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Some grantmaking flexibility, embodied in relatively untargeted funds, permits foundations to seize promising and unusual opportunities, support the planning and start-up of new ventures that others may continue, explore possible new programs, and make other grants outside defined program areas.

In recent years, the Corporation's Special Projects funding has tended to coalesce around efforts to strengthen American democracy, to contribute to the health and welfare of the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, and, on occasion, to study ways that universities can contribute to society beyond their traditional teaching and research. Grants have been made for gathering and analyzing information that has been used by researchers, lawyers, and community advocates to enhance citizen participation in democratic processes. A number of projects challenge discriminatory redistricting and voting practices and assist eligible immigrants in obtaining citizenship and registering to vote. In addition, support is being given for the use of new communications technologies to provide nonpartisan information about candidates and issues; for analyzing national, state, and local campaign financing and campaign finance reforms; for studying the relationship of economic and social problems; and for fostering public education and debate about global issues. The Corporation maintains its membership in, or provides support to, five national organizations concerned with the nonprofit and philanthropic sector — the Council on Foundations, the Foundation Center, Independent Sector, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, and the National Charities Information Bureau — and two local ones, the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers and the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York. These groups publish information about the nonprofit sector, encourage the sector to report fully to the public, and monitor relations between the sector and government.

Widening inequalities in wealth and income; increased economic, social, and ethnic segregation; and the declining power of unions and civil rights groups have ominous implications for the nation's polity, society, and economy, according to former U.S. secretary of labor Ray Marshall. Now a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Marshall led a study of the policy basis for ameliorating the problems caused by these trends. Scholars from different disciplines discussed their findings at a conference cosponsored by the Economic Policy Institute, which collaborated on the study. The findings will be incorporated in a book to be released in 1998.

The University of Texas-Economic Policy Institute project on the social and political consequences of the nation's economic trends commissioned background papers for presentation at a May 1997 national conference. Institute and university scholars synthesized the policy implications of the papers for discussion by conference participants, who included experts from various political and institutional perspectives. Among the materials issued was the institute's Chart Book of American Living Standards. The institute's collection of selected papers, Restoring Broadly Shared Prosperity: A Conference Volume, has had a large circulation.

The Economic Policy Institute has published the 1996-97 edition of The State of Working America, a biennial fact book on family income, taxes, wages, unemployment and underemployment, wealth, and poverty in the United States. Regional and state differences and comparisons with other countries are included. In a separate project, the institute used a variety of political and economic data to test the hypothesis that rising inequality and declining living standards lead to antigovernment attitudes and doubts about government fairness. Findings are being published in 1998 in academic and popular articles, reports, and a book. Additional funding for the latter project comes from the Russell Sage and Arca foundations.

Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government is conducting a project on the role of government in the twenty-first century. Issues such as the meaning of citizenship, people's expectations of government, and the impact of the devolution of specific governmental responsibilities from the federal to the state and local levels are being considered. In debates that have been broadcast on C-SPAN, discussants from around the world have analyzed papers prepared by Harvard scholars. Books and working papers will result from the project, which is also funded by individuals, the Christian Johnson Foundation, and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Center for Governmental Studies encourages innovative approaches to improving democratic government. With support from several foundations, it is expanding three of its projects. The National Resource Center for State and Local Campaign Finance Reform is organizing a clearinghouse of campaign finance laws and convening conferences on relevant reforms. The Democracy Network, an interactive online video voter guide, is being evaluated for its effectiveness in promoting political participation. The template for Connect L.A., a system of online video, audio, and textual information for low-income residents of Los Angeles, will be provided to local governments, civic organizations, and housing developments nationwide.

In 1996 the Center for Public Integrity released The Buying of the President, by executive director Charles Lewis (Avon Books), which tracked campaign contribution records for each presidential candidate and assessed what contributors received for their investment. Sequels are planned for future presidential elections. Staff members are now studying congressional records to determine how financial contributions influence laws and policies on issues such as food prices, the environment, and workplace safety. The results will be published in 1998. The center is also helping several states computerize their legislatures' campaign finance records and is educating local media on how to use the data. Other foundations provide additional support.

In the 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that mandatory campaign spending limits were an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. With funding from other foundations, the Brennan Center for Justice, which is affiliated with New York University School of Law, is stimulating debate aimed at encouraging the Court to revisit this decision. In addition to holding a mock Supreme Court on Buckley, the center convened three conferences of law scholars who discussed how best to reformulate constitutional doctrine governing campaign finance law. Center staff members informed local, state, and federal legislators about how Buckley has hindered efforts to reform campaign finance practices.

