Foundation Annual Reports

CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT

1000 North Alameda Street
Los Angeles, Calif. 90012
(800) 449-4149
http://www.calendow.org

Period covered: Year ending February 28, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in May 1996 following the conversion of Blue Cross of California, a nonprofit entity, to WellPoint Health Networks, a for-profit corporation. The endowment’s overarching goal is “to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved residents and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians.”

Within that framework, grant making emphasizes a “grass-roots to treetops” approach, providing support for community-based groups and coalitions, as well as statewide and, in some cases, national groups conducting policy and advocacy programs that can result in systemic change.

During its 2005 fiscal year, the endowment allocated 1,422 grants and program distributions totaling more than $165-million. Grant making centers on three goals — access to health services, culturally competent health systems, and community health and the elimination of health disparities.

The foundation has changed its grant-making guidelines, and no longer separates grants into the Local Opportunities Fund and CommunitiesFirst designations. It now accepts applications only through the new Grant Application Guide on its Web site, which serves as a single “point of entry” to all its grant opportunities.

The program to improve access to health services focuses on expanding health coverage, simplifying enrollment in health programs, and enhancing the effectiveness of health systems. It stresses policy changes at the local, regional, and state levels that can bring about lasting changes in the provision of health-care and mental-health services.

The endowment’s five-year, $45-million Children’s Coverage Program seeks to help California become the first state in the nation to provide publicly financed health-insurance coverage for all children.

Grants included $500,000 to Healthy Kids of Santa Cruz County, in Scotts Valley, to provide premium subsidies for children and adolescents age 6 to 18.

Under its second goal, the endowment supports programs designed to increase the cultural and linguistic competency of health providers and systems.

Areas of emphasis include training health-care interpreters, implementing new models of health promotion or health services tailored to specific underserved populations, and increasing the recruitment, retention, and promotion of racial and ethnic minorities as health-care professionals.

For example, through its offices in Fresno and Sacramento, the endowment made a major commitment to a regional strategy to meet the urgent health needs of more than 5,000 Hmong refugees who resettled in California in late 2004 after being forced to leave Thailand.

Other grants included $700,000 to Welcome Back, which provides counseling and education services that help internationally trained health-care professionals become licensed in the United States while meeting critical shortages in the health work force.

The community-health program emphasizes activities that provide disadvantaged people with the knowledge and skills needed to change unhealthy behaviors. It also works to change the social and physical environments that contribute to those behaviors and to health inequities.

In October 2004 the endowment initiated the four-year, $26-million Healthy Eating, Active Communities Initiative, an effort to change eating and fitness habits as well as environmental conditions that contribute to obesity and related chronic health conditions.

In addition to its new headquarters building in Los Angeles, the endowment maintains offices in Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco in order to better serve the state’s various regions.

Application procedure: As mentioned above, the endowment has recently streamlined its application process. Detailed information and guidelines are available on the endowment’s Web site.

Key officials: Robert K. Ross, president and chief executive officer; Irene M. Ibarra, executive vice president; Alonzo Louis Plough, vice president, program, planning, and evaluation; Dennis Hunt, vice president, communications and public affairs; Michael J. Januzik, vice president and chief financial officer; Brytain L. Ashford, vice president, human resources; Martin Zogg, senior program administrator; Ignatius Bau, Laura Hogan, Mario Gutierrez, and Marion Standish, program directors; Michael Bayless, director of creative services; Astrid Hendricks-Smith, director of evaluation; Barbara Masters, director of public policy; Gwen Walden, director, community conference and resource center; Cynthia Ann Telles, chair of the Board of Directors.

Senior program officers: George Flores, Gwen Foster, Larry Gonzales, Gregory Hall, Earl Johnson, Peter Long, Roland Palencia, Barbara Webster-Hawkins, and Dianne Yamashiro-Omi.

W.K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION

1 Michigan Avenue East
Battle Creek, Mich. 49017
(269) 968-1611
http://www.wkkf.org

Period covered: Year ending August 31, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1930 by Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg, founder of the eponymous breakfast-cereal company. Mr. Kellogg gave more than $66-million in Kellogg Company stock and other investments to the foundation. The foundation continues to derive most of its income from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Trust, also set up by Mr. Kellogg, who died in 1951 at the age of 91.

During its 2005 fiscal year, the foundation awarded $244,342,812 to 1,001 of its 2,296 active projects. It also made new commitments totaling $187,589,673 to 729 projects. The fund’s active grant making centered on four program areas: youth and education, which received $39,330,768, or 16 percent of grant dollars; health, $29,912,259, or 12 percent; philanthropy and volunteerism, $26,248,902, or 11 percent; and food systems and rural development, $22,384,291, or 9 percent.

As in previous years, the foundation allocated the remaining 52 percent of grant dollars to related program activities and special opportunities, “recurring grants,” and programs in Southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Battle Creek, Mich., area.

The foundation’s geographic distribution emphasizes programs in the United States, which received 82 percent of grant dollars; Latin America and the Caribbean, which received 9 percent; and the seven Southern African nations of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, which collectively received 9 percent. The foundation refines its giving to help meet the particular needs of each geographic region, under the aegis of its four main program areas.

The youth and education program focuses on projects that use a “holistic, child-centered approach” and promote the healthy development of infants, adolescents, and young adults by “mobilizing, strengthening, and aligning” the various systems that affect learning. Awards included $1-million to Santa Ana College, in California, to develop a “seamless educational pathway” for Latino young people interested in attending college.

The health program stresses efforts to promote wellness among at-risk people and their communities by engaging individuals, improving the quality of and access to health-care services, advocating exemplary public and consumer policies that affect health, and encouraging positive change within health-care institutions and systems.

