Dear Friends,
The John and Susan Dewan Foundation realized a number of successes in 2008 with another busy and productive year.
Our grant program occupied a central position in foundation activities. Over the course of the year, we made 28 grants totaling $103,667. The financial market turmoil in the latter half of the year necessitated the deferral of a number of grants we had hoped to make in 2008. Nonetheless, we continued to support a variety of programs providing services to the homeless in Chicago as well as assisting a number of organizations with their education, employment or economic development work overseas. While most of our grants are modest in size, we have been steadfast annual supporters of quite a few organizations that offer effective and high quality services while consistently improving their programs. Our focus is on smaller organizations connected closely to their community that offer hope and a future to the most needy.
Even while maintaining positive relationships with organizations with whom we have become more familiar, we are always open to new grantmaking opportunities. The Dewan Foundation made grants to five organizations in 2008 that we have not previously supported. They provide a range of desperately needed services to people on the margins of society. In Chicago, these included a career readiness and education program for homeless pregnant young women, housing and employment linkage services for families facing eviction and a brand new social enterprise providing training and employment experience for disadvantaged girls. Overseas, we made initial grant commitments to an organic agriculture and employment project managed by religious sisters in Honduras and a technology center program for rural schools serving children in poverty in the western highlands of Guatemala.
Direct technical assistance to a few selected organizations supplements the foundation's grantmaking activity. In this regard, our proposal writing efforts were once again very successful last year. Foundation staff worked closely with non-profit agency managers to generate over $359,000 in new grant awards for their programs. Proposal writing has become a substantial activity over the last three years. During this period, the foundation was instrumental in securing funding for a transitional housing facility, an employment program, a health clinic and a dental clinic, all of which served Chicago's homeless along with a large multi-year grant to support an after school academic enrichment program for disadvantaged children on Chicago's poverty-stricken west side.
Ongoing support of the education program at Mission Honduras International continued in 2008, although it was a year of transition for the foundation's staff support of that organization. There was a distinct shift to technical assistance that was administrative in nature rather than service delivery and coordination, as the foundation assisted with a cost benefit research study on a contemplated food shipment to Liberia and compiling cost information on agency insurance coverage.
As we have done for the last three years, the foundation facilitated the annual meeting of the Mission Honduras Advisory Group to support their communications, networking and fundraising ability. After a commitment of more than four years, the foundation's work to coordinate the volunteer program came to a conclusion, and a new volunteer coordinator took responsibility for that activity. The transition did not come about before some final excitement, however. The close of the international airport in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capitol city at the end of May after an airplane crash, necessitated alternate travel plans for nearly every scheduled group and individual just prior to the busy summer mission trip season. After many hurried phone calls and emails over several weeks, nearly everyone was still able to make their mission trip. The volunteer program has significantly increased in scale during the last four years with more than 500 people now making a service trip to Honduras annually.
The foundation rounded out its direct charitable assistance activities with a few more limited engagements with groups affiliated with the Archdiocese of Chicago. These included a presentation on the foundation's work and a question and answer session for a grantwriting seminar for Catholic social service agencies, a consultation on the grant writing approach for a religious institute and helping to identify funding possibilities for a liturgical musician's convention. While some of these are a bit far a field from the foundation's usual work, we try to be helpful when we can.
As always, we are grateful for the interest and encouragement of our friends and supporters.
Sincerely,
The Board of Directors
John and Susan Dewan Foundation
Click here to read last year's annual letter to supporters.
