Foundation Annual Reports

CONRAD N. HILTON FOUNDATION
100 West Liberty Street, Suite 840
Reno 89501
(775) 323-4221
http://www.hiltonfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending February 28, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1944 as a trust by Conrad N. Hilton, the hotel entrepreneur who established what is now the Hilton Hotels Corporation. Upon his death in 1979, Mr. Hilton left the bulk of his estate to the foundation. It is the beneficiary of two trusts that hold more than 25 million shares of common stock in the Hilton Hotels Corporation; at the end of fiscal year 1998-99, the two trusts were valued at approximately $830-million.

Grant making focuses on four programs: blindness, domestic violence, early-childhood development, and homelessness.

Blindness-related grants focus on direct services for infants and children throughout the United States and developing countries who are blind or have multiple disabilities, and on programs to prevent blindness caused by disease and nutritional deficiencies. The foundation has joined a collaborative effort with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the World Health Organization, and Pfizer Inc. to eliminate trachoma as the leading cause of blindness in Africa and Asia.

Domestic-violence grants are made to improve support and services provided to victims by health-care providers, public-policy makers, and religious institutions.

Early-childhood grants stress the healthy development of babies and young children in low-income families, with special emphasis on disabled and minority infants and toddlers. The foundation completed the second year of a five-year, $11-million grant to the California Institute on Human Services at Sonoma State University to train and assist 1,600 Early Head Start staff members and parents at more than 300 sites nationwide.

Homelessness grants emphasize supportive-housing services in New York. The foundation recently awarded more than $6-million to the Corporation for Supportive Housing to develop new housing models in at least five states that will serve mentally ill and chronically homeless individuals.

The foundation administers the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which bestows a $1-million award each year on a non-profit or non-governmental organization that has “made an extraordinary contribution toward alleviating human suffering.” The inaugural prize was made in 1996; the 1998 recipient was Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders.

The Conrad N. Hilton Fund is a supporting organization that provides grants to the Conrad N. Hilton Fund for Sisters, a separate fund of the Roman Catholic Church, and to 11 other groups named in its charter.

Application procedure: The foundation neither encourages nor generally considers unsolicited proposals. It initiates and develops major long-term projects and then seeks out appropriate organizations that can best implement those projects.

Key officials: Donald H. Hubbs, chairman and chief executive officer; Steven M. Hilton, president; Judy Miller, vice-president and director of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize Program; Patrick J. Modugno, vice-president for administration; Dyanne M. Hayes, assistant vice-president for programs; Deborah Kerr, secretary and treasurer; Marge Brownstein, senior program officer; Rose Arnold, grants manager.

JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MacARTHUR FOUNDATION

140 South Dearborn Street
Chicago 60603
(312) 726-8000
http://www.macfdn.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1978 by John D. MacArthur, a developer and owner of several businesses, including Bankers Life and Casualty Company, and of real-estate holdings in Florida and New York. His wife, Catherine, held positions in many of those businesses and served as a director of the foundation until her death in 1981.

The foundation awards grants through two major, integrated areas: the Program on Global Security and Sustainability, which was authorized $75,833,470 in 1998, and the Program on Human and Community Development, which received $55,611,603.

The foundation also administers two special programs: the General Program, which focused on telecommunications policy, public-interest media projects, areas of special interest, and program-related investments; and the MacArthur Fellows Program, which provided “genius awards” to 29 individuals. Those two programs received $31,941,224 and $8,524,615, respectively.

The Program on Global Security and Sustainability supports projects on arms reduction and security policy, ecosystems conservation and policy, and population. In addition, three themes or strategies shape grant making: new concepts of security and sustainability, the special interests and responsibilities of the United States, and new partnerships and institutions.

Although the foundation supports projects in dozens of countries through the Program on Global Security and Sustainability, five geographic areas have special priority: Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and the former Soviet Union.

