A Time to Renew and Strengthen Our Program

A year ago, I reported that the Nathan Cummings Foundation had commenced a year-long process of self-examination and renewal. During 1994, we carefully reviewed our grantmaking program objectives and the specific points of focus within each area. After thorough deliberation and review of alternative directions, it was gratifying to find that our original four program areas, arts, environment, health, and Jewish life, continue to excite both board and staff with the promise of new challenges and potential for significant progress in the years ahead. They remain the cornerstones of our work.

Within each of our program areas, we carefully sharpened our focus in the interest of increasing our knowledge and strengthening our connections to a few key grantmaking directions. At the same time, recognizing critical changes in our society and our environment, we added some important and exciting new themes.

In the environment program, under the category of economics and fiscal policy, we will encourage environmentally sound economic activity; under spirit, values, and ethics, we will enlist moral and spiritual resources in addressing environmental problems; and under campus activities, we will explore better ways to educate the next generation of leaders to understand and protect the environment.

In the health program, improving the quality of life at the end of life is a new area of investigation for the Foundation, reflecting a growing concern in our society. In the arts and Jewish life programs, we are concentrating our efforts in the areas where we can make a real difference. It is our belief, for example, that community arts programs are providing a great service in arts education as well as in interpreting and preserving diverse cultures. So we are allocating the majority of our arts funding to the activities of such organizations. In Jewish life, we are continuing our support for pioneering efforts such as the Jewish Healing Center, which is expanding into a national program to encourage renewal and spirituality in Jewish communities.

Historically, our fifth major program area, interprogram, was limited to grants that represented the intersection of two or more of our four basic program interests. For 1995, we completely restructured our interprogram grantmaking in order to respond more effectively to the needs of our grantees and changes in national priorities. We are exploring how we might support our grantees and their program goals through technical assistance. We will also help grantees expand their influence through the use of effective communications, and we will initiate our own efforts at sharing our knowledge with policy makers and the public. We have added a democratic values initiative to better understand the emergence of the political and religious right, to bring together diverse groups around common issues, and to support the future of our democracy. A contemplative practice initiative will attempt to raise public awareness and support efforts to explore the benefits of meditation.

The result of our renewal and reaffirmation is a stronger, more cohesive program, and one which better represents both the vision and the passion of the board.

We have also revised board and staff structures to better support the direction of the Foundation. For example, we have given greater grantmaking responsibility to our program staff, and strengthened board/ staff working relationships with more frequent progress reviews. A newsletter has been initiated to maintain communications between meetings and to highlight the good work of our program staff. The year ahead will see the continuation of our efforts to improve the way we go about the business of philanthropy. We will carefully craft goals and benchmarks in each program area and conduct the first formal survey of our grantees to provide us feedback on our performance as a foundation.

In the financial area, we have added a small capitalization investment manager and an emerging market fund manager to further diversify our existing international investment portfolio. We have clarified and commenced active monitoring of three key performance criteria for our fund managers: 1) realize a 5 percent return over time, adjusted for inflation; 2) meet or exceed the financial performance of our peer organizations; and 3) meet or exceed the individual performance index for each fund. Our board continues to be renewed with outside expertise of the highest caliber. This year, we were pleased to add Peggy Hamburg, M.D., whose experience as health commissioner for New York City has already helped illuminate our work in health care and many other areas.

The Foundation's staff, under the exceptional leadership of Charles Halpern, continues to help transform our dreams of a better world into the reality of exciting grantmaking opportunities. To our senior staff, we welcome Henry Ng in the new position of vice president, Claudine Brown as director of the arts program, and Richard Mark as director of the environment program. On behalf of the board, I want to thank three of our "founding" senior staff as they move on with their careers in different venues: Conn Nugent, Joan Shigekawa, and Ellen Lazarus. Each was responsible for shaping a part of the unique character of the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

It has, indeed, been a special privilege to chair the board of the Nathan Cummings Foundation over the past two years. I want to express my gratitude to all of my colleagues in this unique endeavor: board, staff, and family. Their knowledgeable guidance, good will, and good humor have made for an exciting journey of exploration--an exploration both of new grantmaking visions and of innovative ways to build a strong family philanthropy for future generations to share.

The grants described in the pages of this report are clear testimony to the success of the partnership that we have all forged together. While we have accomplished much, there is so much more work to be done. As I turn over the reins to my cousin James Cummings, I look forward to continuing our journey under his able guidance. on both of new grantmaking visions and of innovative ways to build a strong family philanthropy for future generations to share.