Foundation Annual Reports

FOUNDATION FOR THE CAROLINAS
1043 East Morehead Street, Suite 100
Charlotte, N.C. 28204
(704) 376-9541
World-Wide Web: http://www.fftc.org
Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1958 as the United Community Foundation; its initial service area was limited to Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, N.C. The organization’s name was changed to the Foundation for the Carolinas in 1984, and it now serves 13 counties in North and South Carolina.

In 1997, 140 new funds were established, for a total of approximately 1,000 constituent funds.

The new “Building a Better Future” program increases the foundation’s competitive grant making significantly; it was created through a bequest from Lucille P. Giles, a long-time supporter of the fund. Forty-two grants to taling nearly $2-million were awarded through the program, including $47,650 to the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County for an early-intervention bilingual reading program for Hispanic families.

The foundation also developed a new framework for competitive grant making over the next three years. Emphasis will be placed on helping at-risk families prepare their young children for kindergarten, encouraging personal and economic self-sufficiency, expanding programs on diversity, and increasing civic participation.

Other grant programs include the African American Community Endowment Fund and H.I.V./AIDS Consortium Grants. The fund also manages 45 scholarship funds, which allocated more than $475,000 to 354 students.

Application procedure: Contact the foundation for application and deadline information.

Key officials: William L. Spencer, president; Marilyn M. Bradbury, vice-president for grants; Judy L. Kerns, vice-president for administration; Robert W. Morris, vice-president for development; McCray V. Benson, vice-president for regional services; Charity L. Perkins, vice-president for communications; Eric W. Law and Cathryn C. Sleva, program officers; Charles T. Davidson, chairman of the Board of Directors.

ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
Route One and College Road East
P.O. Box 2316
Princeton, N.J. 08543-2316
(609) 452-8701
World-Wide Web: http://www.rwjf.org
Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1936 and became national in scope in 1972; it finances programs and research to improve health care in the United States.

In 1997, the fund allocated 970 grants, 71 contracts, and 3 program-related investments totaling $330.9-million in the following areas: $139.1-million or 42 per cent went for programs to insure access to health care for all Americans at a reasonable cost; $110.2-million or 33 per cent for programs that promote health and reduce health and social problems associated with tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs; $64.5-million or 20 per cent for programs to improve services to people with chronic health conditions; and $17.1-million or 5 per cent for various other programs, principally in the New Brunswick, N.J., area, where the foundation originated.

In mid-1996, the foundation’s former program to contain escalating medical costs was folded into the other three main program areas.

In the area of health-care access, the foundation authorized $14.5-million for the first phase of the Southern Rural Access Program, which will work in eight states — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, eastern Texas, and West Virginia — to develop a cadre of primary-care professionals committed to working in rural, underserved areas.

A three-year grant totaling $9,750,000 went to Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., for the Access Project, a program designed to help communities protect or improve access to health-care services for uninsured and disadvantaged people.

The foundation also authorized $35-million over two years to continue the work of its “Health Tracking” program, a study of changes in health services and conditions in 60 communities nationwide.

In the area of substance abuse, the foundation unveiled “Surveillance of Youth Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use,” a $20.5-million nationwide program to be conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

Other grants included $5,998,963 over three years to Columbia University in New York for the work of its National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

In the area of chronic health conditions, the “Independent Choices” program — which promotes consumer-directed home- and community-based services — awarded 13 grants totaling nearly $3-million.

The foundation authorized $12-million for the new “Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care” program, which seeks to provide dying patients with better pain management, hospice services, and more control over medical and other decisions.

Application procedure: The foundation publishes and distributes calls for proposals and national program announcements that provide eligibility criteria and application guidelines. Institutions wishing to apply for funds for unsolicited projects are advised to submit a preliminary letter of inquiry, rather than a fully developed proposal. The letter should be written on the organization’s letterhead, should not exceed five typewritten pages, and should include an executive summary; a brief description of the problem to be tackled, including evidence of its importance; a description of the proposed project, including its principal objectives and expected outcomes, its components or methodology, its timetable, how its results will be distributed, and its risks and limitations; a budget or an estimate of what the project would cost; and the qualifications of the institution and the project’s principal personnel to implement the project. If a full proposal is requested, the foundation will provide specific instructions on how to draft it and what information should be included. In general, the foundation gives preference to applicants that are public agencies or tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and not private foundations as defined under Section 509(a). Letters of inquiry should be addressed to Richard Toth, Director, Office of Proposal Management. For a copy of the foundation’s complete Guidelines for Grant Applicants, write to the address above or contact the fund by e-mail at publications@rwjf.org.

