Foundation Annual Reports

HARTFORD FOUNDATION FOR PUBLIC GIVING
85 Gillett Street Hartford, Conn. 06105-9833
(860) 548-1888
World-Wide Web: http://www.hartnet.org/hfpg
Period covered: Year ending September 30, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: This community foundation was created in 1925; it makes both donor-advised and discretionary grants to organizations in Hartford, Conn., and 29 surrounding towns.

In 1997, grants totaling $15,918,476 were authorized as follows: family and social services received 40 per cent of grant dollars; education, 19 per cent; the arts and humanities, 14 per cent; health, 10 per cent; housing, employment, and neighborhood revitalization, 7 per cent; miscellaneous, 7 per cent; and special projects, 3 per cent.

In 1990, the foundation committed $10-million over 10 years to the Brighter Futures Initiative, which focuses on prenatal and early-childhood development. Awards in 1997 focused on parent-directed family-support centers, family-literacy and child-rearing programs, and a system for the early identification of developmentally delayed children.

Other grants in the family and social-services area emphasized child care, disabled people, domestic violence, substance abuse, and youth summer employment and activities.

Education grants emphasized adult literacy, higher education, technology, and tutoring for disadvantaged students. Awards included $303,600 to Trinity College, in Hartford, to expand its career-exploration services for students.

Grants in the arts and humanities included $20,000 to the Hartford Children’s Theatre for dance, drama, and music activities.

Allocations in other areas included $50,000 to the Connecticut Capitol Region Growth Council for the MetroHartford Millennium Project, a regional economic-revitalization effort.

Application procedure: Contact the foundation for a copy of its “Guidelines for Funding” publication.

Key officials: Michael R. Bangser, executive director; Christopher H. Hall, director of programs; Virgil Blondet, Jr., director of finance and administration; Sandra B. Wood, director of development and communications; Sylvia de Haas-Phillips, Adriana Falcon-Trafford, Sharon O’Meara, and Judith Rozie-Battle, program officers; Michael E. Rosano, grants manager; Brewster B. Perkins, chair of the Board of Directors.

JAMES IRVINE FOUNDATION
One Market, Steuart Tower, Suite 2500
San Francisco 94105
(415) 777-2244
World-Wide Web: http://www.irvine.org
Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1937 as trustee of a charitable trust created by James Irvine, an agriculturalist who inherited a large California estate.

Grants are made for projects that benefit California residents in eight program areas: the arts; children, youths, and families; civic culture; health; higher education; sustainable communities; work-force development; and special projects.

In 1997, 180 grants totaling $43,992,067 were allocated. The foundation continued a trend of making fewer grants, while simultaneously increasing the dollar amount of each award.

The foundation produced a new set of guidelines for its grant making in the arts, based on a 1996 evaluation of the state of the arts in California and the fund’s role in supporting arts activities. That evaluation was used to determine three strategies that currently guide arts grant making: strengthening arts leadership among both individuals and organizations, supporting artists and arts groups in California, and promoting innovative approaches to the ways in which non-profit arts groups conduct their programs and finances.

Grants to support at-risk children, youths, and families focus on two areas: improving the management and governance of groups that serve youths, and uniting schools, community organizations, and parents to promote the healthy social and educational development of children.

Civic-culture grants support problem-solving efforts that involve all groups within a community, particularly ethnic and racial minorities and faith-based organizations. For example, a two-year, $160,000 grant went to the Tides Center, in San Francisco, for the Religious Leadership Project at the Center for Ethics and Economic Policy.

The foundation established the Initiative for Developing Rural Integrated Health Systems, which provides technical assistance to improve health services in five rural California communities.

Higher-education grants emphasize campus diversity, research and policy work on higher-education issues and needs, and structural changes at California colleges and universities that stabilize costs while improving academic programs.

The sustainable-communities program promotes forest preservation, sustainable land use, public-private partnerships on economic development and the environment, and the cleanup and redevelopment of “brownfield” sites that are unusable due to toxic contamination.

The foundation also maintains an office in Los Angeles at the following address: 777 South Figueroa Street, Suite 740, Los Angeles 90017. The telephone number is (213) 236-0552.

Application procedure: Prospective applicants should request a copy of “Program Priorities and Guidelines for Applications” for a description of current priorities and comprehensive application information.

Key officials: Dennis A. Collins, president and chief executive officer; Larry R. Fies, chief financial officer and treasurer; James E. Canales, chief administrative officer and corporate secretary; Nick Bollman and Craig A. Howard, senior program directors; Martha S. Campbell, director of evaluation and program director; Author E. Hughes, Craig E. McGarvey, and Cora Mirikitani, program directors; Christy Pichel, director of operations; Heather G. Graham, grants manager; James C. Gaither, chairman of the Board of Directors.

CHARLES STEWART MOTT FOUNDATION
1200 Mott Foundation Building
Flint, Mich. 48502-1851
(810) 238-5651
World-Wide Web: http://www.mott.org
Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1997.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1926 by the industrialist Charles Stewart Mott. In 1997, it allocated 461 grants totaling $72-million in five programs: poverty, which received 136 grants totaling $30.4-million; civil society, 186 grants totaling $19.1-million; the environment, 92 grants totaling $10.8-million; projects in the Flint, Mich., area, 31 grants totaling $9.1-million; and exploratory and other, 16 grants totaling $2.6-million.

Grant making in the poverty program focuses on community organizing and development, grassroots leadership development, minorities and race relations, violence prevention, early-childhood development, family and parental support, preventing teen-age pregnancy, school-community collaboration, improved academic outcomes, employment, enterprise development, and income security.

For example, the foundation awarded a six-year, $1,900,000 grant to the Aspen Institute, in Washington, to establish the Fund for Innovation, Effectiveness, Learning, and Dissemination, which will continue work initiated by Mott on microenterprise and self-employment programs for low-income people.

Grant making in the civil-society program promotes citizen and non-profit participation in the United States and in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the other former republics of the Soviet Union, and South Africa. Specific areas of interest are delineated in each region. Allocations included $232,000 to the German Marshall Fund, in Washington, to support grassroots groups working on environmental issues in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Poland.

The foundation maintains field offices in Johannesburg and in Prague.

The foundation is wrapping up a planning process to identify future environmental grant-making priorities; new guidelines for that program will go into effect in early 1999.

The foundation also evaluated its priorities for grant making in the Flint, Mich., region. Grant making and technical assistance will emphasize developing local leadership, creating outstanding local and regional programs that can be broadly duplicated, supporting endowment and capital projects at local institutions, and affecting public policy.

Application procedure: The foundation has no formal application form. Letters of inquiry, including a brief description of the proposed project and the range of financial support needed, are acceptable for initial contact. Specific guidelines and grant-summary booklets are available for each program; they can be requested by writing the foundation, sending an e-mail message to infocenter@mott.org, or calling the Publications Hotline at (414) 273-9643 or (800) 645-1766.

Key officials: William S. White, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the Board of Trustees; Richard K. Rappleye, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer; Judy Y. Samelson, vice-president for communications; Maureen H. Smyth, vice-president for programs; Robert E. Swaney, Jr., vice-president and chief investment officer; Jimmy L. Krause, director of grants administration and assistant treasurer.