors provide in-home support services to at-risk families.

Casey Family Services, a direct operating unit of the foundation based in Shelton, Conn., was awarded approximately $20-million. The center provides long-term foster care for troubled children, along with family-preservation and child-welfare services. It maintains eight divisions in New England and Maryland.

The foundation made 93 grants through its Baltimore Direct Services Grants Program, including $19,179 to the Baltimore American Indian Center for an after-school program that provides American Indian students with mentors, homework assistance, and cultural classes and activities.

The foundation released its eighth annual Kids Count Data Book, which uses key statistical indicators to gauge the status of children in each state and in the District of Columbia; this year’s report focused on the importance of school reform for disadvantaged youngsters.

Application procedure: Most grantees are invited by the foundation to participate in its programs. The foundation does not make grants to individuals or support capital projects that are not an integral part of a foundation-sponsored program. Organizations wishing to make proposals should submit a letter of inquiry of no more than three pages that outlines the proposal, the goals of the proposed project, the population to be served, the amount of funds requested, and a brief history of the organization. Do not send videotapes, computer disks, binders, or other bulky materials. Foundation staff members will review the materials and reply in writing after approximately 30 days. Letters of inquiry should be sent to the Office of the President at the address above. Information about the Baltimore Direct Services Grants Program may be obtained by calling (410) 223-2891.

Key officials: Douglas W. Nelson, president; Tony Cipollone, director of evaluation and special assistant to the president; Ralph Smith, vice-president; Paula Dressel, director of research and development; Sandra Brock Jibrell, director of community initiatives; Patrick McCarthy, director of policy reform and initiative management; R. Ramanathan, director of finance and operations; Raymond Torres, executive director of Casey Family Services; Stanley N. Wellborn, director of external affairs; Kent C. Nelson, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

FOUNDATION FOR CHILD DEVELOPMENT
345 East 46th Street
New York 10017-3562
(212) 697-3150
World-Wide Web: http://www.ffcd.org

Period covered: Year ending March 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support: This private foundation was created in 1908 as the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children and changed its name to the Foundation for Child Development in 1972. It was supported by private donations until 1944, when substantial funds were received from the estate of the silk manufacturer Milo M. Belding to honor his wife, Annie.

Over the years, the foundation’s grant making has shifted from services for disabled children and research on fetal abnormalities and genetically based disorders to broader projects to improve the lives of at-risk children and families.

Grants are made for research, policy development, and direct services to prevent childhood poverty and to promote the economic security of working families that are struggling to meet their children’s basic needs.

Grant making in 1997-98 focused on three areas: improving children’s access to quality health care, strengthening early-childhood-education and child-care programs, and increasing knowledge about low-wage families and their children and the effects of welfare restructuring upon them.

The foundation provided support for the creation of the New York Forum on Child Health, which monitors the State Child Health Insurance Program in New York and works to increase children’s access to high-quality preventive health services.

Other appropriations included $120,000 to the French-American Foundation, in New York, for a delegation to examine the role of the French public-education system in administering ecoles maternelles for young children, and $73,440 to American University, in Washington, to produce a book on public-policy issues related to child-care financing.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should send a one- to two-page letter of inquiry describing the proposed project, its objectives, and the approximate amount of financial support required. The foundation conducts frequent reviews of requests and responds with an indication of whether or not a project fits its program interests and financial considerations and, when appropriate, with an invitation to submit a full proposal. Applications for grants are considered by the Board of Directors at its meetings in June, September, December, and March.

Key officials: Ruby Takanishi, president; Claudia Conner, grants associate; Barbara Paul Robinson, chair of the Board of Directors.

JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MacARTHUR FOUNDATION
140 South Dearborn Street
Chicago 60603
(312) 726-8000
e-mail: 4answers@macfdn.org
World-Wide Web: http://www.macfdn.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was endowed in 1978 by John D. MacArthur, a developer and owner of several businesses, including Bankers Life and Casualty Company, and of property in Florida and New York.

In 1997, the foundation completed its first full year of grant making under a new structure in which most of its work has been integrated into two new major areas: the Program on Global Security and Sustainability, which was authorized $63,647,034, and the Program on Human and Community Development, which was authorized $43,882,539.

The foundation also operates two special programs that remained largely unchanged. The General Program, which emphasizes international human rights, public-interest media projects, areas of special interest, and program-related investments, received $38,555,677. The MacArthur Fellows Program, which provided “genius awards” to 23 individuals, received $6,529,153.

The Program on Global Security and Sustainability supports projects on arms control and security policy, ecosystems conservation, and population. Three themes guide grant making: new concepts of security and sustainability, the interests and responsibilities of the United States, and new partnerships and institutions.

Geographic focus in the population area continues to be on projects in Brazil, India, Mexico, and Nigeria. Ecosystems-related projects focus on a small number of zones, including the Eastern Himalayas/Western Ghats region, Hawaii and Micronesia, the tropical Andes region, and tropical areas of the United States. The foundation continues to make grants related to the environment, human rights, law and society, and peace and security in the former Soviet Union.

The Program on Human and Community Development supports national research and policy work and direct local efforts in Chicago and Palm Beach County, Fla., in four areas: access to economic opportunity, community development and resources, child and youth development, and mental-health policy and research.

Child and youth development received the largest share of program dollars, due in part to a four-year, $8.5-million grant to the Harvard University School of Public Health, in Boston, for the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. The project is a long-term study of nearly 9,000 children and adults living in 343 Chicago neighborhoods; it will examine how violence and criminal behavior are influenced by such factors as individual characteristics, peers, and changes in social services.

Awards in other areas included $2.4-million to the Dartmouth Medical School, in Hanover, N.H., for research on the identification and treatment of depression in primary-care settings.

Earlier this year, Adele Simmons, the foundation’s president, announced that she will step down in September 1999.

Application procedure: Grant seekers should first submit a two- to three-page letter of inquiry, addressed to the Office of Grants Management. The letter should include a brief statement of purpose — two or three sentences summarizing the nature of the proposed project — and should describe the problem or issue to be dealt with and how it relates to the foundation’s interests and program goals; the ways in which the project will take up that issue; the reasons why the applicant organization is qualified to undertake the work; the audiences that will be interested in the project and how the organization plans to communicate with them; an estimate of the project’s cost, the amount of grant support requested from the foundation, and other sources of support; full contact information for the organization requesting support; the name of the principal contact person; and the name of the parent organization, if applicable. The MacArthur Fellows Program does not accept letters of inquiry or unsolicited proposals.

Key officials: Adele Simmons, president; Victor Rabinowitch, senior vice-president; Lyn Hutton, vice-president and chief financial officer; Paul E. Lingenfelter, vice-president for the Program on Human and Community Development; William E. Lowry, Jr., vice-president for human resources and administration; Rebecca R. Riley, vice-president for civic affairs; Mitchel B. Wallerstein, vice-president for the Program on Global Security and Sustainability; Woodward A. Wickham, vice-president for public affairs; Richard J. Kaplan, director of grants management, research, and information; Dale E. Smith, director of Florida operations; John E. Corbally, chairman of the Board of Directors.

Program directors: Carmen L. Barroso (population, new partnerships and institutions), Kennette M. Benedict (arms reduction, security and sustainability, former Soviet Union), Paul D. Goren (child and youth development), David A. Harris (Florida philanthropy), Susan E. Lloyd (building community capacity), Dan M. Martin (ecosystems conservation, U.S. interests and responsibilities), Gregory A. Ratliff (access to economic opportunity), Robert M. Rose (mental-health policy and research), Daniel J. Socolow (MacArthur Fellows), and Woodward A. Wickham (general).