Foundation Annual Reports

FLINN FOUNDATION

3300 North Central Avenue, Suite 2300
Phoenix 85012
(602) 274-9000
http://www.flinn.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was established in 1965 by Robert Stanley Flinn, an internal-medicine specialist in Phoenix, and his wife, Irene. Grant making focuses on health, education, and arts programs to benefit residents of Arizona.

In 1998, payments totaling $5.4-million were made on 136 grants, including 70 newly authorized grants.

Health-related grants emphasize four areas: biomedical research, medical education, health information and policy, and community-based health-care services.

The foundation supports various university-based efforts to strengthen research in the basic life and biomedical sciences in Arizona, and to help programs become more competitive for federal, state, and private funds. It also convenes the annual Biomedical Science Research Symposium for researchers in the state.

The foundation’s medical-education interests stress projects designed to strengthen programs of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in the Phoenix area, including affiliations with teaching hospitals that serve as the base for the clinical training of undergraduate medical students in Phoenix.

Through its health-policy program, the foundation has commissioned numerous studies on the health status of Arizona residents and their use of the health-care system. The foundation recently financed and evaluated model programs for caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease through public-private partnerships; as a result of that work, in 1998 Arizona licensed a new model of residential care for Alzheimer’s patients.

Through its community-health program, the foundation supports efforts to increase the supply, coordination, and use of basic services for at-risk and needy children and families statewide. For example, $10,000 went to the Arizona Association of Community Health Centers, in Phoenix, to provide immunizations for children with no health insurance.

The Flinn Scholars Program provides $40,000 to each of approximately 20 outstanding Arizona high-school graduates annually. In 1998, the foundation initiated plans for a three-week summer seminar for freshman Flinn Scholars in Budapest that will examine the democratization process in Central and Eastern Europe. The inaugural seminar will convene next May.

Arts-related grants focus on strengthening the state’s principal visual and performing arts organizations. In 1998, the foundation broadened its grant making by raising the grant ceiling for major arts groups to a maximum of $400,000 per award, and by creating a grants program for mid-sized arts groups in Arizona.

Application procedure: Grant recipients are chosen largely through requests for proposals sent to organizations that are believed to meet the foundation’s criteria for a given program, or through a proposal process in which the foundation invites one or more organizations to apply for financing for a defined activity, such as data collection or an evaluation study. Unsolicited proposals should include a project summary, a description of the applicant organization, a budget for the project, a copy of the Internal Revenue Service letter confirming tax-exempt status, and a copy of the organization’s latest annual financial statements. Very few unsolicited proposals are given funding. Letters of inquiry are reviewed, and projects that fit within the foundation’s program areas and that introduce an innovative concept or solution to a problem are occasionally supported. For more details, visit the foundation’s World-Wide Web site or contact the foundation for a copy of its “Grant-Making Guidelines.”

Key officials: John W. Murphy, executive director; Myra H. Millinger and William A. Read, associate directors; Don P. Snider, associate director for finance and administration; Judy C. Walruff, program officer; Helen M. Rosen, scholarship program officer; Bradley W. Halvorsen, communications officer; Merlin W. Kampfer, chairman of the Board of Directors.

JAMES IRVINE FOUNDATION

One Market, Steuart Tower
Suite 2500
San Francisco 94105
(415) 777-2244
http://www.irvine.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

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

Grant making emphasizes projects that benefit California residents in seven program areas: the arts; children, youths, and families; civic culture; higher education; sustainable communities; work-force development; and special projects.

In 1998, 209 grants totaling $46,266,288 were authorized. The average grant award was approximately $200,000, with most grants payable over one to two years.

The foundation’s current arts program is based on a 1996 evaluation of the arts in California and the fund’s role in supporting arts-related activities. Accordingly, three strategies guide grant making: providing intensive, multiple-year support to selected “cornerstone arts organizations;” supporting individual artists and arts groups in California and providing aid for special exhibition, touring, commissioning, and performance activities; and testing new ideas and encouraging innovative approaches to the ways in which arts groups conduct their finances and programs.

