Foundation Annual Reports

ATLANTIC PHILANTHROPIES
125 Park Avenue, 21st Floor
New York, N.Y. 10017
(212) 916-7300
http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: Charles F. Feeney, an Irish-American entrepreneur whose wealth derives from duty-free shops, established the Atlantic Foundation in 1982. Its initial grant making was done anonymously and went primarily to benefit higher education in the United States. In 2001 it changed its policy on anonymity in order to help increase its “effectiveness, transparency, and accountability,” and four years ago its board made the decision to cease active grant making by approximately 2016 and spend down its endowment by 2020.

Today the Atlantic Philanthropies comprise the Atlantic Foundation and the Atlantic Trust, both based in Bermuda; several small funds, based principally in the United States and Great Britain; and regional “service companies” that select and assess potential grantees and oversee grants once they are awarded.

Atlantic makes grants in seven locales where it deems it can have the most impact over the next decade: Australia, Bermuda, Ireland, Northern Ireland, South Africa, the United States, and Vietnam.

In 2005 it made approximately 200 grants totaling $288.9-million in its four current program areas: population health, which received $88.6-million, or 31 percent of grant dollars; disadvantaged children and youth, $61.9-million, or 21 percent; aging, $61.5-million, or 21 percent; and reconciliation and human rights, $46.6-million, or 16 percent. The remainder went to miscellaneous grants, $15.6-million, or 5 percent; higher education in Vietnam, $13.4-million, or 5 percent; and strategic learning and evaluation, $1.3-million, or 1 percent.

The average grant award was $1.5-million, and Atlantic emphasized support for core operating costs — 51 grants totaling $87-million; and advocacy that can lead to policy change — 51 grants totaling $69-million.

Grants made through the population-health program support efforts in South Africa and Vietnam to strengthen key national and provincial health institutions and their ability to advocate better public-health systems, improve primary health-care services at the provincial and commune levels, foster behaviors that contribute to good health, promote progressive government policies, train health professionals, and treat and prevent blindness.

The program to benefit disadvantaged children and youths more than doubled the amount of money it awarded, up from $25.5-million in 2004. Grants included $750,000 over three years to the Food Research and Action Center, in Washington, to help extracurricular programs that serve children gain access to, and use, federal nutrition entitlements.

Allocations to benefit older adults and promote their inclusion in society nearly doubled as well, up from $33.2-million the preceding year. A total of 42 awards were made: 20 for programs in the United States, 10 each in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and 2 in Bermuda. For example, Civic Ventures, in San Francisco, received a three-year, $6-million grant to maintain Experience Corps, a program through which retired baby boomers and other older adults act as tutors and mentors to children attending inner-city public schools.

The reconciliation and human-rights program focused last year on improving access to social and other services for farm workers and rural poor people in South Africa, integrating Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland, and restructuring the criminal-justice system, ensuring immigrants’ rights, and protecting civil liberties in the United States.

Awards included $1.2-million to the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, in Johannesburg, to carry out research on the fate of more than 200 political activists who disappeared during South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle.

In May of this year, John R. Healy announced that he would step down as chief executive officer in September 2007 in order to return to his native Ireland.

Application procedure: The Atlantic Philanthropies does not consider unsolicited proposals.

Key officials: John R. Healy, chief executive officer and president; Colin McCrea, senior vice president; Deborah R. Phillips, senior vice president; Frank H.T. Rhodes, chairman; Charles F. Feeney, founding chairman.

HOUSTON ENDOWMENT
600 Travis, Suite 6400
Houston, Tex. 77002
(713) 238-8100
http://www.houstonendowment.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was endowed in 1937 by Jesse H. Jones (1874-1956) and his wife, Mary Gibbs Jones (1872-1962). Mr. Jones was a Houston-based financier and commercial real-estate developer. He also served in various civic and political positions, including U.S. secretary of commerce under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and helped President Woodrow Wilson reorganize the Red Cross following World War I.

The endowment makes grants primarily to benefit residents of Harris County, where Houston is located, and of seven adjacent counties: Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller. It seldom awards grants outside Texas and does not support foreign groups.

In 1937, its first year of operation, the foundation donated $9,363, with most of the money going to human-service groups and universities. In 2005, it allocated $64,667,464 in seven program areas: community enhancement, which received 25 percent of grant dollars; education, 24 percent; human services, 22 percent; the arts, 9 percent; the environment, 9 percent; health, 8 percent; and neighborhood development, 3 percent.

The community-enhancement program stresses support for educational resources and, to a lesser extent, historic preservation, the health and safety of domestic animals, urban planning, work-force training, literacy, nonprofit development, and civic participation.

The two largest grants were made under the aegis of the educational-resources area: $5-million to the Houston Zoo for its planned 13-acre African Forest habitat, and $3-million to the Children’s Museum, in Houston, to expand its exhibition and office spaces.

