Books to At-Risk Children, Just in Time for Summer
Without the ability to read there is little hope that children at risk can break the cycle of poverty and become fully productive citizens,” says Bill Halamandaris, chairman of The Heart of America Foundation.

This national, nonsectarian, nonpartisan, nonprofit, humanitarian organization was founded in 1997 to help people, particularly children, learn that they help themselves when they help others. Their approach combines character education, literacy, service learning and helping children learn to read and succeed. For their latest project, the foundation teamed up with Capital One Financial Corporation, donating more than 700,000 brand-new books over the past four years to some 300,000 needy children with more then 100,000 books arriving in time for the summer break. The program grew out of the shared belief that access to books for children at risk can spell success later in life. According to Jeff McQuillan, author of The Literacy Crisis (Heinemann, 1998) sixty-one percent of low-income families have no books at all in their homes.

Capital One has supported the volunteer efforts of thousands of company associates who have read, mentored and distributed books to students since the inception of the partnership four years ago. “Reading is a critical skill and it is essential to help enrich and empower our children as they grow to become tomorrow’s leaders and shape our future," says Eric Schweikert, Managing Vice President of Capital One. In addition to their time, associates have also sponsored a corporation wide book drive and have engaged other students to help donate books to peers in need. Through this program over 119,000 students have participated in the book drive.

For more information on The Heart of American Foundation and this initiative please visit: www.heartofamerica.org or www.capitalone.com.

Media Grants Support Coverage of Race and Class in Gulf Coast States
The Open Society Institute (OSI) has awarded 31 investigative journalism grants, to promote a national conversation on racism and inequality in America. OSI is part of an international network of foundations started by George Soros; its U.S. Programs seek to strengthen democracy in the United States by addressing barriers to opportunity and justice, broadening public discussion about such barriers and assisting marginalized groups to participate equally in civil society.

Nearly $1 million will be divided among the accomplished filmmakers, print and radio journalists, photographers and youth media who are recipients of OSI’s Katrina Media Fellowships. OSI created the special media competition to inform and deepen public understanding of the many significant and socially relevant issues that the storm brought to light. Particular attention was given to applicants from the affected Gulf States or those who had been displaced by the hurricane.

“We felt it was critical to support journalism and media projects to help foster debate and inspire action to challenge centuries of inequality in this country,” says Erlin Ibreck, Director of Grantmaking Strategies at OSI. “Hurricane Katrina made clear that we as a nation must confront the effects of racism, poverty and government neglect exposed by the flood waters.”

Among the illustrious journalists are four Pulitzer Prize-winners, several documentary photographers displaced by the hurricane and an Emmy-winning filmmaker. The wide array of recipients is indicative of the varied and rich scope of the projects, which encompass such topics as the musical heritage of the region; Katrina’s toll on the economic, social and racial fabric of communities of color; the deterioration of public education in Louisiana; ineffective rural recovery; the plight of the Vietnamese-American community in the Gulf Region; and environmental problems associated with global warming.

Since November 2005, OSI has been involved in local recovery efforts and has supported some 15 Gulf Coast nonprofits engaged in revitalizing the area. OSI’s $3 million investment in the region for Katrina-related support is part of a larger effort to strengthen communities in the United States and around the world. For more information on the Open Society Institute and their Katrina recovery efforts please visit: www.soros.org.

Local New Orleans Community Fund Plans for Katrina Recovery
The Rockefeller Foundation has pledged $3.5 million toward the development of a comprehensive rebuilding plan in New Orleans. The process will be managed by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, a local charity, and carried out by the newly created Community Fund Support Organization of New Orleans with the goal of bringing together state, local and community members in an attempt to accelerate recovery planning for the city.

With this commitment of foundation funds specifically earmarked for planning activities, the process of integrating the ideas and vision of representatives from every level of government and the community can begin. The effort will be followed by the creation of a detailed recovery plan, which is required to trigger national funding for fullscale redevelopment: without a well-conceived and executable plan, billions of dollars in federal development grants cannot be released. The project will involve six months of work from every facet of community redevelopment—urban planners, architects and other experts—and, through a series of public meetings, will engage New Orleans’ 13 community districts as well as the four cities where most of the displaced population has been relocated: Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Dallas and Houston. Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana applauded the grant and the planning process that it will produce, saying, “what people need is to get the right kind of information to make smart decisions for themselves, and it’s the one ingredient that they have not been given.’’

The grant, an unusually large sum for the Rockefeller Foundation, builds on the foundation’s overall commitment of more than $6.5 million for rebuilding efforts post-Katrina in New Orleans. For more information on this initiative and others in the Katrina ravaged areas, please visit: www.rockfound.org.

