Joyce Foundation
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Mission
The Joyce Foundation supports three main efforts in the Great Lakes region: to protect the environment, to reduce poverty and violence, and to ensure access to good schools, decent jobs, and a diverse culture. Specifically, the Joyce Foundation is interested in improving public policies. As stated on the website, that the improvement of public policies is important because "public systems such as education and welfare directly affect the lives of so many people, and because public policies help shape private sector decisions about jobs, the environment, and the health of our communities."
Additionally, the Foundation works to ensure that public policies truly reflect public rather than private interests, it supports efforts to reform the system of financing election campaigns.[1]
Board of Directors
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Previous notable board members include 2008 Presidential candidate Barack Obama who served on the board from 1994 through 2002.
History
The Joyce Foundation was established in 1948 by Beatrice Joyce Kean of Chicago, and at its founding, the Foundation's mission was broadly stated as "religious, charitable, scientific, literary and educational purposes." Kean was the sole heir of the Joyce family's wealth, which came from the lumber industry.
While the founder was alive, traditional health organizations and hospitals received the majority of the Foundation's contributions. A year after Mrs. Kean's death, in 1973, higher education and cultural institutions were added as major beneficiaries.
In 1978, the Foundation published its first public annual report under the direction of its new president, Charles U. Daly. Included in that report was a description of the Foundation's programmatic interests in culture, education, environment and conservation, government, health and social services. These interests were broader and more inclusive than the Foundation's initial contributions to hospitals.[2]
Funding
Until the early 1970s, assets of the Foundation remained small, and grants were given to the particular philanthropic interests of its founder. At the time of Mrs. Kean's death, the Foundation's annual giving totaled less that $100,000. By 1974, when the Foundation received her total bequest, annual giving reached $500,000. Two years later, it was $10 million. When Mrs. Kean died in December of 1972, the Foundation received ninety percent of her estate, an amount in excess of $100 million.
The Foundation does not receive any contributions from the public. Joyce Foundation assets at the end of 2006 amounted to just over $900 million; grants of approximately $50 million were approved in 2006. Since its founding in 1948, the Foundation has made grants of more than $600 million to groups working to improve the quality of life in the Great Lakes region.[3]
The Joyce Foundation's 2005 Financial Statement may be found at Joyce Foundation: Financials
Programs
- Education: Focuses on public schools in Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee; concentrates on teacher quality, early childhood education, and “innovations,” primarily charter schools, small schools, and similar initiatives.
- Employment: Focuses on workforce development, education, and job training for low-income workers.
- Environment: Concentrates on environmental issues affecting the Great Lakes region, especially water and energy issues.
- Gun violence: Funds research and advocacy to reduce gun ownership, deaths and injuries. This includes support of anti-gun groups[1].
- Money and politics: Supports research and advocacy around such issues as campaign finance and ethics reform.
- Culture: Supports arts organizations, primarily in Chicago; its Joyce Awards also supports arts groups in other Midwest cities.
The Joyce Foundation funds policy-related research in its program areas.
In 2005, the Joyce Foundation paid grants in the amount of $8,385,304 in its Environment program, $7,888,380 in its Education program, $6,302,775 in its Employment program, $3,056,117 in its Gun Violence Program, $2,818,105 in its Money and Politics program, and $1,427,350 in its Culture program.[4]
Grants in Campaign Finance Reform
These are some, not all, of the organizations that the Joyce Foundation supports through grants:
- Campaign Finance Institute
- Democracy 21 Education Fund
- Fund for Justice
- Illinois Campaign for Political Reform
- The Justice at Stake Campaign
- League for Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Fund
- Michigan Campaign Finance Network
- Citizen Advocacy Center
- The Campaign Legal Center
- Brennan Center for Justice
- Center for Digital Democracy
- Center for Responsive Politics
- Ohio State University
- George Mason University
- Cato Institute
- Media Access Project
- Brigham Young University
- The Brookings Institution
- American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education[5]
Illinois Civil Justice League Uncovers Soros' "Independent" Groups
Ryan Sager of the New York Post analyzed the ICJL study of George Soros, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, and the Illinois race for Supreme Court. His assessment, which was published in a column in the New York Post:
"The 'nonpartisan' group, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, spearheaded a Tone and Conduct Committee — organized under the aegis of the state Bar Association — aimed at keeping advertising by outside interests to a minimum. The media bought this charade hook, line and sinker, referring to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform as "nonpartisan" and the Tone and Conduct Committee as 'independent.'"
"I think they would like to cut anybody out of the debate who disagrees with their agenda," says Edward Murnane, the president of the Illinois Civil Justice League. As evidence, he points to the liberal foundation funding behind the Illinois Campaign Reform Coalition, an umbrella group in the state lobbying for sweeping restrictions on political speech. That funding is detailed in another report just released by his group. "It turns out that the eight groups under the umbrella (ICPR, the Sunshine Project, the Citizen Advocacy Center, Protestants for the Common Good, the Better Government Association, Common Cause Illinois, Illinois Public Interest Research Group and the League of Women Voters of Illinois) have received about $3 million in grants from George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Joyce Foundation since 1997."
"Those names should sound familiar to anyone who has followed the unmasking of the campaign-finance lobby at the national level. They are two of the eight liberal foundations that spent more than $120 million between 1994 and 2004 to fake up a "grass-roots movement" to pass the McCain-Feingold law, defend it in court and lobby for further restrictions on political speech."
"If politics is war by other means, then campaign-finance reform is politics by other means. The funders of campaign-finance reform have a political agenda — as shown by the other groups they support: These foundations also fund the Earth Action Network, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, the Public Citizen Foundation . . . and they oppose tort reform."
"Once again, we see the convicted swindler, George Soros, funding groups that are deceiving all of us by claiming to be nonpartisan and only 'concerned' about cleaning up campaign financing. What they are really doing, is trying to shut up their opposition, by what ever means possible."
It’s clear that the Illinois campaign finance “reform” groups are being funding by national Democratic interests, including George Soros, who has spent untold millions trying to defeat Republicans across the country.[6]
Donations Influence the News On NPR
NPR News is one of many news organizations that sometimes has to explain the relationship between the interests of its policy-minded benefactors and its own news judgments. 47 newspapers and broadcasters received a total of more than $1 million from the Pew Charitable Trusts, through its subsidiary, the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, to act as "subcontractors" in the campaign to promote its view of a publicly engaged, solution-oriented journalism. Some of that money pays the salaries of newsroom staff members or consultants.
At National Public Radio News, a nonprofit organization that must raise all of its $24 million budget from private and government sources, editors speak emphatically of the "fire wall" between the money coming in and the programs going out, a wall that restricts discussions with donors to members of the development office and senior editors.
The fire wall seems to bend a little when donors restrict their gifts, permitting the money to be spent only for coverage of specific topics. These topics can range from the charming, like the Lila A. Wallace Fund's support for coverage of jazz, to the solemn, like the Joyce Foundation's $241,000 in grants to NPR since 1994 earmarked for the coverage of special-interest money and politics.
What was just news to NPR, however, was information that could influence public policy in ways the Joyce Foundation felt was important. "Are you asking me: Did we have an agenda and did we have a policy to increase public knowledge and awareness?" Ms. Leff said. "The answer to that is yes. NPR is a quality news organization, but they have limited funding available, and it is true in public news radio or in public television that what gets on the air is sometimes what gets funded."[7]
See also
External links
For total donations given to activist groups, visit ActivistCash.com.
