Foundation Annual Reports

W.M. KECK FOUNDATION

550 South Hope Street,
Suite 2500
Los Angeles, Calif. 90071
(213) 680-3833
http://www.wmkeck.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2000.

Purpose and areas of support: William Myron Keck, who founded Superior Oil Company, endowed the foundation in 1954.

In 2000 the foundation made 65 grants totaling $52,075,000. Of that, 25 grants totaling $22,950,000 went to science and engineering projects; 18 grants totaling $21,500,000 went to medical research; 19 grants totaling $6,475,000 went to the Southern California program; and three grants totaling $1,150,000 went to liberal-arts education.

Science, engineering, and medical-research grants go to accredited four-year colleges and universities, medical schools, and independent research organizations in the United States.

For example, Connecticut College, in New London, received a $500,000 grant to establish a visiting-fellows program focused on rapidly changing fields in the sciences. Other grants included $1-million to the Marine Biological Laboratory, in Woods Hole, Mass., to establish an ecological- and evolutionary-genetics facility.

In the medical-research category, the University of California at Davis received a $2-million allocation to start up a cellular and molecular neuroscience-imaging center and create a central database to study neuropsychiatric disorders.

Among other grants in this category was a $1.5-million allocation to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas to establish a laboratory to study human genomics for the prevention and cure of diseases related to fat metabolism, like cardiac arrest and strokes.

Grants to promote innovative instruction and research at liberal-arts colleges nationwide included $400,000 to Colorado College, in Colorado Springs, for a visiting scholar and a Geographic Information Systems laboratory to strengthen links among interdisciplinary programs in Southwest studies and the environmental sciences.

The Southern California program focuses on arts and culture, civic and community services, health care, and education, with an emphasis on enriching the lives of youths in the Los Angeles area.

For instance, a $150,000 allocation to the Neighborhood Youth Association, in Los Angeles, expanded its preschool program and provided full-day care for children from low-income families living in the Venice-Oakwood area.

In 2000 the foundation established an early-learning project as a new focus area within its Southern California program. Over the next five years, the foundation will award grants that creatively address needs, demonstrate broad financial support, and show promise of present and future impact on education in Los Angeles County for children under age 5.

Application procedure: The foundation has a two-phase application process and awards grants twice a year, in June and in December. Prospective applicants should submit a complete letter of inquiry and supporting documentation, but the foundation urges interested grant seekers to contact its staff by letter or telephone before doing so. Applicants must be tax-exempt as defined by Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, must not be private foundations as defined by Section 509(a), and must be able to provide current full, certified audited financial statements. Institutions located in California must include a copy of the confirmation letter from the State of California Franchise Tax Board that states the institution is exempt from California state franchise or income tax.

From the pool of applicants submitting letters of inquiry, the foundation will invite some to submit full proposals. Unsolicited proposals and electronic applications are not accepted. Additional information is available at the foundation’s Web site or by requesting a copy of its annual report from info@wmkeck.org.

Key officials: Robert A. Day, chairman, president, and chief executive officer; Jonathan D. Jaffrey, vice president and chief administrative officer; Dorothy Fleisher, program director for Southern California; Roxanne Ford, program director for medical research; Maria Pellegrini, program director for science, engineering, and liberal arts.

MCKNIGHT FOUNDATION

600 TCF Tower121
South Eighth Street
Minneapolis, Minn. 55402
(612) 333-4220
http://www.mcknight.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2000.

Purpose and areas of support: William L. McKnight, a founder and president of the 3M Company, and his wife, Maude, established the foundation in 1953. Mr. and Mrs. McKnight were the parents of the honorary board chair, Virginia M. Binger, and the great-grandparents of the board chair, Noa Staryk.

In 2000 the foundation paid 843 grants totaling $93.9-million. The money was distributed in the following program areas: children, families, and communities, which received 75 percent of grant dollars; the arts, 8 percent; the environment, 8 percent; research, 6 percent; and international, 3 percent.

Forty-four percent of grants paid went to organizations in Minneapolis and St. Paul; 40 percent to statewide groups or groups that serve other areas of Minnesota; and 16 percent to groups outside the state.

Children, families, and communities grants emphasize early childhood education, improving local schools, youth development, child-rearing skills, public policy, family violence, employment and training, community and economic development, affordable housing, and strengthening families in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

In this category the foundation awarded its largest single grant ever, $24.5-million over three years, to the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, in St. Paul, to increase the supply of affordable housing for working families throughout the state and to educate the public about affordable-housing issues.

Other awards in this category included $60,000 to Ain Dah Yung Our Home Shelter, in St. Paul, for an emergency shelter, family-support services, and prevention and education assistance for homeless American Indian children and their families, and $10,000 to Liberty Plaza Resident Council, in St. Paul, for an outreach program that provides mentors and tutors for youths living in and near the Liberty Plaza neighborhood.