Small Ripples Herald Big Waves of Change
Latinos and other minority groups are often perceived to be on the receiving end of charity. However, Dr. Eugene Miller, Assistant Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York notes that emerging wealth and access to economic resources within the Latino community and other communities of color is leading to an emphasis on proactive philanthropy. He says, “San Francisco’s Latino Community Foundation is part of that process of attempting to tap into the growing levels of wealth in the Latino community.”

“The Latino community is a generous community,” says Aída Álvarez, a former investment banker who, under the Clinton administration, ran the U.S. Small Business Administration. Now, as the newly elected Chair of The Latino Community Foundation, Ms. Alvarez is helping with the Foundation’s fundraising. The San Francisco Foundation, a venerable 56-year-old institution, agreed to lend its infrastructure- and endowment-building expertise to the fledgling Latino Community Foundation by entering into a supporting organization relationship. The shared dream is to develop an institution that will work alongside other philanthropic organizations to focus attention on a population segment that is increasingly important to California’s economic and social growth.

Building on this momentum, the Latino Community Foundation hopes to spur philanthropy among successful Latinos to improve education, health, economic well-being and civic participation in Bay Area neighborhoods where low-income Spanish-speaking families predominate and poverty persists. This is one of a number of Latino funds across the country. New York City; Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; St. Paul, Minnesota; Lorain, Ohio; and Orange County, California have all established Latino funds. Such efforts, though small, fill an important niche because their staffs and boards are intimately familiar with the needs and challenges within the Latino community, notes Miller and others who study these issues.

While the Latino Community Foundation’s primary focus has been on fundraising from within the Latino community, it is also actively reaching out to the broader nonprofit and corporate community to secure funds for capacity building grants to communities with limited access. Executive director Viola Gonzales has established a Latino Literacy Network involving over 30 community-based organizations and individuals working to enhance children’s learning by engaging parents within a culturally relevant context. Other collaborations focus on financial literacy and strategic giving. For more information on the Latino Community Foundation please visit the website at www.latinocf.org.

Science and Engineering Scholarships for a New Generation
The Bayer Foundation has awarded two scholarships totaling $300,000 to Pennsylvania State University to advance work in material science and engineering education for a new generation of innovators. The Foundation, part of Bayer Worldwide Group, focuses on civic and social service programs, education and workforce development, arts and culture, and health and human services.

The scholarships, part of a longstanding relationship with Pennsylvania State University, will establish the Bayer Graduate Fellowship and the Bayer International Internship Scholars fund. Through a competitive process, the fellowships will be awarded to outstanding students entering the university’s graduate department of Material Science and Engineering, while the scholarship will provide travel expenses and a partial stipend for undergraduate material science and engineering students studying abroad. The scholarship program also includes a one-semester research internship at a host institution in England, France, Germany, Italy or Switzerland.

To find out more about the program, please visit http://www.bayerus.com/about/community/i_foundation.html.

Modeling Juvenile Justice
In February 2006, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, based in Chicago, Illinois, announced the addition of the State of Illinois to their Models for Change initiative to promote juvenile justice system reform across the nation. (Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington are also participating.) The initiative “is designed to develop successful and replicable models of juvenile justice system reform. It seeks both to set a broad, unifying agenda for change—to help accelerate change in several states toward more effective, fair, and developmentally sound approaches to juvenile justice—and to ensure that change spreads and reform momentum builds.”

As part of the initiative, MacArthur will provide up to $7.5 million over a five-year period for juvenile justice reform efforts in Illinois. The Loyola University of Chicago School of Law’s Civitas ChildLaw Center will coordinate the work in that state. Grants of up to $1.5 million per year for the next five years will go to state and local agencies, nonprofit organizations and others engaged in three areas of reform: juvenile court jurisdiction, community-based alternatives to secure confinement, and disproportionate minority contact with the juvenile justice system. “The momentum for change in Illinois is real, and the MacArthur Foundation wants to help,” said MacArthur Foundation president Jonathan Fanton.

MacArthur’s entry into the field of juvenile justice in 1996 was inspired by the need to fill a research void, specifically one related to the fundamental assumption of juvenile justice – that adolescents are developmentally different from adults. The Models for Change initiative is designed to support efforts that hold young offenders accountable for their actions but also provide for their rehabilitation and protect them from harm, increase their life chances and manage the risk to themselves and their communities. While no single pathway for juvenile justice reform can be relied on by itself to make lasting changes, foundation staff and leadership are hopeful that states such as Illinois, which are spearheading efforts for systematic and replicable reform, will influence others.

