Foundation Annual Reports

CALIFORNIA WELLNESS FOUNDATION
6320 Canoga Avenue
Suite 1700
Woodland Hills, Calif. 91367
(818) 702-1900
http://www.tcwf.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1992 following the conversion of Health Net of California, a large health-maintenance organization, from nonprofit to for-profit status. In subsequent years, the merger of Health Net’s parent company and QualMed substantially increased the assets of the foundation, which is independent of any company.

In 2005 the foundation reviewed 1,490 letters of interest and allocated 393 grants totaling nearly $47-million in its eight priority grant-making areas: diversity in the health professions, environmental health, healthy aging, mental health, teenage-pregnancy prevention, violence prevention, women’s health, and work and health.

Each year the foundation also sets aside a pool of dollars so it can respond quickly to needs outside those priority programs. Such grants emphasize supporting “safety net” health-care providers, helping low-income people navigate the health-care system, conducting policy analysis and advocacy, and meeting the health-care needs of disadvantaged ethnic groups, homeless people in urban areas, and people living along the California-Mexico border.

The foundation has also identified four interdisciplinary themes that help guide its grant making: leadership development, organizational sustainability, public policy, and “traditionally underserved populations,” including youths and residents of rural areas.

More than 60 percent of grants were given for core operating support, continuing the foundation’s practice of allowing grantees to carry out programs while also covering day-to-day administrative and other expenses.

For example, a three-year, $210,000 grant went to the Chico Feminist Women’s Health Center for its work to provide reproductive-health care to women in rural Northern California.

Other awards included $200,000 over three years to the Clean Water Fund, in San Francisco, to advocate public policies that result in safer drinking water, and $110,000 over three years to the National Indian Justice Center, in Santa Rosa, for a violence-prevention and youth-development project geared toward American Indian youths in Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma Counties.

The foundation also operates three award programs: the California Peace Prize, which each year honors three “unsung heroes” working to curb violence in California neighborhoods; the Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award; and sabbaticals for executives at nonprofit health organizations.

The annual report’s narrative section describes the foundation’s communications efforts, including its Web site and other online tools, publications, advertising, and partnerships with civic groups and news-media outlets. For example, the foundation awarded $1-million to Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, in Sacramento, for a public-education campaign touting the benefits of greater diversity among health-care professionals.

Application procedure: The foundation makes grants to organizations in California that are classified as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are not private foundations as classified under Section 509(a). It also makes grants to government agencies and public charities as defined in IRC Section 170(b)(A)(vi). Potential applicants should first submit a one- to two-page letter of interest to the director of grants management. Detailed information is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Gary L. Yates, president and chief executive officer; Magdalena Beltrán-del Olmo, vice president of communications; Margaret W. Minnich, vice president of finance and administration; Cristina M. Regalado, vice president of programs; Joan C. Hurley, director of grants management; Fatima L. Angeles, director of evaluation and organizational learning; Ruth Holton-Hodson, director of public policy; Saba S. Brelvi, Nicole J. Jones, Jeffrey Seungkyu Kim, Earl Lui, and Sandra J. Martínez, program directors; Peggy Saika, chair of the Board of Directors.

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, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1930 by Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg, a former broom salesman who invented cornflakes and established the breakfast-cereal company that bears his name in 1907. All told, Mr. Kellogg, who died in 1951 at the age of 91, donated $66-million in Kellogg Company stock and other investments to the foundation, which continues to receive annual payments from a trust also set up by Mr. Kellogg.

During its 2006 fiscal year, the foundation paid out $286,829,926 to 1,136 of its 2,584 active projects. It also allocated new commitments totaling $346,632,494 to 874 projects, up from $187,589,673 the previous year.

The fund’s active grant making revolves around four areas: youth and education, which received $42,120,521, or 15 percent of grant dollars; philanthropy and volunteerism, $32,697,120, or 11 percent; health, $30,247,010, or 11 percent; and food systems and rural development, $20,648,753, or 7 percent.

The foundation expended the remaining 56 percent of grant dollars for special opportunities, cross-cutting projects, “recurring grants,” and programs in Southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Battle Creek, Mich., area.

Eighty-two percent of grant dollars went to projects in the United States; 10 percent to projects in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe; and 8 percent to Latin America and the Caribbean. Within each geographic area, the foundation refines its grant making to best meet regional needs.

The youth-and-education program supports projects designed to “mobilize, strengthen, and align” families, educational institutions, and other entities that affect learning from prekindergarten through college. Awards included $100,000 to the Lydia Home Association, in Chicago, to test safe, temporary placement options for children and families that could serve as alternatives to the traditional foster-care system.

The program on philanthropy and volunteerism seeks to strengthen innovative nonprofit practices and encourages people to donate their time, money, or experience. Grants place special emphasis on involving women, young people, and ethnic minorities in charitable activities.