Within the children, families, and communities program, the foundation also administered seven special programs: Congregations in Community, Family Loan Program, Virginia McKnight Binger Awards in Human Service, Legal Services for Women, Minnesota Initiative Funds, Welfare Reform, and Youth Programs.

Arts grants seek to improve the quality of and access to the arts in Minnesota. Awards included $35,000 to Forecast Public Artworks, in St. Paul, for program support and for an electronic version of the journal Public Art Review, and $15,000 to Ten Thousand Things, in Minneapolis, to produce plays for low-income people.

Awards in the environment category focus on protecting and restoring the environment in the Mississippi River basin, protecting the livability of the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, and promoting the development of clean, renewable energy in the upper Midwest. The Energy Foundation, in San Francisco, administers the foundation’s energy grants.

Environment grants included $130,000 to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, in Minneapolis, to investigate and report on how more-intensive farming and increasing grain exports in the Upper Mississippi River watershed will affect farmers and the environment. Other allocations included $45,000 to the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, in Rochester, to help people living in rural areas organize to participate in decisions affecting large hog feedlots in the state.

Grants in the research and applied-science area supported work in neuroscience, studies of eating disorders, and collaborative crop research in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The foundation is phasing out its eating-disorders program, and will award no new grants in that area.

The international program supports projects that strengthen women’s economic opportunities in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, and that bolster economic development and human services in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Application procedure: Applicants must be nonprofit organizations and not private foundations. Before applying for a grant, potential applicants should determine whether the organization’s work and the purpose for which money would be requested fit the foundation’s grant-making priorities. The foundation encourages applicants to discuss their request with a program officer before writing a letter of inquiry.

For more detailed information about the foundation’s program areas, applicants may request a copy of “Guidelines for Grant Applicants” by calling the phone number above, sending an e-mail to info@mcknight.org, or visiting the foundation’s Web site. The foundation considers applications in research and applied science only by invitation or in response to a special announcement.

Key officials: Rip Rapson, president; Carol Berde, executive vice president; Richard Scott, vice president for finance and administration and secretary; Kristin Batson, manager of organizational learning and grants administration; Neal I. Cuthbert, program director, arts; Daniel Ray, program director, environment; Louis Hohlfeld and Nancy Latimer, senior program officers; Kathleen Rysted, manager of information systems and research programs; Gayle Thorsen, communications director; Noa Staryk, chair of the Board of Directors; Virginia M. Binger, honorary chair.

TINKER FOUNDATION

55 East 59th Street
New York, N.Y. 10022
(212) 421-6858
http://fdncenter.org/grantmaker/tinker

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2000.

Purpose and areas of support: Edward Larocque Tinker, a biographer and novelist, created the foundation in 1959 to promote the study of subjects germane to Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). It subsequently expanded its focus to include Antarctica.

In 2000 the foundation awarded 68 grants totaling $3,229,425, most of which fell into the program areas of economic policy, environmental policy, and governance. The foundation also promotes collaboration among groups in the United States, Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.

Economic-policy awards included $50,000 to Fundación de Investigaciones Económicas Latinoamericanas, in Buenos Aires, to study Argentina’s ability to compete in the global economy.

Grantees in the environmental category included the Center for the Support of Native Lands, in Arlington, Va., which received $25,000 to update a 1992 map of Central America that depicts indigenous populations, forests and who owns them, and rates of deforestation.

Other allocations in the environmental category included the final installment of a two-year, $100,000 grant to the New York-based Rainforest Alliance, to analyze the cut-flower industry in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador; and $120,000 over two years to the Rare Center for Tropical Conservation, in Arlington, Va., to start up the Mesoamerican Ecotourism Alliance, which develops practical ways to support ecotourism that directly benefit protected areas and the people who live in neighboring areas.

Governance grants focused on judicial and political change, education, economic growth, reducing crime, and strengthening philanthropic institutions. For example, a $65,000 award to Instituto Apoyo, in Lima, Peru, supported a project to improve the functioning of Peru’s judiciary and congress, and a two-year, $113,000 grant to New School University, in New York, helped the school examine education reform in Nicaragua.

Universities and consortiums received a total of $175,000 in field-research grants to enable graduate students to carry out pre-dissertation research in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. These field-research grants are available to recognized centers or institutes of Ibero-American or Latin-American studies with graduate doctoral programs at accredited U.S. universities.

Application procedure: The deadlines for applications are March 1 and September 1; field-research grants are due before October 1. However, the foundation encourages submission well in advance of those dates. Additional information is available at the foundation’s Web site or by calling the phone number above. Proposals must be written in English.

Key officials: Renate Rennie, president; Nancy Sherwood Truitt, senior adviser; Margaret J. Cushing, associate program officer; Martha T. Muse, chairman of the Board of Directors.