Foundation Annual Reports

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR PALM BEACH AND MARTIN COUNTIES

324 Datura Street, Suite 340
West Palm Beach, Fla. 33401-5431
(561) 659-6800
http://www.yourcommunityfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 2000.

Purpose and areas of support: Established in 1972, this community foundation comprises more than 150 individual donor funds.

In 1999-2000, the foundation allocated discretionary grants to approximately 120 nonprofit groups in Florida’s Palm Beach and Martin Counties. Program areas included arts and culture, community development, conservation and preservation, education, the environment, health and human services, human and race relations, and intergenerational activities.

Awards included $25,000 to the Care & Share Foundation, in Lake Park, for its Dress for Success program, which helps low-income women prepare for job interviews, and $10,000 to Florida Stage, in Manalapan, to expand its Young Voices program for students with disabilities.

The Mary and Robert Pew Public Education Fund, a supporting organization of the foundation, completed its second full fiscal year of operation. It awarded grants totaling $3.4-million to more than a dozen schools to support professional-development activities for teachers and principals, to establish pre-kindergarten programs, and to provide field trips for disadvantaged children.

In May 2000, scholarships totaling $299,850 were awarded to 81 graduating high-school seniors and college students.

Application procedure: For information, guidelines, and application materials, call the Programs Department at (561) 659-6800 or toll free in Florida at (888) 853-4438. Guidelines and application forms can also be downloaded from the foundation’s Web site at http://www.yourcommunityfoundation.org. The deadlines for proposals are February 1 and October 1.

Key officials: Shannon Sadler, president; Beverly Pope Sears, executive vice president and chief operating officer; Danielle M. Cameron, vice president for donor services; Elivio Serrano, vice president for programs; Michele G. Veil, director of finance; Douglas R. Pugh, program officer; Gibbie Nauman, communications and special-events coordinator; Louise P. Grant, executive director, Mary and Robert Pew Public Education Fund; John B. Dodge, chair of the Board of Directors.

WILLIAM AND FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION

525 Middlefield Road, Suite 200
Menlo Park, Calif. 94025-3495
(650) 329-1070
http://www.hewlett.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1966 by the Palo Alto industrialist William R. Hewlett, his late wife, Flora Lamson Hewlett, and their eldest son, Walter B. Hewlett. It has no connection to the Hewlett-Packard Company or to any of that company’s philanthropic activities.

The foundation has no geographic limitations stipulated in its charter. However, a percentage of its disbursable funds is earmarked for projects in the San Francisco Bay region.

In 1999, the foundation authorized grants totaling $90.5-million in seven major program areas: population, which received $28.3-million; education, $12.6-million; conflict resolution, $9.4-million; environment, $8.5-million; family and community development, $8.0-million; performing arts, $7.9-million; and U.S.-Latin American relations, $5.6-million. In addition, “collaborative” grants received $5.6-million and special projects received $4.6-million.

The population program is global in scope and focuses on three priorities: increasing the involvement of public and private groups, the news media, and educational institutions in population issues; improving the delivery of family-planning and reproductive-health services; and evaluating the effect of educational and economic-development activities on fertility rates. Awards are made mainly to U.S.-based groups, but there are no geographic limitations on support for research, family-planning projects, or training.

Grants included $900,000 to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, in Washington, and $250,000 to the International Rescue Committee, in New York, for the Reproductive Health for Refugees project.

Grants in the education program are made to “promote long-term institutional development, reform, or renewal” within higher education in the United States and within elementary and secondary education in the San Francisco Bay area and, in select instances, for California-wide policy development. New grants included $450,000 to the Association of American Colleges and Universities for programs to encourage pluralism and encourage discussion of racial issues and $375,000 to the New Haven Unified School District, in Union City, for the teacher-development component of the district’s education-reform program.

The conflict-resolution program favors general-support awards to strengthen conflict-resolution organizations and research centers. Grants are made in six categories: theory development; practitioner organizations; promotion of the field; consensus building, public participation, and policy making; international conflict resolution; and emerging issues. New grants included $800,000 to the Policy Consensus Initiative, in Santa Fe, N.M., and $50,000 to the Foundation for a Civil Society, in New York, for its Project on Justice in Times of Transition.

Environment-related grants are allocated primarily to organizations working on issues that affect ecosystems in the North American West — Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming — and the western provinces of Canada and the six northern states of Mexico that border the United States.

The family- and community-development program emphasizes selected efforts to improve the quality of life for low-income families and the livability of distressed neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay area. Grants included $220,000 to the Spanish Speaking Unity Council, in Oakland, for the Fruitvale Neighborhood Economic Self-Sufficiency Project.