Grants for children, youths, and families focus on strengthening community institutions that promote the social and educational development of children in California. To that end, the foundation established two new programs: the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) Initiative and the Museum Youth Initiative.

Civic-culture grants support problem-solving efforts that involve all constituents within a community, particularly ethnic and racial minorities, and that engage people in arts and humanities projects. Several grants were allocated through the Central Valley Partnership for Citizenship, which supports naturalization and civic-participation activities in California’s multiethnic, rural Central Valley region.

Higher-education grants support innovative programs at private colleges and universities in California, as well as projects related to higher-education issues and needs in the state. The foundation is carrying out a review of the program, and new guidelines will be published early next year.

The work-force-development program supports established employment programs and partnerships among employers and educational and job-training institutions in California. During 1999-2000, grant making in the program will be limited to evaluating the work of the foundation’s current grantees.

The foundation recently conducted a review of its health program, and will subsume any future health-related grants into other program areas. Its formal health program is concluding this year, and proposals are no longer being accepted.

In addition to its San Francisco office, the foundation 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: Before approaching the foundation, prospective applicants should review information on program areas and grant-making priorities that is enumerated in the annual report and on the foundation’s World-Wide Web site. Initial contact should be in the form of a one- to two-page letter of inquiry that provides brief background information on the organization, an overview of the issue to be dealt with, a summary of the goals and objectives of the proposed work, a budget for the project, and a copy of all correspondence from the Internal Revenue Service concerning the organization’s tax-exempt status and, if applicable, name changes. All letters of inquiry should be addressed to Heather G. Graham, Grants Manager.

Key officials: Dennis A. Collins, president and chief executive officer; James E. Canales, vice-president and corporate secretary; Larry R. Fies, chief financial officer and treasurer; Nick Bollman and Cora Mirikitani, senior program directors; Martha S. Campbell, director of evaluation and program director; S. Kimberly Belshe, Diane B. Frankel, Craig E. McGarvey, and Robert M. Shireman, program directors; Christy Pichel, director of administration; 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
http://www.mott.org

Period covered: Year ending December 31, 1998.

Purpose and areas of support: The foundation was created in 1926 by the industrialist Charles Stewart Mott, a pioneer at General Motors and three-term mayor of Flint, Mich. His widow, Ruth Rawlings Mott, passed away on January 25, 1999, at her Flint home, at the age of 97.

In 1998, the fund authorized 550 grants totaling $88.2-million in five programs: poverty, which received $42.1-million, or 47.7 per cent of grant dollars; civil society, $22.0-million, or 25 per cent; the environment, $12.5-million, or 14.1 per cent; projects in the Flint area, $9.8-million, or 11.1 per cent; and exploratory and other, $1.8-million, or 2.1 per cent.

Grant making in the poverty program emphasizes community organizing and development, grassroots leadership development, violence prevention, employment and welfare reform, business development, income security, early-childhood development, family and parental support, preventing teen-age pregnancy, and school-community partnerships.

Although the poverty program is currently undergoing a major review and planning process, the foundation anticipates that future grant making will continue on many of these same fronts.

Grant making in the civil-society program follows a four-year plan approved in June 1998 and further refined that September. It promotes civic rights and responsibilities 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.

The foundation made various grants to support community foundations in those regions; for example, $300,000 went to the Social Change Assistance Trust, in Cape Town, to develop creative ways to spur local giving, including a program that provides matching grants for money raised through local events.

Approximately 25 per cent of the foundation’s grants have an international purpose, although many grantees are located in the United States. The foundation also maintains field offices in Johannesburg and Prague.

In September 1998, the foundation’s trustees adopted new priorities for the environment program, which became effective in January 1999: the reform of international finance and trade, conservation of freshwater ecosystems in North America, and special initiatives.

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 without charge for each program; they can be requested by writing the foundation, sending an e-mail message to infocenter@mott.org, or calling the Publication Request Line 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; Marilyn Stein LeFeber, 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.