Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Public Welfare Foundation Announces New Grants
The Public Welfare Foundation Board of Directors today
approved more than $7.9 million in grants designed to help reduce the
population of adult prisoners and to help reform the juvenile justice system;
to create safer workplaces and better protections for workers, particularly
low-wage workers; and to spur rational reform of the health care system. Among
the projects approved today:
- The
Council of State Governments received a $150,000 grant to hold a national
summit this fall on reducing the growth of corrections and recidivism and
to release a report that would provide guidance to criminal justice
professionals, advocates and policymakers. The summit will focus on
Justice Reinvestment, a project helping states create cost-effective
policies that can redirect savings from downsizing prisons and reducing
prisoner populations to expanded social services that can prevent people
from returning to prison.
- Five
southern organizations, including the Virginia Interfaith Center for
Public Policy, the North Carolina Justice Center, Foundation for a Healthy
Kentucky, Center for Public Policy Priorities, and the Tennessee Health
Care Campaign are receiving grants totaling more than $1 million to
support state-level health reform efforts and to implement within the
states any national health reform measures that may be enacted.
- Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility, based in Washington, DC,
is receiving $500,000 over two years to create an online database that
will allow workers to learn their risks of disease from being exposed to
hazardous chemicals on the job.
- The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
received a one-year Special Opportunities grant of $200,000 to support its
timely civil rights and advocacy work.
Funding was approved for 45 organizations. More than $4.5
million in grants will be awarded through the Foundation’s Workers’ Rights
Program, more than $1.1 million through its Health Reform Program and $1.7
million through its Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program. Under the Special
Opportunities Program $545,000 in grants will be distributed.
A complete list of the grants approved at the meeting
follows:
Criminal and
Juvenile Justice
Children’s Defense
Fund – New York, NY ($100,000
– 1 year)
Support to advance systemic juvenile justice reform in New York State through community organizing,
public education and advising and assisting city and state officials.
Citizens For Juvenile
Justice – Boston, MA ($50,000
– 1 year)
General support.
Correctional
Association of New York – New York, NY
($100,000 – 1 year)
Support for programs on adult corrections reform and
juvenile justice systems reform.
Council of State Governments
Justice Center
– New York, NY ($150,000
– 1 year)
Support for Justice Reinvestment, a national summit on
reducing the growth of corrections and recidivism and to release a
corresponding report that would provide guidance to criminal justice
professionals, advocates and policymakers.
Fortune Society –
Long Island City, NY ($100,000
– 1 year)
Support for the David
Rothenberg Center
for Public Policy to expand its work in educating the public, developing
policies and advocating with state policymakers to provide appropriate re-entry
services to former prisoners.
Georgetown University – Washington, DC
($150,000 – 1 year)
Support to strengthen the progressive juvenile justice
reform field by bringing together reform-minded directors and training other
personnel in state juvenile justice agencies.
Institute for
Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives – Brooklyn, NY
($50,000 – 1 year)
Support for educational, organizing and advocacy activities
as part of a multi-year campaign to increase the age of juvenile court
jurisdiction in New York
from 16-17 to 18 years old.
Justice Policy
Institute – Washington,
DC ($200,000 – 1 year)
Support to design and implement a model system for
classifying prisoners in Alabama
in order to reduce the current prison population and control its future growth.
Partnership for
Safety and Justice – Portland,
OR ($100,000 – 1 year)
General support.
Prison Fellowship
Ministries – Lansdowne,
VA ($100,000 – 1 year)
Support for educational and outreach activities to
conservative leaders, religious organizations and media to enlist their support
for criminal justice reforms.
Prison Policy
Initiative – Northampton,
MA ($200,000 – 1 year)
Support to launch a public education and policy advocacy
campaign about the U.S. Census Bureau’s practice of counting incarcerated
people as residents of the towns in which they are imprisoned rather than in
their home communities.
The Sentencing
Project – Washington, DC ($400,000
– 2 years)
General support.
Health Reform
Center for Public
Policy Priorities – Austin,
TX ($100,000 – 1 year)
Support for health care advocacy activities.
Community Catalyst
– Boston, MA
($110,000 – 1 year)
Support to produce and disseminate a report on how consumer
advocates can improve the implementation of national health reform.
Foundation for a
Healthy Kentucky – Louisville, KY
($250,000 – 1 year)
Support for Kentucky Voices for Health Coalition’s
education, organizing and advocacy activities.
North Carolina Justice Center – Raleigh, NC
($250,000 – 1 year)
Support for public education, organizing, coalition building
and advocacy work to increase access to affordable health care for uninsured North Carolinians.
Tennessee Health Care Campaign -- Nashville, TN
($250,000 –1 year)
General support.
