Foundation Annual Reports

ARTHUR M. BLANK FAMILY FOUNDATION
3223 Howell Mill Road, N.W.
Atlanta, Ga. 30327
(404) 367-2100
http://www.blankfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1995 by Arthur M. Blank, co-founder of Home Depot, the home-improvement chain, and owner of the Atlanta Falcons football team. The fund is set up as a nonprofit trust and, unlike an endowed foundation, it receives annual contributions and distributes most of that money during a given year. Mr. Blank makes virtually all the contributions.

In 2006 the foundation approved new grants totaling $23,273,793. Geographically, most grants go to nonprofit groups in Atlanta and two other regions where the Blank family has “deep roots”: Maricopa County, Ariz., and Beaufort County, S.C.

Grant making currently revolves around four major program areas.

Through Better Beginnings, the foundation seeks to improve learning among poor children age 5 and younger. Awards included $450,000 to the Center for the Study of Social Policy, in Washington, to work with child-care programs in Atlanta to optimize child development while helping low-income parents avoid abuse and neglect.

The Pathways to Success program stresses efforts to expand disadvantaged teenagers’ access to college and other opportunities beyond high school. For example, a four-year $350,400 grant went to the Atlanta Workforce Development Agency to provide scholarships and internships to high-school seniors attending Atlanta public schools.

The foundation’s Inspiring Spaces program supports projects to preserve and increase green space and parks in metropolitan Atlanta. The Path Foundation, in Atlanta, received $1.5-million over two years to build five trail segments that will connect residential areas and parks to the Beltline, a proposed 22-mile loop of walking trails, parks, and urban transit.

The Art of Change program strives to make the arts available to all Atlanta residents, particularly through the construction of a new home for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that will act as a venue not only for music performances but also for music-education and community-based events. The foundation also supports the orchestra’s Talent Development Program, which provides weekly lessons, mentorships, and related activities for black and Latino students who are musically talented.

During 2006 the foundation also made 50 discretionary grants, including $500,000 over three years to the Marcus Jewish Community Center, in Dunwoody, Ga., for its annual campaign, and $10,000 to the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center, in Phoenix, for a vocational program.

The Blank Foundation has two affiliated funds: the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation, which awards grants throughout Georgia to encourage youth fitness and combat child obesity, and the Mountain Sky Guest Ranch Fund, which makes grants to benefit children and other residents of Montana’s Gallatin and Park Counties.

Application procedure: Inquiries about initiatives or programs related to the foundation’s specific goals may be sent via e-mail to grantinquiries@ambfo.com. Potential applicants should first carefully review the descriptions and geographic locations of the foundation’s programs before sending a query, and messages should not exceed one paragraph in length.

Key officials: Penelope McPhee, president; John Bare, vice president for sports philanthropy and affiliated funds; Elise Eplan, vice president for special initiatives; Margaret Connelly, program director; Tjuan Dogan, senior program officer for Pathways to Success; Arthur M. Blank, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
P.O. Box 23350
Seattle, Wash. 98102
(206) 709-3100
http://www.gatesfoundation.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation has existed in its current form since January 2000, following the merger of two funds endowed by Bill Gates, the chairman and chief software architect of the Microsoft Corporation, and his wife, Melinda French Gates. The Gates foundation is completely independent of Microsoft, which operates its own corporate-giving programs.

The foundation was already the world’s largest philanthropy when Warren E. Buffett, the investor and philanthropist, pledged 10 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock worth more than $30-billion to the fund in June 2006, essentially doubling its size. Mr. Buffett stipulated that his yearly payment to the Gates foundation should be spent the same year it is awarded; as a result, the foundation’s grant making will jump from approximately $1.6-billion in 2006 to a projected $3.2-billion by 2009.

Moreover, the foundation announced that it has set a timeline for its eventual closure, based on the proviso that operations will cease 50 years after the last of its three current trustees — Bill and Melinda Gates and Mr. Buffett — dies.

The Gates foundation also streamlined its giving, and now allocates grants through three program divisions: global health, which received payments of $916.3-million last year; the United States, $475.9-million; and global development, $170.3-million.

The formerly separate education and Pacific Northwest programs are now under the aegis of the U.S. program division, and the global-libraries program has been subsumed under the global-development division.

The global-health division’s overarching goal is to help ensure that lifesaving advances in health are created and then shared with people in developing countries. Grant making emphasizes such areas as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, reproductive health, and the health status of infants and children, as well as research on “forgotten diseases” such as African sleeping sickness, hookworm, and visceral leishmaniasis that still afflict millions of poor people worldwide.

