Foundation Annual Reports

BOSTON FOUNDATION

75 Arlington Street,
10th Floor
Boston, Mass. 02116
(617) 338-1700
http://www.tbf.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: This community foundation, which was created in 1915, primarily makes grants for projects that benefit residents of metropolitan Boston. It administers approximately 850 funds set up by individual, family, and corporate donors.

During its 2005 fiscal year the foundation made grants totaling $63-million through advised funds, which accounted for 70 percent of grants paid; discretionary funds, 17 percent; and designated funds, 13 percent. Also during that period, donors contributed approximately $53-million to the foundation and established 56 new constituent funds.

Discretionary grants were made in the following program areas: education, which received 29 percent of grants paid; civic affairs, 16 percent; religious and other, 14 percent; social services, 14 percent; arts and culture, 9 percent; community development, 7 percent; health, 7 percent; and conservation and the environment, 4 percent.

Geographically, the majority of grant dollars — 52 percent — went to projects that serve residents of the City of Boston, with an emphasis on the East Boston, North Dorchester, and Roxbury neighborhoods. In addition, 35 percent of grant dollars went to benefit the metropolitan Boston area; 12 percent to benefit all Massachusetts residents; and 1 percent to New England or national projects.

Allocations included $25,000 to the Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center, in Allston, for outreach services geared toward Haitian and Latino immigrants, and $60,000 to Zoo New England, in Boston, for a comprehensive strategic-planning process.

The foundation also played a leading role in several special initiatives, which included efforts focused on civic engagement and voter participation, community safety, homelessness prevention, the New England Wildlife Grants Program, pilot schools, technology training, and work-force development.

For example, the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston received $20,000 to engage pastors in anti-violence work, and the Museum of Science received $25,000 for a study on the Wireless Boston project, which is seeking to construct an effective, affordable citywide wireless network.

The foundation’s Boston Indicators Project released its third biennial report, which identified demographic, technological, and other changes affecting the region. The report also presented a “civic agenda,” designed to improve the region’s overall quality of life, that stressed economic development, education, housing, and work-force development.

Housing-related efforts included the foundation’s release of its annual “Housing Report Card” on the high costs of housing in metropolitan Boston, as well as a report on strategies that towns and cities can use to build affordable housing without increasing school costs.

The foundation held some 20 forums on diverse issues, including meetings on revamping the state’s criminal-record system and examining the effects of the Asian tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina on local and national philanthropy. It also adopted a new rule that it must spend 6 percent of its discretionary assets — rather than the 5 percent required by law — thereby increasing the amount available for grants in fiscal year 2006 by an estimated $2-million.

Application procedure: The foundation welcomes applications from organizations in the metropolitan Boston area that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. A new organization that is not yet tax-exempt may submit an application through a nonprofit group that has agreed to serve as fiscal agent. Potential applicants should visit the foundation’s Web site to obtain detailed information on grant-making priorities and application guidelines and deadlines.

Key officials: Paul S. Grogan, president and chief executive officer; Terry S. Lane, vice president for program; Kate R. Guedj, director for philanthropic and donor services; Mary Jo Meisner, vice president for communications, community relations, and public affairs; Ruben D. Orduña, vice president for development; Gail Snowden, vice president for finance and administration; Angel H. Bermudez, senior director of grant making and special projects; Jerrold Mitchell, chief investment officer; Cindy T. Rizzo, director of grant making; Geeta Pradhan and Robert R. Wadsworth, program directors; Ann McQueen and Richard Ward, senior program officers; Corey L. Davis, grants manager; the Rev. Ray Hammond, chair of the Board of Directors.

BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
P.O. Box 23350
Seattle, Wash. 98102
(206) 709-3100
http://www.gatesfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: This foundation was created in January 2000 through the merger of the Gates Learning Foundation and the William H. Gates Foundation. Both funds had been endowed by Bill Gates, the chairman and chief software architect of the Microsoft Corporation, and his wife, Melinda French Gates. The foundation is wholly independent of Microsoft, which maintains its own corporate-giving programs.

The Gates Foundation allocates grants in four major program areas: global health, which received payments of $843.7-million in 2005, compared with $442-million the preceding year; education, $284.3-million, compared with $708.4-million; the Pacific Northwest, $75.1-million, compared with $37.8-million; and global libraries, $25-million, compared with $24.9-million. The foundation also paid out special grants totaling $128.2-million, compared with $39.2-million in 2004.

Approximately 70 percent of the foundation’s grants went toward global efforts and 30 percent to programs in the United States, compared to 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively, in 2004.