Detailed guidelines for all program areas are available on the foundation’s Web site at http://www.hewlett.org.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should first send a letter of inquiry, addressed to the president, containing a brief statement of the need for funds and enough factual information to enable staff members to determine whether or not the application falls within the foundation’s areas of interest or warrants consideration as a special project. There is no fixed minimum or maximum with respect to the size of grants made; applicants should provide a straightforward statement of financial need, taking into account other possible sources of support. All inquiries are reviewed first by the appropriate program officer, who may request further information and a formal proposal. Letters of inquiry will be acknowledged upon receipt, but because the foundation prefers to operate with a small staff, a detailed response may in some cases be delayed. Applicants who have not had a substantive reply after a reasonable period of time should feel free to make a follow-up inquiry.

Key officials: Paul Brest, president; Marianne Pallotti, vice president and corporate secretary; William F. Nichols, treasurer; Susan Alexander, manager of grants-management systems; Walter B. Hewlett, chairman of the Board of Directors; William R. Hewlett, chairman emeritus.

Program officers: Raymond F. Bacchetti (education), Melanie Beene (performing arts), Michael L. Fischer (the environment), David E. Lorey (U.S.-Latin American relations), Alvertha Bratton Penny (family and community development), J. Joseph Speidel (population), and B. Stephen Toben (conflict resolution).

HENRY LUCE FOUNDATION

111 West 50th Street, Room 4601
New York 10020
(212) 489-7700
http://www.hluce.org

Period covered: Two years ending December 31, 1999. (Financial data are for year ending December 31, 1999.)

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor in chief of Time Inc., who died in 1967. It makes project grants in six areas: American art, East Asia, higher education, public affairs, public policy, and theology. The foundation also operates several special programs, including the Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in Science and the Henry R. Luce Professorship Program.

The foundation’s interests in Asia, education, and theology stem from the fact that Henry R. Luce’s father and mother, Henry Winters Luce and Elizabeth R. Luce, were Presbyterian missionary educators in China, arriving in 1897.

East Asian programs currently focus on three areas. The Luce Fund for Asian Studies is a new, $12-million effort to strengthen the study of Asia at leading American liberal-arts colleges. The Luce Scholars Program provides 18 Americans annually with one-year internships in Asia; students are nominated from a network of 67 invited colleges and universities. And Asia project grants emphasize research and faculty development, cultural and scholarly exchange, language and library programs, and policy studies.

In the theology program, 58 grants totaling more than $11-million were allocated. Nineteen seminaries and divinity schools received grants, along with some 20 other institutions and organizations concerned with religious scholarship and pastoral education. The Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology Program, administered by the Association of Theological Schools, awards seven fellowships annually to full-time faculty members of accredited and candidate schools.

The prime objective of the program in American art is to expand awareness of, and scholarship in, the field of American visual art. It emphasizes three major areas: the Luce Fund in American Art, which finances scholarly exhibitions and publications and is open to all periods and genres of American art history; American Collections Enhancement, a special five-year program that will conclude at the end of 2000; and dissertation awards for doctoral research.

Higher-education grants support special scholarly or educational activities that fall outside the guidelines of the foundation’s other programs.

Public-affairs grants currently emphasize youth development and preparing talented disadvantaged students for higher education. For example, $75,000 went to the Horace Mann School in Bronx, N.Y., for a summer academic-enrichment program designed to place students at private schools.

In 1999, the program in public policy and the environment was spun off from the public-affairs program. Over the past two years, public-policy grants have focused on such topics as citizenship, immigration policy, taxation, youth violence, and the role of the United Nations. The new environmental initiative is restricted to invited colleges, universities, and environmental groups.

Application procedure: No special forms are required, although separate guidelines and deadlines exist for each program and special initiative. Every effort is made to respond to inquiries as quickly as possible, but many requests are received each year and only a limited number of projects can actually be financed. Requests for project grants can be submitted at any time; an initial letter of inquiry may be sent to the appropriate staff member to determine whether or not a project falls within the foundation’s guidelines. The foundation normally does not provide funds for endowments, capital campaigns, general operating support, or annual fund drives. No grants are made directly to individuals, with the exception of the Luce Scholars Program, which has predesignated criteria. For additional information, including guidelines for specific programs, consult the foundation’s Web site at http://www.hluce.org.

Key officials: Henry Luce III, chairman and chief executive officer; John W. Cook, president; Terrill E. Lautz, vice president and secretary; John P. Daley, vice president for administration and finance; Helene E. Redell, vice president; Suzanne W. Neuman, grants manager and special-projects director.

Program directors: Evelyn Benjamin (Clare Boothe Luce and public-affairs programs); Michael Gilligan (theology); Ellen Holtzman (the arts); Terrill E. Lautz (Asia and higher education); H. Christopher Luce (public policy and the environment); Helene E. Redell (Luce Scholars Program).