What's New

After 17 years of exceptional leadership, Ellen B. Rudolph has decided to leave her position as Program Director of the Surdna Foundation's Thriving Cultures Program on September 30, 2011. Over the next year, however, Ellen will assist Surdna with a leadership transition and manage three specific assignments related to the future development of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), the Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship program (SATF), and an early assessment of the Foundation's initial grantmaking in Community Driven Design.  In addition to that work, Ellen looks forward to working independently in support of the fields and organizations to which she has devoted her career.

Ellen began working for the Surdna Foundation in 1994 as a consultant assigned to develop an arts grantmaking initiative.  In 1997, she was asked to join the staff full-time to direct the new Arts Program. Over her 17 years, Ellen directed $70 million in grants from Surdna, primarily in support of teens' access to intensive opportunities for their artistic development.  During her tenure, Ellen conceived and directed the development of a number of important national initiatives, including the Talented Students in the Arts Initiative (TSAI), SATF, and SNAAP.  Since 2008, Ellen has overseen the transformation of the Arts Program into the Thriving Cultures Program, broadening the portfolio to embrace new cultural work in community driven design, social action, and economic development.

Surdna Foundation President Phillip Henderson said, "We have been lucky to have had Ellen's leadership at the Foundation for such an extended period.  The depth of her career in the arts is truly impressive, and Surdna has benefited enormously from the breadth of her experience in the field.  We will miss her wise contributions to our work."

Prior to joining the Surdna Foundation, Ellen's prior positions included Executive Director of the Cultural Education Collaborative in MA, Executive Director of the Off Off Broadway Alliance -OOBA (now called ART/NY), and high school and college arts teacher.  She has provided strategic advice and directed projects as a consultant to a range of cultural institutions, schools and colleges, foundations, and education and national cultural policy agencies.

The Surdna Foundation will be conducting a national search for Ellen's replacement as Program Director of the Thriving Cultures Program.  This search is being conducted by Isaacson, Miller, Inc. and information about this search will be available in mid-May 2011 at the Surdna Foundation Website.

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The Surdna Foundation, a New York-based family foundation, seeks to foster just and sustainable communities in the United States-communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

For five generations, since 1917, the Foundation has been governed largely by descendants of John Andrus and has developed a tradition of innovative service for those in need of help or opportunity.

 

The Surdna Foundation’s mission is to foster just and sustainable communities throughout the United States. One of the hallmarks of this mission is our commitment to support for a high-quality public transportation networks that increase mobility and accessibility to housing, jobs, education, and other services. Implementing High Speed Rail networks is a critical element in strengthening America’s infrastructure, increasing economic productivity, reducing travel time behind the wheel and greenhouse gas emissions as well as connecting people to family and friends.

Surdna grantee, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG), produced a video about the merits of High Speed Rail with members of the cast of the hit television show Mad Men. Click below to view "Mad Men on Trains."

USPIRG is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that researches pressing public interest problems, such as limitation to the country’s transportation networks, develops meaningful policy solutions and does the organizing, outreach and public education it takes to implement its vision at the state and federal levels.

Guest Commentary by Aaron Dworkin
Founder & President
The Sphinx Organization*

"The deepest defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become." - Ashley Montagu

I have a bit of an unusual history.  My start might have made it challenging for anyone to determine what I might be capable of becoming. By any statistical norms, being born a bi-racial baby on September 11, 1970 to an un-wed white Irish Catholic mother and African-American Jehovah's Witness father in a small village of Monticello, NY, and being immediately given up for adoption did not necessarily set the stage for the highest expectations for my future capabilities. I was adopted, however, at the age of two weeks by a white Jewish couple, professors in neural and behavioral science at Rockefeller University, and given the too-rare gift of a fine education.

People ask me why I care so much about diversity and why I have dedicated my life to pursuits that further that end.  My response is: I am a Black, white Jewish, Irish Catholic Jehovah's Witness who plays the violin.  I am the definition of diversity.  I don't have a choice but to do what I do.

When I was five, my adoptive mother, who was an amateur violinist, inspired me to begin studying violin.  I remember sitting in Carnegie Hall at age 8, listening to Isaac Stern, and the impact that experience had on me.  However, I do not recollect seeing Sanford Allen around the same time.  Who, you might ask, is Sanford Allen?  In 1961, he was the first Black member of the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra's history.

As I continued to develop on my instrument, as the concertmaster of the Harrisburg Youth Symphony, student at the Interlochen Arts Academy, or concertmaster of the Penn State Philharmonic, I was either the only or one of less than a handful of minorities.

Read more...

The Program Director for Sustainable Environments Program (SEP) will serve in a strategic and timely leadership role in the Foundation.  With a change in the national political landscape, the Program Director will need to suggest new pathways to address core programmatic issues impacting the SEP portfolio.  With a focus on energy efficiency, smart growth, transportation policy, green jobs development, etc., the Program Director will need to be grounded in an understanding of the interplay between the environment, the economy, culture, and social equity. Moreover, the Program Director will need to promote innovative policy approaches and strategic solutions to complex issues at the local, regional and national level.  Overall, the Program Director should be an individual who seeks to invest in leaders and organizations whose efforts create just and sustainable communities where consumption and conservation are balanced and innovative solutions to environmental problems improve people's lives.

Click here for a full description and information on how to apply.

Surdna's Board met in February to approve 70 grants totaling $11,554,125 in the areas of Sustainable Environments, Strong Local Economies, and Thriving Cultures.