The foundation works to improve the health of vulnerable people through projects that engage individuals, expand access to high-quality health-care services, advocate laudable public and consumer policies, and champion positive changes within health-care institutions and systems.

Food-systems and rural-development grants seek to guarantee that agricultural and food-production methods and businesses are “economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially responsible,” and to expand economic and social opportunities for people in rural areas.

Awards included $400,000 to the World Wildlife Fund, in Washington, to promote sustainable cattle ranching in South Florida while also helping restore the region’s Everglades ecosystem.

The foundation’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean emphasizes projects to help break the cycle of poverty in selected areas of southern Mexico and Central America (including Haiti and the Dominican Republic), northeastern Brazil, and the Andean regions of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Grants to benefit people in Southern Africa — where the foundation began working in the mid-1980s — included $390,000 to the Swedish Cooperative Centre, in Harare, Zimbabwe, to establish and equip “study circles” for adults living in rural villages.

Through its “special opportunities” program, the foundation allocated 27 grants to help people affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including $1.5-million to the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, in Jackson, Miss., to assist with financial, housing, and transportation needs.

Application procedure: The foundation only considers requests that fall within its established or developing program areas. The foundation encourages grant applicants to submit pre-proposals electronically, using the online application form available at its Web site. More-detailed information and grant-making guidelines for each program are also available there.

Key officials: Sterling K. Speirn, president and chief executive officer; Gregory A. Lyman, senior vice president and corporate secretary; James E. McHale, senior vice president for programs; C. Patrick Babcock, Richard M. Foster, Robert F. Long, and Gail D. McClure, vice presidents for programs; Paul J. Lawler, vice president and chief investment officer; Mary Carole Cotter, general counsel and assistant corporate secretary; La June Montgomery-Talley, vice president for finance and treasurer; Cynthia H. Milligan, chair of the Board of Trustees.

HARRY AND JEANETTE WEINBERG FOUNDATION
7 Park Center Court
Owings Mills, Md. 21117
(410) 654-8500
http://www.hjweinbergfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending February 28, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1959 by Harry Weinberg (1908-90), who had emigrated to Baltimore with his family as a young child from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although Mr. Weinberg had no formal education past the sixth grade, he went on to parlay investments in mass transit, securities, and real estate in Hawaii and elsewhere into a sizable fortune. The foundation received the bulk of Mr. Weinberg’s billion-dollar estate upon his death in 1990. His wife, Jeanette, an avid painter, died the year before.

The foundation’s grant policies reflect the couple’s stipulations, and focus on making operating and capital grants to benefit low-income, elderly, and other vulnerable people. Geographically, the foundation stresses support for programs and organizations that serve disadvantaged residents of Hawaii, Maryland, northeastern Pennsylvania, New York, Israel, and the former Soviet Union.

During the fiscal year, the foundation adopted allocation guidelines for its grant making. Under the rubric of “meeting basic needs,” programs to assist the elderly will receive 33 percent of grant dollars, disabled people 10 percent, and programs on health and hunger 7 percent. And under the rubric of “building self-sufficiency,” work-force development will receive 15 percent; education, 10 percent; children, youths, and families, 3 percent; and homelessness and addiction, 3 percent. The remaining funds will be divided between Hawaii grants (10 percent) and general community support (9 percent).

Grants to assist the elderly included $750,000 to Families USA, in Washington, to help low-income senior citizens understand the Medicare Part D program so they can obtain prescription medications, and $1,250,000 to Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly, in Brighton, Mass., to build affordable housing for elderly people in the Boston area.

Allocations in other program areas included $6-million to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, in New York, for the group’s new employment program in Israel, and $450,000 to the Fuel Fund of Central Maryland, in Baltimore, to help poor people pay for heating and other home-energy needs.

The foundation operates a second office in Honolulu that administers its grant making in Hawaii, where the Weinbergs spent the last 25 years of their lives. Grants included $100,000 to the Rainbow School, in Kahuku, to provide financial assistance for preschoolers from indigent families.

Through its Weinberg Fellows Program, the foundation provides leadership-development opportunities for executive directors of nonprofit groups in Hawaii and the metropolitan Baltimore area.

Application procedure: The foundation accepts letters of inquiry from organizations that are tax-exempt public charities under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and that principally serve low-income people. Additional, detailed information regarding eligibility criteria and guidelines for letters of inquiry is available on the fund’s Web site.

Key officials: Shale D. Stiller, president; Alvin Awaya and Donn Weinberg, vice presidents; Barry I. Schloss, secretary and treasurer; Rachel Garbow Monroe, chief operating officer; Stan Goldman, Amy Michelle Gross, and Michael Kesselman, program directors; Ted Gross, program director, Weinberg Fellows Program.