The Western States Center works to build the capacity of nonprofit citizen organizations in the eight-state region to educate their constituencies, train leaders in civic skills, and participate in the electoral process. One of its four efforts is the Money in Western Politics project, which monitors the role of campaign contributions in local and state elections. The project's computer database of more than 500,000 identified campaign contributions — the largest regional database in the nation — is available through the Internet for consultation by public officials, journalists, representatives of citizens' organizations, and other campaign finance researchers. The project receives further support from other foundations.

The Northeast Citizen Action Resource Center, which is also supported by other foundations, aims to increase public participation in decision making on issues affecting New England and New York. Its state coalitions receive technical assistance in policy formulation, media outreach, fund-raising, and board and staff development. Its Money and Politics Project supports efforts in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to build a consensus for campaign finance reform, while its Voter Education and Community Leadership Project uses training sessions, mentorships, internships, and community networking to help young and disadvantaged citizens become effective participants in civic life.

Democracy South promotes civic responsibility and positive change through research, investigative reporting, and grassroots organizing. It is creating partnerships with similar groups in the South, which receive training in ways to broaden support for government accountability, citizen participation, and campaign finance reform. Through a project on money in politics in eleven southeastern states, also supported by the Arca, Z. Smith Reynolds, and John and Florence Schumann foundations, Democracy South is comparing state regulatory systems, assessing how much money they track, and focusing on innovative practices. The results were released at a May 1997 conference.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which works to expand citizens' participation in the electoral process, has affiliates in eight cities. Its Voting Rights Project, also funded by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, monitors civil rights enforcement by the U.S. Department of Justice, litigates voting rights cases, and offers the public information on redistricting and voting rights. The project is continuing to monitor enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to allow citizens to register by mail and to offer voter registration as part of applying for driver's licenses, public assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, and state-funded disability assistance.

Since its establishment in 1910, the National Urban League has helped African Americans attain social and economic equality of opportunity. Through a new department responsible for policy, research, and advocacy, league staff members monitor national policy developments, hold policy forums, present congressional testimony, and write op-ed columns and other articles for the public. Race relations, affirmative action, welfare reform, and youth development programs as an antidote to violence are among the subjects covered. The league videotapes the policy forums and makes the tapes available to its 115 affiliates, which offer them to local commercial, public television, and cable access channels.

In 1995 the Institute for the Arts of Democracy, better known as the Center for Living Democracy, created the American News Service. Modeled on the Associated Press news wire, it provides analyses of citizen-led initiatives that address social and economic problems in such areas as race relations, education, and health care. Initial subscribers — nearly 1,700 newspapers and radio and television stations — obtained stories free by e-mail, mail, fax, and the World Wide Web. The center, which receives additional support from private contributions and other foundations, has developed a marketing plan and is beginning to charge subscriber fees.

As part of a broad-based movement to revitalize U.S. communities' civic spirit, the National Civic League in 1994 formed the Alliance for National Renewal. The alliance, a network of 160 national and local organizations that serve as catalysts for efforts variously referred to as new citizenship, civic democracy, and community building, is working with three cities and towns in different regions of the country to launch community renewal projects. The league will document practical solutions and share results with additional communities as a way of motivating them to engage in civic renewal. Funding also comes from other foundations and the Farmers Insurance Group.

Nonprofit organizations that serve low-income populations are recognizing the need to better understand and contribute to local and state policymaking. The Center for Community Change furnishes technical assistance to more than 200 such groups. In addition to helping them formulate policies to improve poor communities' access to credit and banking, it is launching an education campaign about recent changes in federal antipoverty programs. The center is supporting citizens' efforts to monitor the impact of the changes and encouraging grassroots groups to involve their constituencies in voter registration and voter education. Funding also comes from individuals, corporations, and other foundations.

The National Immigration Forum promotes fair policies and programs affecting immigrants in the United States and the communities where they live. Its five regional coalitions are multiethnic organizations located in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Through its Citizenship 2000 project launched in 1995, the forum and the coalitions work with grassroots groups to encourage immigrants to complete the application for naturalization and to participate in the democratic process. With further support from the Norman and Ford foundations, it is devising ways to offer accurate data on immigration to journalists, policymakers, and the public.

