Foundation Annual Reports

CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
606 South Olive Street, Suite 2400
Los Angeles 90014-1526
(213) 413-4130
http://www.calfund.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

Established in 1915, this foundation awards direct and donor-advised grants through more than 600 constituent funds to non-profit groups located in and serving residents of Los Angeles County.

In 1997-98, the fund appropriated grants totaling $40.9-million. Discretionary grant making focused on the foundation’s Nurturing Neighborhoods/Building Community Initiative, which was implemented in January 1997. The five-year, $25-million program emphasizes early-childhood education, employment and job training, public health and preventive health care, neighborhood revitalization and low-cost housing, and overcoming illiteracy, the lack of child care, and other barriers to employment and self-sufficiency.

For example, a two-year, $137,360 grant went to the Unihealth Foundation, in Burbank, to provide immunizations to poor children living in Central Los Angeles, and $18,525 went to Women at Work, in Pasadena, for an employment specialist for its job-development program for low-income people.

Other grants included one for $115,000 over three years to the Center for Nonprofit Management, in Los Angeles, for an expanded facility to house the Funding and Management Information Library, which was previously located at the California Community Foundation.

The fund continued to participate in the Los Angeles Community AIDS Partnership and the Los Angeles Lesbian and Gay Community Fund. Grants included $35,000 to the Los Angeles Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse, in Santa Fe Springs, for an HIV-prevention project for teen-agers with a history of substance abuse, and $8,700 to Bienestar Human Services, in East Los Angeles, for workshops and support groups for gay Latino males between the ages of 20 and 30.

There are currently three special arts funds available through the foundation: the Arts and Culture Fund, the Brody Arts Fund, and the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts.

Six private foundations serve as supporting organizations: the Charles E. & Ruth V. Gilb Foundation, the Thelma Pearl Howard Foundation, the Hughes Foundation, the La Kretz Family Foundation, the Ralph T. Morris Charitable Trust, and the SahanDaywi Foundation.

This year’s annual report, entitled “As They See It,” showcases numerous black-and-white photographs taken by 26 teen-agers from throughout Los Angeles County as part of a project commissioned by the foundation.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should call the foundation for a copy of its grant guidelines and application form or download the forms from the foundation’s World-Wide Web site. Applications are accepted year round, and the foundation acknowledges all applications, which should not be sent by fax or e-mail. All eligible applications are reviewed by a program officer, and recommendations are made to the board quarterly.

Key officials: Jack Shakely, president; Joe Lumarda, executive vice-president for external affairs; Judy Spiegel, senior vice-president for programs; Allan Parachini, vice-president for communications; Ken Gregorio and Cherly Mendoza, senior program officers; Silvana Miller, director of administration; David A. Peters, chair of the Board of Governors.

CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK

437 Madison Avenue
New York 10022
(212) 371-3200
http://www.carnegie.org

Period covered: Year ending September 30, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

This grant-making foundation was endowed in 1911 by the Scottish-born steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

The foundation recently completed a 15-month review of its grant-making programs (The Chronicle, March 11), which previously focused on three major areas: education and the healthy development of children and youths, international peace and security, and human resources in developing countries.

The fund’s revamped grant-making priorities focus on education, international development, international peace and security, and democracy, including aging, electoral change, and ethnic, race, and religious relations. As before, the foundation will make some grants for special projects that do not fall within those four categories.

In 1997-98, the foundation allocated 164 grants and 7 program appropriations totaling $35,883,732. That was down significantly from the previous year’s total of $58,574,129, due to the review of the foundation’s grant-making programs.

Three of the eight appropriations went for operating programs and study groups of the foundation: the Starting Points State and Community Partnerships for Young Children Initiative, the Middle Grade School State Policy Initiative, and the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.

Grants in the program on children and youths focused on early-childhood development, child care, education reform, science and mathematics education, teacher education, and adolescent health and development, including increasing young people’s access to health services and reducing pregnancy, substance abuse, and violence.

The international-conflict program emphasized studies, analyses, and projects in three areas: preventing mass-scale intergroup violence, strengthening democratic institutions in the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe, and cooperative security and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Grants to strengthen human resources in developing countries focused primarily on the British Commonwealth countries of sub-Saharan Africa; allocations emphasized women’s health and development, democratic transitions, and promoting scientific and technical policies that bolster economic development.