Virginia Interfaith Center
for Public Policy – Richmond,
VA ($200,000 –1 year)
Support for education, organizing and advocacy work on
health care reform in Virginia
and implementation of federal health reform legislation if it is passed.
Workers’ Rights
Alliance for Fair Food – New York, NY
($450,000 – 1 year)
Support for a campaign to promote socially responsible
purchasing in the corporate food industry, starting with improved wages and working
conditions for farm workers in central Florida.
American University School
of Communication – Washington,
DC ($150,000 – 2 years)
Support for an investigative report and multimedia updating
of America: What WentWrong?, an
account of the links between policies affecting workers and the struggles of
many in the middle and working classes.
Appalachian Citizens’
Law Center
– Whitesburg, KY ($100,000
– 2 years)
Support for research and advocacy on mine safety and health.
Center for Economic
and Policy Research – Washington,
DC ($250,000 – 2 years)
General support.
Center for Law and
Social Policy – Washington,
DC ($75,000 – 1 year)
Support for Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity,
a funder-driven initiative to create and maintain a nonpartisan forum for news,
ideas and insights on issues of poverty and opportunity.
Center for
Progressive Reform – Edgewater,
MD ($250,000 – 1
year)
Support to analyze and develop policy ideas for two
projects: one focused on reforming the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) and one focused on reforming regulations that affect
public health, safety, civil rights, the environment, consumers and workers.
Center on Policy
Initiatives – San Diego,
CA ($100,000 -1 year)
Support for “Cry Wolf”, a project that will compare and
contrast historical and contemporary arguments against different progressive
policies, including health and safety regulation.
Global
Anti-Incinerator Alliance – Berkeley, CA
($100,000 – 1 year)
Support for a blue-green campaign to promote safe, healthy
and high-quality jobs in the recycling industry.
Human Rights Watch
– New York, NY ($50,000
– 1 year)
Support to update a study of human rights abuses of child
farm workers and to provide human rights perspectives on labor law reform.
Kentucky Equal Justice
Center – Lexington, KY
($74,000 – 1 year)
Support for a multi-year effort to bring about policy
reforms that would benefit low-income workers in Kentucky and improve their ability to
enforce their rights in the courts.
Koreatown Immigrant
Workers Alliance – Los Angeles, CA
($200,000 – 1 year)
Support for the CLEAN Car Wash Campaign, a collaboration
among unions and community-based, environmental and immigrants’ rights
organizations to improve wages and working conditions of more than 10,000 car
wash workers in greater Los Angeles.
Legal Aid Justice Center – Charlottesville, VA
($300,000 – 2 years)
Support for the Virginia Workers’ Rights Project, which will
advocate for improved enforcement authority for the Virginia Department of
Labor and Industry to protect workers who have been denied the wages they are
due.
Minnesota Women’s Consortium – St. Paul, MN
($50,000 – 1 year)
Support to educate Minnesotans about the benefits of and
need for paid sick days in that state.
MomsRising.org – Bellevue, WA
($175,000 – 1 year)
General support.
National Economic and
Social Rights Initiative – New
York, NY ($87,000 –1 year)
Support to research and coordinate a national strategy
meeting on workers’ compensation reform.
National Partnership
for Women & Families – Washington,
DC ($220,000 – 1 year)
Support for its leadership role in coordinating national,
state and local efforts to educate the public and policymakers about the need
for paid sick days.
Policy Matters Ohio – Cleveland,
OH ($100,000 – 1 year)
General support.
Progressive States
Network – New York, NY ($400,000
– 2 years)
Support to foster the development of pro-worker legislation
in states.
Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility – Washington,
DC ($500,000 – 2 years)
Support for the creation of an online database that would
allow workers to learn their risks of disease from on-the-job exposures to
chemical hazards.
Public Justice
Center – Baltimore, MD
($500,000 – 2 years)
Support to continue a multi-year effort to bring about
policy reforms that would benefit workers in Maryland and improve their ability to
enforce their rights in the courts.
Workers Defense
Project – Austin, TX ($100,000
– 2 years)
Support to reform unsafe conditions in the construction
industry in Texas.
Working America Education Fund – Washington, DC
($150,000 – 1 year)
General support.
Working Hands Legal
Clinic – Chicago, IL ($175,000
– 1 year)
General support.
Special
Opportunities
Center for Lobbying
in the Public Interest – Washington,
DC ($80,000 – 2 years)
General support.
DC Vote – Washington, DC
($115,000 – 1 year)
General support.
Georgia
Stand-Up – Atlanta, GA ($150,000
– 1 year)
Support for “Georgia STAND-UP and Be Counted,” a project
designed to ensure that Atlanta’s
low-income communities are engaged in the decennial census and post-census
redistricting.
NAACP – Baltimore, MD
($200,000 – 1 year)
General support.
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