For more information about the MacArthur Foundation visit www.macfound.org.

Explosive First-Year Growth For New Online Journalism Resource
The Poynter Institute is a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders. On April 26, 2006, Poynter celebrated the first anniversary of News University (www.newsu.org), an online journalism-training program that has attracted more than 18,000 participants from 157 countries, making it the largest online learning site for journalists worldwide.

“Journalists are hungry for more training,” notes the program’s web site. “In a recent survey, more than 95 percent of professional journalists said they want more training, but they struggle with limited resources and finding time in their busy schedules.” News University, created with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, seeks to address those issues by offering interactive e-learning geared to journalists at all levels of experience and working in all types of media. The program was developed with the help of 15 journalism organizations, and comprises more than 25 courses ranging from “Journalism 101” topics to editing to leadership and photojournalism. (A complete list of News University’s courses can be found at www.newsu.org/courselist.) Because they can be accessed online from anywhere and at any time of the day or night, the educational offerings are ideal for working professionals.

“News University has exceeded our expectations, raising the bar for online journalism training,” said Howard Finberg, Director of Interactive Learning at News University. More than 70 percent of those who have taken the online courses said that the materials found on the site were highly useful and would recommend the program to colleagues.

To mark the initiative’s first anniversary, News University has released a report on its work titled, The Explosive Growth of Journalism E-Learning, which can be found at http://discover.newsu.org.

For more information on The Poynter Institute, please go to www.poynter.org.

A Family Foundation Chair in Philanthropy Will Help Promote Nonprofit Leadership and Management

More than 32,000 family foundations provide critical assistance to America’s 1.2 million nonprofit organizations, supporting their programs in health care, education, human services, religion, arts and culture, and the environment. The Frey Foundation, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has pledged $1.5 million to create the nation’s first endowed chair focusing on family philanthropy, which will be established at Grand Valley State University’s Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit leadership. The Frey Foundation’s funding is a challenge grant that Grand Valley State, founded in Allendale Michigan in 1960 as a four-year public university, will use to help raise a $5 million endowment for the Johnson Center. The university has already raised over $3 million toward that goal.

A distinguished scholarpractitioner will be selected as the center’s Frey Foundation chair to lead a program of research and learning about family foundation formation, grantmaking practices and effective operating techniques. Most importantly, the new program will identify family foundation successes and ways to enhance family foundations’ beneficial impact on society.

“Few institutions in American life are so vitally important, and so poorly understood, as family foundations,” says Joel J. Orosz, distinguished professor of philanthropic studies at the Johnson Center, one of the oldest such centers concerned with nonprofit philanthropy and leadership. It was created in 1992 with major support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which is headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan.

These prominent Michigan organizations are helping to spotlight the work of family foundations in their state. In 2003, for example, the top 50 family foundations in Michigan awarded more than $885 million in grants. This represents 74 percent of the $1.2 billion given by all types of Michigan foundations that year.

For more information on the Johnson Center please visit: www.gvsu.edu, www.johnsoncenter.org.

For more information on the Frey Foundation please visit: www.freyfdn.org.

Kauffman Foundation Grants $35 Million to Encourage Entrepreneurship
In keeping with their tradition of fostering entrepreneurial education, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has committed $35 million over the next five years to selected U.S. colleges and universities under its Kauffman Campuses Initiative, which introduces entrepreneurship courses and programs within the liberal arts curriculum. This marks the Kauffman Foundation’s second major commitment to entrepreneurial education; in 2003, the foundation awarded a total of $25 million to eight schools for programs designed “to transform the campus culture by providing entrepreneurship courses and programs within liberal arts.”

“We want all students, not just those in business schools, to see the value of thinking like entrepreneurs,” says Carl Shramm, president and chief executive of the Kauffman Foundation. As part of the program, colleges and universities invited to participate must present proposals for how they would use the grant money and must have demonstrated their ability to create a culture of entrepreneurship that permeates the campus. They must also commit to securing matching grants from other foundations or funding sources. The goal is to create a total pool of $200 million to further entrepreneurship education.

The 14 schools in this year's new round of grants are: Arizona State University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, New York University, Purdue University, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Maryland-Baltimore County , Baldwin-Wallace College, College of Wooster, Hiram College, Lake Erie College, Oberlin College, Walsh University; Purdue University; Syracuse University; the University of North Carolina System; the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

For more information on the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation or its Kauffman Campuses Initiative please visit: www.kauffman.org.

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