The global-health program pursues a two-pronged strategy: First, it works to make sure that tried-and-tested health tools are widely accessible in developing countries; and second, it helps accelerate the development of vaccines and other lifesaving technologies that can prevent or treat HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases that disproportionately afflict poor people worldwide.

For example, the foundation awarded grants totaling $258.3-million to combat malaria — which the report says kills some 2,000 children every day in Africa alone — by expanding access to bed nets and treatments, spurring the development of more-effective antimalarial medicines, and conducting advanced trials of a promising vaccine candidate.

The overarching goal of the education program is “to ensure that every student in the United States graduates from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship,” with an emphasis on disadvantaged black and Hispanic people.

Major allocations included $9,583,800 to New Visions for Public Schools and $7,050,000 to the Urban Assembly, both based in New York, to create 25 new small high schools in New York, as part of an effort to raise the achievement, graduation, and college-readiness rates of students attending New York City high schools:

In May 2005, the foundation initiated a program to help it analyze potential new grant making. It has identified three issues — agricultural productivity and development; credit, insurance, microloans, and other financial services for poor people; and better access to clean water and sanitation systems in rural areas and urban slums — that it deems “a particularly good fit” with its existing program strengths and interests.

The foundation also made many disaster-relief grants, including approximately $3-million for relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and $513,589 to Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore, to provide aid to rural households affected by locusts and drought during the 2004 growing season in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

Mr. Gates announced on June 15 that he intends to end his day-to-day oversight of the Microsoft Corporation and focus on philanthropy. He will continue to serve as the company’s chairman, but by July 2008 will cease his daily responsibilities at Microsoft in order to work full time at his foundation.

Later that month Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, in Omaha, announced that he would donate 85 percent of his fortune to philanthropy, with the bulk of his pledge, approximately $31-billion, going to the Gates Foundation.

Application procedure: The foundation awards the majority of its grants to institutions selected by its program teams. It accepts letters of inquiry for the global-health and selected Pacific Northwest programs. Potential applicants in those areas should review the program guidelines on the foundation’s Web site before submitting a letter. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.

Key officials: Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and William H. Gates Sr., co-chairs; Patty Stonesifer, chief executive officer; Allan C. Golston, president, U.S. program; Sylvia M. Mathews, president, global-development program; Tadataka Yamada, president, global-health program; Cheryl Scott, chief operating officer.

POLLOCK-KRASNER FOUNDATION
863 Park Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10021
(212) 571-5400
http://www.pkf.org

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1985 through the will of Lee Krasner (1908-84), a leading Abstract Expressionist painter and the widow of Jackson Pollock. The Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s mission is to aid individuals internationally who have worked as professional artists over a significant period of time. In general, its two criteria for grant making are recognizable artistic merit and financial need — whether professional, personal, or both.

During its 2005 fiscal year, it allocated $2,624,000 to 139 grantees. Recipients hailed from the United States and 25 other countries, including Colombia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Ireland, and Ukraine.

Although most grants are made for one year, the size and length of a grant are determined by the circumstances of a given artist. Award money supports various needs, including art supplies and studio time.

Foundation officials are advised in the selection process by an anonymous Committee of Selection that comprises artists, art critics and patrons, museum officials, and others. A grantee’s métier can encompass any school, style, or technique.

In addition to its regular grant making, the foundation offers three-year Lee Krasner Awards to older artists with distinguished portfolios, which are considered by nomination only. It also makes a limited number of grants to exemplary arts groups that “make a direct contribution to the well-being of artists.”

The foundation also supports the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, N.Y., which is managed by the Stony Brook Foundation at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The study center mounts exhibitions and offers seminars and research and teaching opportunities for scholars interested in Abstract Expressionism and contemporary art.

Application procedure: The foundation welcomes applications from painters, sculptors, and artists who work on paper, including printmakers. There are no deadlines. The foundation does not make grants to commercial artists, filmmakers, performance artists, photographers, video artists, or any artist whose work primarily falls into those categories. It does not make grants to students or finance academic study.

The foundation does not respond to application requests by telephone or in person. Artists interested in obtaining applications and information on the application process should visit the Web site or write the fund at the address listed here; fax a request to (212) 288-2836; or send an e-mail message to grants@pkf.org.

Key officials: Charles C. Bergman, chairman and chief executive officer; Samuel Sachs II, president; Kerrie Buitrago, executive vice president; Caroline Black, program officer; Beth Cochems and Nell Graefe, program associates; Eugene Victor Thaw, president emeritus.