Key officials: Steven A. Schroeder, president; Lewis G. Sandy, executive vice-president; Ruby P. Hearn, senior vice-president; J. Warren Wood III, vice-president, general counsel, and secretary; Peter Goodwin, vice-president and treasurer; Frank Karel, vice-president for communications; James R. Knickman, vice-president for evaluation and research; Gregory Pogue, vice-president of administration; Robert G. Hughes, Paul S. Jellinek, Nancy J. Kaufman, and Doriane Miller, vice-presidents; Sidney F. Wentz, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Senior program officers: Marilyn Aguirre-Molina, Nancy L. Barrand, David C. Colby, Pamela S. Dickson, Seth Emont, Rosemary Gibson, Susan B. Hassmiller, C. Tracy Orleans, Rush L. Russell, and Beth A. Stevens.

JOYCE FOUNDATION
Three First National Plaza
70 West Madison Street, Suite 2750
Chicago, Ill. 60602
(312) 782-2464
e-mail: info@joycefdn.org
Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1948 by Beatrice Joyce Kean of Chicago, whose fortune was based on lumber and sawmill interests inherited from her family.

In 1997, 235 grants totaling $35,458,062 were appropriated in these program areas: education, which received $11,438,683; the environment, $8,110,612; employment, $7,623,930; money and politics, $4,027,564; gun violence, $2,392,591; culture, $802,000; and special opportunities and grants from the President’s Discretionary Fund, $1,062,682.

The foundation makes grants primarily in the Great Lakes region, which encompasses Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. A limited number of environmental grants are made to organizations in Canada. Cultural grants are restricted to organizations operating in metropolitan Chicago.

The foundation increased substantially the amount it spent on the education program, up from $6.1-million the previous fiscal year. Grant making continued to emphasize improving public elementary- through high-school education in Chicago — and, to a lesser extent, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee — and the state systems within which those districts operate. Emphasis is placed on six issues: equitable and adequate financing of public schools, improved policies and mechanisms for assessing student and school performance, school restructuring, teacher professional development, the effective and equitable use of technology, and cultural diversity within the context of school reform.

Environmental grants focus on projects to protect and improve water quality and the overall ecosystem in the Great Lakes region, to reduce the use of toxic substances in agriculture and manufacturing, to develop more-efficient transportation and energy systems that limit the use of pollution-generating fossil fuels, and to develop a strong regional network of environmental groups working on those issues.

The foundation nearly doubled its support for employment-related grants from the previous year. It emphasizes efforts to affect public policy on work-force development and welfare reform.

The foundation’s project on money and politics supports efforts to promote campaign-finance reform through state-based projects in the Midwest that combine research, data analysis, policy development, citizen activism, and outreach. It also promotes improved news coverage of the issue, greater public disclosure and improved enforcement of campaign-finance laws, and research and litigation on constitutional standards that restrict the power of state legislatures to regulate campaign-finance practices.

The program on gun violence focuses on death and injury from firearms as a public-health, rather than a purely criminal, problem, and promotes strategies that emphasize prevention rather than relying solely on punishment.

Application procedure: Before submitting a formal proposal, prospective applicants should send to the appropriate staff member a two- to three-page letter that briefly describes the proposed project and its goals, how it relates to the foundation’s interests, the target audience and beneficiaries, the estimated budget and duration, and plans for evaluating and disseminating its findings. All letters of inquiry are reviewed by a program officer, who will tell the prospective applicant whether the project falls within program guidelines and should be developed into a formal proposal. Applicants are encouraged to submit letters of inquiry four to six weeks before the proposal deadline so that there is ample time to discuss the project. Grant proposals are considered at board meetings in March, July, and November; deadlines for forthcoming grant cycles are August 14 for the November meeting and December 15 for the March 1999 meeting. Applicants are encouraged to submit their proposals for the March or July meetings, since most grant funds are distributed at those times.

Key officials: Deborah Leff, president; Lawrence N. Hansen, vice-president; Linda K. Schelinski, vice-president of administration; Ellen S. Alberding, program officer and investment officer; Peter T. Mich, program officer and technology officer; Mary M. O’Connell, communications officer; John T. Anderson, chairman of the Board of Directors.

Program contacts: Ellen S. Alberding (culture), Warren K. Chapman (education), Lawrence N. Hansen (money and politics), Julia Klee (environment), Deborah Leff (gun violence), Reginald Lewis (education), Peter T. Mich (education), Kara Kellaher Mikulich (employment), Margaret H. O’Dell (environment), and Unmi Song (employment).