Foundation Annual Reports

BALTIMORE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
2 East Read Street, Ninth Floor
Baltimore 21202
(410) 332-4171

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

This community foundation was established in 1972. It makes grants to benefit residents of greater Baltimore, including in Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties.

The foundation makes competitive grants in three program areas: art and culture, children and families, and community development. The grant money comes from the foundation’s unrestricted funds, which totaled 24 percent of its assets last year, plus from numerous funds set up by donors interested in supporting projects in those fields.

Grant making in the art and culture category primarily financed organizations in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon Cultural District, with a particular focus on arts education. A total of $200,000 went to 24 Baltimore arts groups to perform or to conduct workshops in public schools.

Grants in the children and families category included $10,000 to Advocates for Children and Youth, in Baltimore, to develop standards for outstanding after-school programs. The foundation also awarded $90,000 to be divided among 27 organizations to send disabled children and kids from low-income families to camp.

Grants for community development concentrated on projects in the Homewood and East Baltimore neighborhoods. The foundation’s Baltimore County Citizens Fund disbursed a total of $65,734 to 11 community-based groups for improvements to parks and playgrounds.

Other grants included $37,000 over three years to hire a managing director at the Everyman Theatre, and $10,000 to Sinai Health System to provide care to uninsured patients, especially to those who are addicted to drugs.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should call the foundation and speak to a program officer before submitting a proposal. The foundation accepts grant applications from organizations in the greater Baltimore region that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It does not make grants for individuals, capital or annual-fund campaigns, religious purposes, or operating support, with the exception of start-up grants.

Key officials: Timothy D. Armbruster, president; Charles E. Cross, director of finance and administration; Constance R. Caplan, chair of the Art and Culture Committee; Suzanne F. Cohen, chair of the Children and Families Committee; George L. Bunting Jr., chair of the Community Development Committee; Diane Glauber, program officer; Anne G. King, director of marketing and development; Anne Ross Knoeller, director of marketing and development; Gigi Casey Wirtz, communications officer; Walter D. Pinkard Jr., chairman of the Board of Trustees.

KOCH FOUNDATION

2830 N.W. 41st Street
Suite H
Gainesville, Fla. 32606
(352) 373-7491

Period covered: Year ending March 31, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support:

Carl Koch, a Florida businessman, and his wife, Paula, established the foundation in 1979. Its mission is to spread the presence of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide.

Grants are made domestically and internationally in five program areas: capital improvements to churches and missions, the education of evangelists, evangelical programs, Roman Catholic schools and higher education, and the promotion of the church in the news media.

Grants for capital support accounted for $3.6-million in 1998-99, the most money spent in any program area. None of those grants exceeded $25,000, and 302 institutions in the United States and abroad received funds to build churches or to purchase equipment related to missionary work.

Last year the foundation awarded 179 grants totaling nearly $3-million to educate clerics, lay people, and missionaries. The majority of these grants ranged from $10,000 to $20,000; the exception was an award of $300,000 to The Society for the Propagation of the Faith, in New York.

The foundation disbursed 199 grants totaling $2.5-million for evangelical activities in the United States and abroad. Missions in dozens of foreign nations, including India, Peru, and the Philippines, received grants of up to $20,000.

The foundation awards grants to educational institutions in areas where those organizations “are the primary means of evangelization.” Last year 75 organizations — among them the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, and Pope John Paul II Elementary School, in Clifton, N.J. — received funds totaling $1-million.

The foundation’s largest grant in the education category was $30,000 to the Diocese of St. Augustine, in Jacksonville, Fla., for the “Guardian of Dreams” organization — a coalition of Roman Catholic elementary schools on the city’s north side that enroll primarily minority students from poor families.

The foundation’s mass-media program promotes Catholicism through print publications, radio, and television. The foundation awarded a total of $628,000 to 32 organizations, including $25,000 to support Catholic News Service, in Washington.

Most of the foundation’s grants are for $10,000 to $20,000. Besides the award of $300,000 listed above, the only other grant of six figures was $100,000 to Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore, to support the U.S. Catholic Conference, which advises Catholic bishops.

Application procedure: The foundation accepts requests for applications each year from January 1 to May 31. Potential applicants should request an application form by writing to Mary J. Hughes at the address above. Faxed requests are not accepted. If the proposed program takes place outside the United States, applicants must include in the grant-application request the country and diocese where it will take place and the name of a non-profit organization in the United States that will be responsible for distributing funds.

Key officials: Mary J. Hughes, executive director; Carolyn L. Bomberger, president and treasurer of the Board of Directors.

CORPORATIONS

DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION FUND
1000 Chrysler Drive
Auburn Hills, Mich. 48326-2766
(248) 512-2502

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

The Chrysler Fund, the charitable arm of the automobile maker, started its grant making in 1953 with an $8,000 award to the Boy Scouts of America. The fund assumed its current title when Daimler-Benz and the Chrysler Corporation merged in 1998.

The fund supports non-profit organizations in U.S. cities and towns where DaimlerChrysler employees live and work. In 1998 it distributed most of its funds in the following program areas: community vitality, which received $13-million; future workforce, which received $9.1-million; public policy, which received $1.7-million; and involved employees, which received $1.5-million.

The “community vitality” category supports arts, neighborhood-development, and social-services programs, with an emphasis on projects that benefit poor people.

Grants in this area included continuing support to the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, in Detroit, to help it coordinate an outreach program of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Over the course of four weeks, dancers from the company conducted classes and discussed their backgrounds with students, many of whom were from poor families. In 1998 the dance company’s residency program visited 57 schools in Michigan.

The fund’s “future workforce” program primarily supports undergraduate or graduate schools of business and engineering or major departments that specialize in automotive design. In 1998 the fund established the Walter P. Chrysler Manufacturing Technology Academy at Oakland Community College, in Michigan.

Grants made in the public-policy category support non-profit groups that seek to increase the number of minorities who have jobs and who work in areas such as traffic safety and the environment.

In its “involved employees” program area, the fund operates a matching-gift program for its workers as well as volunteer programs — such as a robotics competition at Walt Disney World that paired teams of university students and DaimlerChrysler engineers.

Application procedure: Applicants must be organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and should send a two- to three-page letter that outlines the following: the scope of the proposed program, the expected outcome, the people to benefit, and how the program fits into any of the program areas listed above.

In addition, the fund requests written information on how the organization will sustain the program when support from the DaimlerChrysler Corporation stops, and on what the organization will expect of the company in the future. The letter also should include a copy of the organization’s letter from the I.R.S. recognizing tax-exempt status, and the organization’s most recent annual report. The fund does not support individuals, endowments, capital campaigns, fund-raising activites related to individual sponsorship, or disease-specific organizations.

Key officials: W. Frank Fountain, president; Stephanie W. Bergeron, vice president and treasurer; Lynn A. Feldhouse, vice president and secretary; E.S. (Steve) Harris, controller; Robert J. Eaton and Jurgen E. Schrempp, chairmen of DaimlerChrysler AG.