Application procedure: The foundation has no application forms or formal deadlines. Grant seekers should present a clear and straightforward proposal containing a description of the proposed project’s aims, significance, amount of support required, duration, methods, personnel, and budget. If foundation program officers wish to pursue matters further, they may request a more detailed proposal, and additional materials may be required, including a formal request from the head of the organization and a more precise budget.

Key officials: Vartan Gregorian, president; Edward Sermier, vice-president and chief administrative officer; D. Ellen Shuman, vice-president and chief investment officer; Jeanmarie C. Grisi, treasurer; Idalia Holder, director of personnel and administrative services; Avery Russell, director of publications and program officer; Jane E. Holl, executive director of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict; David A. Hamburg, president emeritus; Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Program chairs: Geraldine P. Mannion (democracy, special projects); Patricia L. Rosenfield (international development); David C. Speedie III (international peace and security); and Vivien Stewart (education).

ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

420 Fifth Avenue
New York 10018-2702
(212) 869-8500
http://www.rockfound.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

The foundation was endowed in 1913 by the industrialist John D. Rockefeller. In 1998, grants, program-related investments, and fellowships totaling $118,781,906 were allocated in these program areas: equal opportunity, which received $22,303,626; global environment, $20,193,649; agricultural sciences, $15,791,494; population sciences, $14,791,070; health sciences, $13,873,070; arts and humanities, $13,126,000; African programs, $6,360,000; building democracy, $4,245,537; special-interest programs, $3,086,600; international security, $2,000,000; and miscellaneous, $3,010,860.

The equal-opportunity program focuses on high-poverty U.S. urban areas and emphasizes support for programs to increase job opportunities, strengthen community-based reform efforts, revamp urban school systems, and insure fundamental civil rights and freedom from discrimination. Grants included $100,000 to the National Council of La Raza, in Washington, for the Hispanic Employment Policy Project.

Support for the global-environment program increased significantly, up from $13.1-million the previous year. Grant making focuses on two areas: training future leaders who are capable of carrying out innovative sustainable-development strategies, and developing a new “energy paradigm” based on renewable energy sources and increased energy efficiency and equity.

The agricultural-sciences program supports biotechnology and other efforts to increase the crop yields of small-scale farmers in developing countries in ways that are profitable and don’t harm the environment. For example, $28,706 went to the University of the Philippines, in Los Banos, for research on improving the resistance of rice to insect damage.

The population-sciences program works to insure the widespread availability of adequate reproductive-health and family-planning services and counseling worldwide. Grants totaling $4.5-million were made through the “Launching a Second Contraceptive Revolution” program to advance the field of contraceptive research and development.

Arts and humanities grants are made for U.S. and foreign projects that promote diversity and exchanges across ethnic and racial divides.

The African program seeks to develop leaders who are adept in technology and economic and social development, while also increasing academic opportunities for women.

The international-security area promotes efforts to insure that weapons of mass destruction are not developed or deployed. Special emphasis was placed on projects to defuse conflict and tensions in China and the Korean Peninsula.

The foundation maintains offices in five international locations: Bangkok; Cairo; Lilongwe, Malawi; Mexico City; and Nairobi, Kenya, in addition to the Bellagio Study and Conference Center in northern Italy.

The foundation is in the midst of defining new organizational programs; revised guidelines should be available by late 1999.

Application procedure: The foundation stresses that it tends to seek out opportunities that will help further its long-term goals, rather than react to unsolicited proposals. Specific program guidelines may be obtained by writing or calling the foundation or by visiting its World-Wide Web site. The foundation recommends that potential applicants review the relevant program guidelines before submitting any unsolicited proposal. Among the factors considered in evaluating grant proposals are the project’s relevance to foundation programs and strategies, the applicant’s qualifications and record of achievement, and the applicant’s ability to secure additional financial support from other sources. New guidelines will be available later this year as the foundation refines its program structures and grant-making guidelines.

Key officials: Gordon Conway, president; Lincoln C. Chen, vice-president; Denise A. Gray-Felder, director for communications; Sally Ferris, director for administration and budget; Rosalie J. Wolf, treasurer and chief investment officer; Charles J. Lang, comptroller; Joseph R. Bookmyer, manager of the Fellowship Office; Joyce L. Moock, associate vice-president for African initiatives and acting director for global environment; Alice Stone Ilchman, chair of the Board of Trustees.

Program directors: Dayna Cunningham (associate director for building democracy), Timothy Evans (team director for health sciences), Thomas W. Graham (associate director for international security), Robert W. Herdt (agricultural sciences), Julia I. Lopez (equal opportunity), Mikki Shepard (arts and humanities), Steven W. Sinding (population sciences).