Allocations included $100,000 to the Michigan Health and Hospital Association Center for Health Resources, in Lansing, to help sustain services for people in Detroit and Wayne County, Mich., who lack health insurance.

The foundation’s program on philanthropy and volunteerism strives to “unleash” charitable resources, including time, money, and experience. Grants emphasize efforts that involve women, young people, and ethnic minorities.

The food-systems program allocates grants to ensure a safe, wholesome food supply for this and future generations while guaranteeing that food-production methods are economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially responsible. In tandem with that effort, the foundation makes grants to help enhance the lives of people in rural communities by expanding economic and social opportunities.

The foundation’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean emphasizes projects in southern Mexico and Central America, northeastern Brazil, and the Andean regions of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Grants included $37,742 to Universidad Rafael Landivar, in Guatemala City, to provide typing courses to high-school students who live in rural areas of San Juan Chamelco.

Grants to benefit people in Southern Africa included $197,000 to the Serumula Development Association, in Maseru, Lesotho, to promote small-scale businesses based on handicrafts and textile production.

On January 1, 2006, Sterling Speirn, president of the Peninsula Community Foundation, succeeded William C. Richardson as president and chief executive officer. Mr. Richardson retired after leading the foundation for 10 years and now serves as president emeritus.

Application procedure: The foundation only considers requests that fall within its established or developing program areas. To be eligible for a grant, the applicant organization, as well as the purpose of the proposed project, must qualify as being tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The foundation encourages grant applicants to submit pre-proposals electronically, using the online application form available at the foundation’s Web site. More-detailed information and grant-making guidelines for each program are available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Sterling Speirn, president and chief executive officer; Gregory A. Lyman, senior vice president and corporate secretary; Richard M. Foster, Marguerite M. Johnson, Robert F. Long, and Gail D. McClure, vice presidents for programs; Paul J. Lawler, vice president and chief investment officer; La June Montgomery-Talley, vice president for finance and treasurer; Karen E. Lake, director of marketing and communications; William C. Richardson, president emeritus; Cynthia Hardin Milligan, chair of the Board of Trustees.

SURDNA FOUNDATION

330 Madison Avenue, 30th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10017
(212) 557-0010
http://www.surdna.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: The Surdna Foundation was established in 1917 by John Emory Andrus (1841-1934), a New York-based businessman, investor, and politician whose main operating business was the Arlington Chemical Company. The foundation’s name is an inversion of his surname.

The fund’s grant making initially focused on support for orphaned children — Mr. Andrus’s wife, Julia, had been orphaned as a child — and, in subsequent years, on elderly people and on children who have emotional disabilities.

Family members have always played a strong role in shaping the foundation’s direction, and in 1989 the third and fourth generations of the Andrus family to serve on the board initiated programs in community revitalization and the environment. Programs on the arts and effective citizenry were added in 1994, followed by the Nonprofit Sector Support Program in 1997.

During its 2005 fiscal year, the foundation allocated grants totaling $28,622,760 in the following categories: the environment program received $7,780,000; community revitalization, $5,120,000; effective citizenry, $4,995,000; the arts, $3,758,600; nonprofit-sector grants, $3,575,000; the Andrus Family Fund, $2,094,500; and organizational development and miscellaneous, $1,299,660.

The foundation’s environment program encompasses four areas: biological diversity and the human communities that depend on it; “realigning human and natural systems”; transportation and the sustainable use of urban and suburban land; and renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.

Grants included $100,000 over two years to the Vote Solar Initiative, in San Francisco, to promote a nationwide transition to clean energy sources by helping city and state governments adopt large-scale, cost-efficient solar-energy projects.

The overarching goal of the community-revitalization program is to “enhance the quality of life in urban places, increase their ability to attract and retain a diversity of residents and employers, and insure that urban policies and development promote social equity.” The foundation maintains different approaches in what it considers “hot-market cities” and “weak-market cities” in order to accomplish that goal.

Grants included $80,000 to the Patterson Park Community Development Corporation, in Baltimore, for efforts to stabilize this neighborhood and to help save blighted blocks in the adjacent area.

The effective-citizenry program strives to support young people who are taking direct action and engaging in advocacy to ameliorate systemic problems in their schools, neighborhoods, and society. It also seeks to link activists and grant makers working on similar issues.

For example, the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, in Chicago, received $50,000 for Radio Arte, which focuses on cultural and community issues while encouraging youths to become engaged in social issues through the news media.

Grants in other subject areas included $50,000 to the National Alliance for Choice in Giving, in Portland, Me., for operating support, and $80,000 to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, in New York, to provide professional training in classical ballet to students ages 11 to 18.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should send a letter of inquiry, rather than a full proposal, as a first step. The foundation strongly recommends that applicants submit letters of inquiry online, at its Web site. Upon receipt of the letter of inquiry, the foundation will issue notification of its 90-day consideration period. Although there are no deadlines for letters of inquiry, the board meets three times annually — in February, May, and September — to consider grants, and letters should be sent at least three months ahead of time for staff review. Additional information, including detailed guidelines on submitting a letter of inquiry, is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Edward Skloot, executive director; Marc de Venoge, chief financial and administrative officer; Hooper L. Brooks, program director for environment; Ellen B. Rudolph, program director for arts; Robert Sherman, program director for effective citizenry; Dara Major, director for planning and strategic initiatives; Kim Burnett, program officer for community revitalization; Vincent Stehle, program officer for the nonprofit-sector initiative; Jonathan Goldberg, grants administrator and manager of information systems; John F. Hawkins, chairperson of the Board of Directors; John E. Andrus III, chairman emeritus.