FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORTS

AHMANSON FOUNDATION
9215 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, Calif. 90210
(310) 278-0770

Period covered: Year ending October 31, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1952 by the financier Howard F. Ahmanson and his wife, Dorothy. Its endowment was augmented in later years by his nephews Robert H. Ahmanson and William H. Ahmanson.

The fund concentrates its grant making on the arts, pre-collegiate and collegiate education, health-care services and medicine, and a broad range of human-services projects. It distributes approximately 90 percent of its grant dollars to organizations that are based in Los Angeles County.

In 1999, the Ahmanson Foundation allocated 509 grants totaling $49,714,397. The arts program received grants totaling $14,868,497, or 30 percent; education, $15,594,300, or 31 percent; health, $12,009,250, or 24 percent; and human services, $8,242,350, or 17 percent. Grants were made to 70 organizations that had not previously received support from the foundation.

In the arts program, two large grants were made to Museum Associates to acquire paintings for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: $4,150,000 to purchase The Perfect Accord by the early 18th-century French painter Jean Antoine Watteau, and $3-million to purchase The Mocking of Christ by Gerrit van Honthorst.

Education grants emphasized scholarships for ethnically diverse, low-income students; capital support; computers and other technology; literacy and after-school programs; arts and recreational activities; job-readiness training; and tutoring. Awards included $250,000 to the Library Foundation of Los Angeles for the Reading Club and Grandparents and Books programs.

Grants made through the health and human-services programs stressed support for at-risk children and youths, minority-group members, the elderly and disabled, and homeless and hungry people. Health-related awards included $150,000 to the Valley Presbyterian Hospital Foundation, in Van Nuys, Calif., to purchase equipment needed to expand its neonatal intensive-care unit. Human-services grants included $100,000 to House of Ruth, in Claremont, to renovate a center for abused women and their children.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should first review the foundation’s guidelines to determine if its interest areas and giving preferences are compatible with the need of the organization seeking support. A brief letter of inquiry may then be sent, addressed to the managing director. It should include the organization’s mission statement, a brief description of its background, a direct statement of need, and other potential financial sources under consideration. All letters of inquiry are screened to determine whether or not the request and mission of the applicant are within the foundation’s current grant-making interests. In most instances, written responses will be sent promptly to those who are not likely to qualify. Others who may qualify will be asked to submit a full proposal for further consideration.

In general, the foundation does not approve grants for endowed chairs, fellowships, internships, exchanges, individual scholarships, annual campaigns, continuing support, deficit financing or loans, or the production of film, video, or media projects. In addition, it prefers not to support the following: groups that allocate grants to others, religious organizations for sectarian or “propagation of faith” purposes, traveling exhibits, performance development, seminars, workshops, studies, surveys, general research and development, or operating support of regional and national charities.

Key officials: Robert H. Ahmanson, president; Leonard E. Walcott Jr., vice president and managing director; William H. Ahmanson, vice president; Karen A. Hoffman, secretary and program officer; Kristen K. O’Connor, treasurer; Sam Dawson, Mindy Jones, and Manya Schaff, program officers; Yvonne de Beixedon, grants administrator.

CHARLES A. DANA FOUNDATION
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 700
New York 10151
(212) 223-4040
http://www.dana.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1950 by Charles A. Dana, a New York state legislator, industrialist, and philanthropist. Mr. Dana served as president of the foundation from 1950 to 1966, and actively shaped its programs until his death in 1975.

The foundation supports programs in the areas of health and education, and carefully defined objectives govern its grant making within each area.

In 1999, the fund appropriated $9,266,297 as follows: health programs received $7,717,288; cultural and civic programs, $571,300; education, $506,080; and the Dana Awards Program, $471,629.

Over the years, the foundation’s health program has developed a strong focus on clinically applied brain research that has significant potential to improve human health and functioning. That program emphasis has continued to evolve, and the foundation’s grant making over the past several years has emphasized two strategies.

The first approach involves collaborative research by consortia of scientists on brain diseases and disorders, including memory loss, H.I.V.-related dementia, and manic-depressive illness. The work of those consortia is now largely completed.

The second approach, the Clinical Hypotheses Program in Neuroscience Research, now represents the foundation’s primary program emphasis.

