Foundation Annual Reports

BROWN FOUNDATION
P.O. Box 130646
Houston 77219-0646
(713) 523-6867
http://www.brownfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending June 30, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support:

Herman and George R. Brown, brothers who founded the construction company Brown & Root, and their respective wives, Margarett Root Brown and Alice Pratt Brown, established this foundation in 1951. Roughly 80 percent of its grants go for programs in Texas, with an emphasis on metropolitan Houston.

In 1998-99, the foundation awarded grants totaling $55.4-million in the following areas: medicine and science, which received $18.6-million, or 34 percent; arts and humanities, $13.5-million, or 24 percent; education, $8.9-million, or 16 percent; human services, $7.6-million, or 14 percent; and civic and public affairs, $6.8-million, or 12 percent.

The largest grant was $25-million over five years to Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, to establish the Brain and Behavior Clinical Institute.

Arts grants included $500,000 to Inprint, a Houston literary group, to provide fellowships to students in the University of Houston’s creative-writing program.

Awards made in other program areas included $4-million to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, in Austin, for educational programs and to endow its Environmental Education Center.

Grants made to organizations outside of Texas included $1-million to United World College of the American West, in Montezuma, N.M., for a program to improve teaching in public schools.

Although the foundation continues to award grants within the program areas listed above, the report notes that current interests focus on education at the elementary and secondary levels, with an emphasis on innovative ways to improve public education in Texas. The visual and performing arts also rank as high priorities for current grant making.

Application procedure: The trustees will consider grant requests only from tax-exempt organizations described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and classified as public charities within the meaning of Section 509(a), or from governmental units described in Section 170 of the tax code. Contact the foundation’s grants office or view its Web site for information on what to include in a proposal. The foundation makes no grants to individuals, and it does not support religious projects, fund-raising events, political lobbying, other private foundations, or debt relief.

Key officials: Nancy Pittman, executive director; M.S. Stude, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

EDNA McCONNELL CLARK FOUNDATION

250 Park Avenue
New York 10177-0026
(212) 551-9100
http://fdncenter.org/grantmaker/emclark

Period covered: Year ending September 30, 1999.

Purpose and areas of support:

Edna McConnell Clark, whose father started the cosmetics company that became Avon Products, established the foundation in 1950 with her husband, Van Alan Clark.

In late 1999, the foundation revised its grant making, halting programs in justice and tropical-disease research to give higher priority to four areas it has long supported: children, neighborhoods in New York City, student achievement, and youth development.

This annual report chronicles the final awards made under the foundation’s old grant-making structure.

In 1998-99, the foundation allocated grants as follows: children, $5.1-million; justice, $3.7-million; New York neighborhoods, $3.6-million; student achievement, $3.4-million; tropical-disease research, $3.0-million; youth development, $1.6-million; the Venture Fund, $1.5-million; and other programs, $0.8-million.

The children’s program works to safeguard youngsters from abuse and neglect by establishing partnerships between child-protective-services agencies, community-based organizations, families, government agencies, and schools.

The foundation transferred operations of its justice program to the University of Minnesota Law School in September 1996. Last year, however, foundation trustees redirected $3.7-million to the Vera Institute of Justice, in New York, for a project to improve sentencing and corrections in several states.

The neighborhoods program seeks improvements in living conditions in central Harlem and the South Bronx. Through its Neighborhood Partners Initiative, the foundation finances projects coordinated by five community-based organizations in those regions.

The student-achievement program works with four urban school districts — in Corpus Christi, Tex.; Long Beach, Calif.; Louisville, Ky.; and San Diego — to reform middle-school education.

In 1999 the foundation suspended its grant making in tropical-diseases research. The International Trachoma Initiative, in New York — an organization the foundation created in 1998 with Pfizer Inc. — became independent in July 1999. The foundation will continue to support the trachoma group, through which it funneled the majority of its tropical-disease grants last year, but it is assessing whether to continue its own program to eliminate tropical diseases.

The goal of the youth-development program is to increase the number and quality of academic, social, and vocational activities for school-aged youths. Grants included $350,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, in Philadelphia, for its campaign to recruit more black men to be mentors.

Through the Venture Fund, the foundation investigates possible new areas for future grant making and assesses and disseminates lessons from its current grant making.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should read the foundation’s grant guidelines, which are available by mail and from its Web site. Applicants should then write a letter that describes the purpose of the grant, the proposed activity, key participants, and an estimate of the budget and time frame. The letter should be addressed to the appropriate program director, who may ask for more information and a formal proposal. The foundation primarily supports organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It does not consider proposals for capital purposes, endowments, deficit operations, scholarships, or grants to individuals.

Key officials: Michael A. Bailin, president; David Hunter, director of the office of assessments; Nancy Roob, director of institution and field building; Joanne Edgar, director of the office of communications; Ralph Stefano, director of finance and administration; Edward C. Schmults, chair of the Board of Trustees.

Program directors: M. Hayes Mizell (student achievement), Susan J. Notkin (children), Pamela Stevens (youth development), and Deborah Thompson (New York neighborhoods).

WHITAKER FOUNDATION

1700 North Moore Street
Suite 2200
Rosslyn, Va. 22209
http://www.whitaker.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support:

The foundation was created in 1975 from a bequest by U. A. Whitaker, founder of AMP, a manufacturer of electrical connectors. Its mission is to improve human health through biomedical engineering.

In 1998 the foundation awarded grants totaling $52.9-million through 10 competitive grants programs that support biomedical-engineering research and education.

The largest of those programs awarded roughly 100 grants totaling $16.1-million to aid investigators in the United States and Canada who are conducting biomedical-engineering research. Scientists receiving funds worked on such projects as “cementless” hip implants and nerve regeneration.

The foundation awarded $12.9-million through its Special Opportunity Awards program, which emphasizes biomedical-engineering education. For example, the University of Alabama at Birmingham received $999,064 to establish a comprehensive educational program on biomedical devices.

In addition, the foundation awarded graduate fellowships totaling $4.6-million.

The foundation also operates programs in Harrisburg, Pa., and Naples, Fla., through which it makes small grants geared to improving the lives of residents there.

The foundation plans to spend down its assets and cease operations by the end of 2006.

Application procedure: Contact the foundation to obtain more-detailed descriptions of its program goals and restrictions, and of its guidelines for submitting applications.

Key officials: Miles J. Gibbons Jr., chief executive officer and president; Peter G. Katona, president, biomedical-engineering programs; John H. Linehan, vice president, biomedical-engineering programs; Wolf W. von Maltzahn, program director; Frank N. Blanchard, director of communications; Jennifer L. Mizroch, grants administrator; G. Burtt Holmes, chairman of the Governing Committee.