Under Citizenship 2000, the National Immigration Forum, representatives of its five coalitions, and 350 community groups are educating U.S. immigrants about the process and the importance of naturalization. Besides developing a civic education curriculum for citizenship and for adult education classes, they are analyzing ways to increase immigrants' civic participation and to provide information about opportunities for joining community groups and running for school boards and city councils. The groups have organized the registration of 300,000 new citizens over the past year. The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition serves as national coordinator.

Asian Pacific Americans, who now constitute 3 percent of the U.S. population, are the nation's fastest-growing group. In collaboration with regional and national Asian Pacific American advocacy groups, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium provides technical assistance to community-based groups in voting and language rights, immigration and naturalization, and civic participation. It also monitors incidents of anti-Asian violence and educates the public and policymakers about the problem. Individuals and other foundations provide further support.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund promotes Latinos' participation in the nation's civic life. Its U.S. citizenship program consists of naturalization application workshops; a hot line giving information and referrals; and, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), coordination of final interviews and testing outside the ins's offices. Its two-year goal, funded also by corporations and other foundations, is to help roughly 60,000 legal residents, including the elderly and disabled, many of whom are being adversely affected by new welfare restrictions. NALEO is therefore training additional volunteers to lead citizenship workshops in their communities.

Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, founded in 1951 as a mutual-aid organization of Spanish-speaking immigrants, provides legal services, education, and advocacy for Hispanic immigrants and their families. Hermandad oversees fifteen chapters in California, Illinois, New York, and Washington, D.C. A project coordinator based in Chicago has been hired to promote greater interaction between chapters and affiliates, expand the organization's local citizenship programs, and build networks across the country to increase its reach. Funding is to the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional Legal Center, the service provider arm of the organization.

Americans for a Fair Chance, a consortium of six civil rights organizations, is preparing publications, press kits, and a World Wide Web site on the subject of affirmative action. The aim is to educate the public about the benefits of equal opportunity measures in college admissions, employment recruitment, and incentive programs in federal contracting that offer historically underrepresented groups and others a fair chance to participate fully in society. In addition, training workshops are being held to help local and national groups participate effectively in the public debate over issues in affirmative action. The work is managed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a member of the consortium.

The Pacific Council on International Policy, based at the University of Southern California, is an affiliate of the Council on Foreign Relations. Its nearly 600 members, comprising government and private sector leaders, attend retreats and briefings on economic regionalism, emerging markets, and ethnic conflict and the implications of these issues for the western states and the nation. Besides organizing task forces and study groups around specific policy issues, the council is preparing a directory of institutions concerned with developments in the Pacific Rim, publishing a thrice-yearly policy briefing newsletter, and creating a World Wide Web site. Additional funding comes from other foundations.

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is a confederation of some 260 nonprofit and philanthropic organizations dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society worldwide. Three task forces formed to develop the institutional infrastructure of the international nonprofit sector are examining strategies to increase the sector's visibility, reporting on universal legal principles governing citizen participation in civil society, and producing a book on the sustainable funding of civil society organizations. civicus, which receives further funding from individuals, other foundations, membership dues, and earned income from book sales and conference registrations, held its biennial world assembly in Budapest in September 1997.

The devolution of federal programs to the states is increasing demands on the nonprofit sector to help meet disadvantaged groups' needs. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy works to increase private funding to serve these populations and assists new organizations, such as local alternative funds and women's funding networks, working on their behalf. The committee's current and planned research projects include analyses of corporate giving by industry, philanthropic support to low-income communities and to civil rights and community development groups, and the impact of conservative foundations on public policy. Other foundations also provide support.

The National Council of Nonprofit Associations is a network of thirty-five state and regional associations that comprise 20,000 community-based organizations. In addition to providing its members with information, technical assistance, and professional development opportunities, it works to increase public understanding of the role of nonprofit groups and of public policies that affect them. Among the council's printed materials are an annual publication on state tax trends, a directory of nonprofit associations, a monthly news bulletin, and a manual to help interested parties start a state association of nonprofit organizations. Other foundations provide additional funding.