That competitive grants program supports the pilot testing of experimental ideas that have the potential to advance clinical applications of neuroimaging and of brain-body science (the relationship between the brain and the onset and outcome of heart disease, cancer, and stroke).

In addition to supporting research on brain function and disorders, the foundation supports public education about the brain through its publishing and media programs.

In conjunction with its co-publisher, John Wiley & Sons, in 1999 the Dana Press published States of Mind: New Discoveries About How Our Brains Make Us Who We Are, a book that contains written versions of eight public lectures on the brain.

The Dana Press also publishes a paid-subscription quarterly journal, Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Research, and various free periodicals.

The foundation also supports the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, which received $2,184,323 for its public-education campaign on neuroscience research, and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain, a group created in 1997 that maintains offices in London and Lausanne, Switzerland.

Over all, the foundation’s education program has received a decreasing share of grant dollars over the past few years.

It continues to support improvements in elementary and secondary education through the Charles A. Dana Center for Educational Innovation at the University of Texas at Austin and through selected other nonprofit groups.

On May 1, 1999, David J. Mahoney, president and chief executive officer of the foundation, died at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 76.

Mr. Mahoney was replaced by Edward F. Rover.

Application procedure: Initial inquiries should be in the form of a two-page letter that describes the following: the goal of the proposed project; the need the project would meet and its congruence with the foundation’s priorities in health or education; the means to be used to achieve the project’s goals; the applicant institution’s capability to undertake the project; the qualifications of the proposed director of the project; and the estimated cost and proposed methods of financing the project, including the institution’s intended contribution. Proposals submitted by fax will not be accepted, and supporting materials should not be submitted until they are requested. Additional information on the foundation’s current grant programs is available at its Web site, including requests for proposals for the Clinical Hypotheses Program.

Key officials: Edward F. Rover, president; Francis Harper, executive vice president; Barbara E. Gill, vice president for public affairs and executive director of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives; Burton M. Mirsky, vice president for finance; Jane Nevins, vice president and editor in chief of the Dana Press; Josephine C. Donahue, director of administration; Walter Donway, director of the Dana Press; Lara M. Khouri, program associate, grants; Barbara Rich, director, press office and Internet; William Safire, chairman of the Board of Directors.

MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION
1020 North Broadway
Milwaukee 53202
(414) 272-5805
http://www.milwaukeefoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support: Established in 1915, this community foundation awards discretionary, donor-designated, and donor-advised grants for projects designed to benefit residents of Wisconsin’s Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha Counties.

Seventy new funds were created in 1999, for a total of 590 constituent funds.

Grants totaling $12.5-million — an increase of 10.3 percent over the previous year’s total — were made in the following programs: health and human services, which received $5,859,711; education, $2,526,793; arts and culture, $1,824,526; conservation, historic preservation, and other programs, $1,098,897; community development, $936,392; and employment and training, $279,831.

New guidelines adopted in 1999 modified the foundation’s grant making in four significant ways.

Greater emphasis was placed on youth services; expanded support was allocated for economic development and job training; greater emphasis was placed on environmental education and preservation; and increased importance was given to education-reform collaboration.

Awards made through the health and human-services program included $32,000 to La Causa to expand its anger-management program for parents and children from Milwaukee’s South Side.

Education grants included $10,000 to the Zink the Zebra Foundation to expand a program for students in grades four through eight that encourages understanding and acceptance of diversity and individual differences.

Allocations in other program areas included a two-year, $50,000 grant to Friends of the Schlitz Audubon Center to create a state-of-the-art environmental-education center, and a $20,000 grant to Housing Resources to expand its counseling program for prospective home buyers in Waukesha County.

Application procedure: Foundation officials periodically update grant-making guidelines so that grants from discretionary funds are focused on the community’s most urgent needs. Prospective grant applicants should check the foundation’s Web site for information on current grant-making priorities and criteria. The board meets in March, June, September, and December to determine grant allocations. Most grants for capital expenditures are made in the December grant-making cycle. Prospective grant applicants may contact the foundation to discuss possible projects at any time, and need not have submitted a formal letter of intent before inquiring about the suitability of a project for funding.

Key officials: Douglas M. Jansson, executive director; Doris H. Heiser, director of development and donor services; James A. Marks, director of programs and grants; Wendy Horton, chief financial officer; Frank Miller, communications director; Margaret Jane Moore, senior program officer; William F. Fox, chair of the board.