Grants included $150,000 over three years to the Centre for Enquiry Into Health and Allied Themes, in Bombay, India, for a program on reproductive health and violence against women, and $205,000 over two years to the Centre for Democracy and Development, in London, to study and promote free speech and conflict management in Nigeria.

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

Child and youth development received the largest share of program dollars, $20,984,900, and community development and resources received the second-largest, $17,471,053.

Awards in those areas included $2,100,000 over three years to the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development for the Network on Early Experience and Brain Development, and $400,000 over three years to Chicago Communities In Schools to expand programs in Chicago neighborhoods with public-housing complexes.

Adele Simmons, who served as president for 10 years, stepped down in September 1999. She was succeeded by Jonathan F. Fanton, who came to the foundation after serving as president of the New School University, in New York, for 18 years.

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 ; 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: Jonathan F. Fanton, 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; Joshua J. Mintz, vice-president and general counsel; 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 and the general program; Richard J. Kaplan, director of grants management, research, and information; John E. Corbally, chairman of the Board of Directors; Adele Simmons, president emerita.

Program directors: Carmen L. Barroso (population, new partnerships and institutions), Kennette M. Benedict (arms reduction and security policy, 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), Elspeth A. Revere (general program), Robert M. Rose (mental-health policy and research), and Daniel J. Socolow (MacArthur Fellows).

LILA WALLACE–READER’S DIGEST FUND

Two Park Avenue, 23rd Floor
New York 10016
(212) 251-9800
http://www.wallacefunds.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support: The fund was created in 1956 by Lila Acheson Wallace, who co-founded Reader’s Digest magazine with her husband, DeWitt Wallace, in 1922.

The fund allocates grants in three program areas: expanding community audiences for various art forms; increasing the quality and availability of adult-literacy programs; and enhancing urban parks. In 1998, the fund paid out grants totaling approximately $28.5-million, of which arts and culture received $22.9-million (80 per cent); urban parks, $3.7-million (13 per cent); and adult literacy, $1.9-million (7 per cent).

Arts grant making stresses audience development and expansion in three areas: leading performing, visual, literary, and folk-arts institutions of varying sizes; community-based arts programs; and innovative uses of media and technology.

The fund started three new arts efforts. Through the “Leadership and Excellence in Audience Development” program, 11 theaters, dance companies, and fine-arts museums received allocations totaling $8.2-million to provide the public with high-quality productions and programs with wide appeal. Through the “Community Arts Partnership,” the foundation provided grants to six arts colleges for arts-education activities in their communities. And the fund awarded grants totaling $1.3-million to 10 non-profit literary publishers to undertake new editorial and marketing strategies to attract new readers.

The fund worked on a set of recommendations for future urban-parks grants that were approved by the board in early 1999. Those grants will support improvements at parks in mid-sized and large cities and underwrite a forum to inform mayors and community leaders about the role of parks in civic life.

Application procedure: The fund’s resources are allocated mostly to organizations invited to apply for support, generally as part of larger programs and projects with national or regional impact. The fund rarely makes grants to support unsolicited projects, especially from organizations that do only local work. Grants are made only to non-profit, public charitable organizations that are not private foundations and that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Initial queries should be made in a one- or two-page letter describing the proposed project, the applicant organization, the estimated total budget for the project, and the portion of the budget requiring a foundation grant. Videotapes and other supplemental materials are strongly discouraged at this early review stage. The fund does not accept proposals via e-mail. Query letters should be sent to the attention of the grants manager.

Key officials: M. Christine DeVita, president; Rob D. Nagel, director of investments; Holly Sidford, program director; Bruce S. Trachtenberg, director of communications; Edward W. Pauly, director of evaluation; Mary E. Geras, director of finance; Jack Booker, director of operations; Michael Moore, senior program officer; Schroeder Cherry, Linda Cox, Rory MacPherson, and Sheila Murphy, program officers; Leah Alexander, grants manager; George V. Grune, chairman of the Board of Directors.