More than one million nonprofit organizations, created for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes, make up the independent sector in the United States. Yet policymakers, journalists, the public, and those who are employed by, and who volunteer in, the sector lack basic information about its size, nature, or contributions to American life. The Corporation's former executive vice president, Barbara Denning Finberg, is preparing a handbook on the sector for these audiences. She is also analyzing issues regarding the tax-exempt status of independent sector organizations and the tax deductibility of contributions to them.

Between 1966 and 1970, the Columbia University Oral History Research Office conducted interviews about Carnegie Corporation with seventy-four persons associated with the foundation during its first fifty-eight years. The resulting transcribed testimony covers the Corporation's history and such areas of grantmaking as adult education, national security policy, and the social sciences. In an effort to update this oral history, the office is interviewing sixty persons who are or have been involved in formulating the policies and directions of the Corporation since 1968. Forty-five hours of the interviews are being videotaped.

From 1988 to 1993, when it finished its formal work, the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government produced nineteen reports suggesting ways that government at all levels could better deal with advances in science and technology. Many of the recommendations have been acted on, including the creation of a permanent organization to improve cooperation among federal and state governments to advance science and technology programs and clarify current policies. The commission reconvened in late 1996 to review its impact to date and to consider possible responses to government cutbacks in funding science and technology. A formal report will synthesize the members' discussions.

The report of the Task Force on Science, Technology, and the States of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government recommended the creation of an independent entity to improve cooperation between states and the federal government and to advance state science and technology policy. The State Science and Technology Institute, launched in 1996 as a subsidiary of Battelle Memorial Institute, offers advice on cooperative technology programs to government, industry, and universities. The new institute, which is also funded by states, other foundations, and its own research projects, issues a weekly report on federal science and technology activities and a quarterly one on state activities.

In 1997 the wnyc Foundation purchased WNYC, New York's public radio station, from the city. WNYC's current and planned programs include New York Kids, an award-winning weekly show for eight- to twelve-year-olds intended to stimulate their imagination and to promote a love of learning; On the Media, which explores the media in depth and examines its impact on public policy; and The Citizens' Agenda, which will offer discussions of civic issues, particularly those arising during presidential and congressional elections. Funding also comes from corporations and other foundations.

With the end of the Cold War, U.S. citizens have become less concerned with global issues. In 1996 Public Radio International, in collaboration with the BBC World Service in London and WGBH in Boston, launched a weekday radio program, The World, which covers issues and developments in other countries. Breaking stories, interviews, documentary segments, live debate, commentary, and music are featured. The World is carried on sixty-four public radio stations and is available on the World Wide Web as a way to reach new audiences and encourage listeners to respond. Corporate, foundation, and individual donors provide further support.

Rights and Wrongs: Human Rights Television, now in its sixth season, is a nonprofit weekly newsmagazine exploring unreported human rights abuses and successes in resolving conflict and building equitable societies. The series, which examines issues too recent to be covered in textbooks, airs on approximately 140 public television stations and is carried globally by the Worldnet satellite of the U.S. Information Agency. Its World Wide Web site is being updated, and additional videotapes are being distributed to secondary schools, universities, colleges, and nongovernmental groups. Additional funders include other foundations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Yale University's United Nations Studies program analyzes issues facing UN policymakers and works to train the next generation of UN scholars and practitioners. In 1997 its recommendations for restructuring the Security Council were published as The Once and Future Security Council (St. Martin's Press). Program scholars are now studying public attitudes in the United States and elsewhere toward multilateralism and international organizations. The results of a project on the role of international organizations in the restoration and development of free and stable societies, also funded by the Korea Foundation, will be published in 1999.

Society can learn much from persons who have successfully fused creative and humane concerns. Three psychologists — Howard E. Gardner of Harvard University, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of the University of Chicago, and William Damon of Stanford University — are studying the concept of humane creativity and its relationship to social responsibility across six domains: the law, the military, nursing, the sciences, musical performance, and the news media. They are interviewing a range of persons in an effort to identify exemplars of humane creativity and to determine the incentives within organizations that encourage or impede ethical acts. Findings will be presented to academics through published reports and to the public through books, articles, and interviews. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Ross Family Foundation also support the project.

Building on the programs developed during his tenure, the Corporation's president emeritus, David A. Hamburg, is writing two books. The first will be a comprehensive volume on conflict prevention and resolution that moves from individual and family conflicts to the broader area of ethnic, religious, and nationalist conflicts. The second book will examine the health and educational needs integral to middle childhood and late adolescence. This appropriation covers Hamburg's research and administrative costs.

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