As a member of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, the foundation awarded grants totaling $287-million for efforts to accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine and to establish standardized laboratory protocols so that researchers can better compare results and coordinate their efforts.

The U.S. program currently stresses efforts to expand high-quality education, to benefit disadvantaged families and children in the Pacific Northwest, and to help public libraries that serve low-income people provide patrons with free computer and Internet access.

For example, the Gates Millennium Scholarship program, which provides low-income minority students with scholarships to college and graduate school, announced a $58-million expansion that will allow additional recipients to pursue graduate degrees in public health.

Grants through the new global-development division emphasized innovative ways to bring cost-effective loans and other financial services to poor people in Africa and Asia, and the creation of a partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation designed to help African farmers increase and diversify the crops they grow while also improving their access to markets.

The foundation, which now has approximately 450 employees, is building an expanded headquarters facility on 12 acres near the Seattle Center that should be ready for occupancy in 2010. It also maintains smaller offices in Washington and Delhi, India.

Application procedure: The foundation awards the majority of its grants to institutions selected by its program teams. Detailed information on grant-making processes, emphases, and limitations is available on the foundation’s Web site.

Key officials: Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and William H. Gates Sr., co-chairs; Patty Stonesifer, chief executive officer; Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president, global-development program; Allan C. Golston, president, U.S. program; Tadataka Yamada, president, global-health program; Cheryl Scott, chief operating officer; Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren E. Buffett, trustees.

NEW YORK COMMUNITY TRUST
909 Third Avenue, 22nd Floor
New York, N.Y. 10022
(212) 686-0010
http://www.nycommunitytrust.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 2006.

Purpose and areas of support: The New York Community Trust, established in 1924 by a group of local bankers, is the nation’s second-wealthiest community foundation, surpassed only by the Tulsa Community Foundation. The trust oversees more than 1,800 individual funds, and awards most of its grants to nonprofit groups located in — and serving — New York City’s five boroughs.

As of last year, 50 percent of the trust’s funds were unrestricted or donor-advised; 32 percent were field-of-interest; 13 percent were designated; and 5 percent went to support scholarships.

The trust allocated grants totaling $157-million through its four program areas: education, arts, and the humanities, which garnered 43 percent of grant dollars; community development and the environment, 22 percent; children, youths, and families, 18 percent; and health and people with special needs, 16 percent. The remaining 1 percent of grant dollars went to special projects.

The program on education, arts, and the humanities concentrates on support for arts and cultural projects, particularly those that stress diversity; civil rights, criminal justice, and racial and ethnic harmony; historic preservation, particularly in low-income and minority neighborhoods and the boroughs outside Manhattan; and public education in New York City.

Allocations included $100,000 over two years to the Brooklyn Museum for the First Saturdays program, which offers dancing, movies, music, and theater to local residents in addition to introducing them to the museum’s collection.

Community-development grants emphasize civic affairs, including improving government functions and ensuring representative political processes; neighborhood revitalization; and technical assistance for nonprofit organizations. Environmental grants highlight support for efforts to improve the city’s solid-waste management, increase the number of parks and green spaces, clean up waterfronts and contaminated sites, and reduce air pollution and other environmental toxins.

For example, Upper Manhattan Together received $50,000 to train volunteers to identify environmental hazards at seven housing projects in that borough.

The trust’s children, youths, and families program awards grants in these categories: girls and young women, hunger and homelessness, social services and welfare, substance abuse, and youth development.

Grants for health projects and people with special needs stress six subject areas: AIDS, biomedical research, blindness and other vision problems, disabled children and youths, mental health and retardation, and health services, systems, and policies. Awards include $85,000 to the Maimonides Medical Center to add health-care services at three mental-health clinics in Brooklyn.

Application procedure: Potential applicants should first request the foundation’s “Guidelines for Grant Applicants” publication and one or more of the brochures that provide detailed descriptions of the four program areas. The foundation also suggests that potential applicants review copies of its grants newsletter, which provides examples of the types of grants the foundation is currently making. These materials are available on its Web site.

Key officials: Lorie A. Slutsky, president; Joyce M. Bove, senior vice president; Robert V. Edgar, vice president of donor relations; Mercedes M. Leon, vice president of administration; Kit Conroy, chief financial officer; Mary Z. Greenebaum, chief investment officer; Ani F. Hurwitz, director of communications; Liza Lagunoff, grants administrator; Samuel S. Polk, chairman of the Distribution Committee.

Program contacts: Patricia Jenny, program director for community development and the environment; Len McNally, program director for health and people with special needs; Jane R. Stern, program director for education, arts, and the humanities; Patricia A. White, senior program officer for children, youths, and families.