Education grants emphasize the recruitment and retention of highly qualified teachers and administrators, academic success at community and open-admission colleges, preschool programs, and efforts to prepare students for college. For example, $267,000 went to the Houston Community College System to augment its online services and information for both incoming and current students.

In addition, the Jesse H. Jones and Mary Gibbs Jones Scholarship Program made awards totaling $3,889,500 to 322 graduates of Harris County high schools. Scholarship recipients may use the funds toward tuition at any accredited four-year college or university.

The human-services program focuses on meeting basic human needs, providing youth-development services, helping people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, preventing child abuse and domestic violence, and assisting homeless and elderly people.

Allocations included $50,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Brazoria County, in Freeport, to extend its operating hours, and $100,000 to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to build eight residential units for poor women and their children.

Multiple awards were also made to provide emergency services to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Application procedure: The foundation makes grants only to those nonprofit groups that are recognized as charitable organizations under the Internal Revenue Code. The foundation has no official application form and no designated deadlines for the submission of requests. Applications should consist of a one-page cover letter, a three- to five-page proposal, a budget, and other supporting documents. Detailed information is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Larry R. Faulkner, president; Sheryl L. Johns, executive vice president; Anna B. Leal, grant director; Matthew Barnes, Leslie R. Chandler, George V. Grainger, Ann T. Hamilton, M.A. (Toni) Moreno, and Emily L. Todd, grant officers; Harriet W. Garland, E. Jane Kennedy, and Sharie Wood, grant managers; Peggy J. Howell, controller; Chandra Livingston, investment-operations officer; D. Kent Anderson, chair of the Board of Directors.

ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION
140 East 62nd Street
New York, N.Y. 10021
(212) 838-8400
http://www.mellon.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2005.

Purpose and areas of support: This foundation was created in 1969 through the consolidation of two existing foundations: the Avalon Foundation, established in 1940 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce, and the Old Dominion Foundation, established in 1941 by her brother, Paul Mellon. Their father, Andrew W. Mellon (1855-1937), was a financial magnate and art collector who endowed the National Gallery of Art, in Washington.

In 2005, the foundation allocated grants totaling $210,535,458 in these program areas: higher education and scholarship, which received $114,132,814; libraries and scholarly communication, $35,323,500; museums and art conservation, $19,140,355; the performing arts, $16,789,000; conservation and the environment, $13,033,500; and public affairs, $235,000.

The foundation also awarded 19 grants totaling $11,552,000 for recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina; the recipients were cultural and higher-education institutions with which the foundation had previously worked.

The program in higher education and scholarship makes grants to strengthen selected research universities in the United States, with particular emphasis on the humanities and “humanistic” social sciences, historically black colleges and universities, liberal-arts colleges in Appalachia and elsewhere in the country, and higher-education institutions in South Africa. The foundation also renewed its support for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, an effort to increase the number of blacks, Hispanic-Americans, and American Indians who go on to pursue doctoral degrees in English, history, mathematics, sociology, and other “core areas” of the arts and sciences.

As part of its program on libraries and scholarly communication, the foundation made several grants to help develop scholarly resources for classical and medieval studies. Other awards included $639,000 to New York University to advance its Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program.

Grants for museums and art conservation emphasize curatorial positions and scholarship, the role of science in art conservation, and the conservation of photographs. For example, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond, received $1,250,000 to endow a curator’s position in ancient art.

Through its program on conservation and the environment, the foundation made 25 grants to institutions in France, South Africa, Tanzania, the United States, Zimbabwe, and nine other countries to assemble a coordinated digital database of images and information on African plants.

The foundation phased out its programs in population and public affairs. It also carved out a formal program area for its support of digital technologies that can be applied to research and academic purposes as well as new technical strategies for archiving multimedia and textual materials that require improved search abilities, storage techniques, and user interfaces.

Application procedure: The foundation rarely supports projects introduced through unsolicited proposals. Prospective applicants are encouraged to submit a letter of inquiry of one page or less that describes the need, nature, and amount of the request. The foundation does not make grants to individuals or to primarily local organizations. Detailed information is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Don Michael Randel, president; Harriet Zuckerman, senior vice president; Ira H. Fuchs, vice president for research and information technology; John E. Hull, financial vice president and chief investment officer; Patricia L. Irvin, vice president for operations and planning; Mary Patterson McPherson, vice president; Michele S. Warman, general counsel and secretary; William G. Bowen, president emeritus; Anne M. Tatlock, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Program officers: Lydia L. English, Ira H. Fuchs, Joseph S. Meisel, Danielle Carr Ramdath, William Robertson IV, Angelica Z. Rudenstine, Eugene M. Tobin, and Donald J. Waters.