Grants included: support to the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy to establish a large-scale program to enable energy efficiency measures for hundreds of thousands of residential and commercial buildings served by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and to provide training for career path green jobs;  The Safe and Sound Campaign, to pilot a culinary arts workforce development program for young adult ex-offenders in Baltimore that will provide on-the-job training, coupled with evidenced-based therapeutic interventions and other services, to help young people build skills and transition to good-paying jobs with career ladders; and the New York City-based Arts Engine which serves as a critical nexus for independent media makers and activists -helping them find each other and more effectively use the work of media artists to reach social change goals.

Click here for the complete list of grants.

JumpStart Inc., a nationally recognized non-profit venture development organization based in Cleveland, announces the creation of a new national initiative, JumpStart America. JumpStart America will focus on building robust public, private and philanthropic partnerships across the country with the goal of aggregating over $2 billion in total funding to create or accelerate regionally-based innovation and entrepreneurship programs. It will also serve as a national center for programmatic best practices and public policies that support high-growth entrepreneurship. These efforts will accelerate the economic impact of 100,000 new and existing firms across the U.S. and create hundreds of thousands of new private sector jobs in coming years.

JumpStart America will be one of the first implementation partners of the newly announced Startup America Partnership, a national non-profit alliance of top entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, CEOs, university presidents, foundations and other business leaders joining together to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of innovative, high-growth U.S. startups. The Startup America Partnership was announced today by members of the Administration's Cabinet including Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council; U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke;  and Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Karen Gordon Mills.

Founding funders for JumpStart America include The Surdna Foundation and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

"We have been greatly impressed by the work JumpStart has done to advance and support entreprenureship and economic growth in Ohio, particularly with its emphasis on women and minority-owned businesses," said Phillip Henderson, president of the Surdna Foundation. " With its mission of fostering just and sustainable communities, one of the Surdna Foundation's strategies is to help create and connect people to economic opportunities.  JumpStart is uniquely positioned to bring this project to scale in a way that will make a significant impact in this area."

JumpStart America will be a separate 501(c)3 organization from JumpStart Inc. and will be governed by an independent Board of Directors, comprised of regional and national representatives, which will be announced in the spring of 2011.

"Being selected as one of the first implementation partners of the Startup America Partnership reflects the recognition on the part of national policy makers that the high growth entrepreneurial activity occurring in Northeast Ohio is needed across the country," says JumpStart CEO Ray Leach.  "The outcomes of JumpStart's on-the-ground efforts in Northeast Ohio reflect the results that a collaborative public/ private/philanthropic partnership can have.  This national partnership will be a vehicle for coalescing support behind job creation, and for regions all across the nation to access funding, best practice learnings, and other resources needed to accelerate their region-specific entrepreneurial activity."

More information on the JumpStart America initiative is available at http://www.jumpstartamerica.org/. Information on JumpStart is available at http://www.jumpstartinc.org/ or via Twitter at @jumpstartinc.

We would like to share with you the latest research paper issued by National Ttransportation Policy Project, co-authored by Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Martin Wachs, Strengthening the Connections between Transportation Investments and Economic Growth.  This paper was officially released on Friday, January 21^st, at a press conference at the offices of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). Please click here to view video coverage of the event.

This paper examines how well-targeted investments in transportation infrastructure can contribute to the nation's economic recovery, can create short- and long-term jobs, and can improve America's competitiveness and productivity.  Although it has long been argued that any investment in transportation both creates jobs and grows the economy, this latest research paper, prepared for NTPP, asserts that this is not necessarily the case.  Federal transportation investments can, and should, be required to advance both long-term productivity gains and shorter-term job creation, in order to achieve economic growth.  However, in order to achieve these results, the paper argues that federal legislation should be reformed, so as to require that investments demonstrate broad, sustainable, long-term economic growth, beyond immediate job creation.

A new report was released by the Center for Clean Air Policy entitled, "Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity."  Authors Chuck Kooshian and Steve Winkelman discuss how application of smart growth principles can improve the bottom line for businesses, households and governments by increasing property values, cutting fuel and infrastructure costs, creating jobs, enhancing public health and strengthening communities.

In the report, which was funded by Surdna, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation, the authors make the observation that application of smart growth principles can improve the bottom line for businesses, household budgets and government balance sheets by increasing property values, cutting fuel and infrastructure costs, creating jobs, enhancing public health and strengthening communities.  Cities investing in public transportation and downtown development are experiencing cost savings, growing tax revenues, increased property values and booming retail sales, while pent-up demand for walkable communities is reshaping the real estate market.

Download the report...

January 12, 2011

Dear Grantees, Partners and Friends of the Surdna Foundation,

The Surdna Foundation is making some important staffing changes that, we believe, will make us better grantmakers and more effective advocates for our new mission.  We are pleased to announce the appointment of Sharon Alpert to the newly created position of Senior Director for Programs and Strategy.  In addition to this promotion, we are creating a new Senior Staff team to oversee the operations of the foundation.  This team, who will work with me, is comprised of the Chief Financial Officer, Marc de Venoge, and Sharon in her new role as Senior Director.  Sharon will oversee the program side of the foundation, while Marc will oversee the administrative functions of the foundation.

This announcement of these new roles for Sharon and Marc, and the creation of a Senior Staff team, represents the next step in a process of program and operational development at the foundation which began one year ago with the launch of a more focused mission and three new core programs - Strong Local Economies, Thriving Cultures, and Sustainable Environments - that together reflect the mission of fostering just and sustainable communities.  In her new role, Sharon will be working to ensure greater cohesion and collaboration across the programs compelled by our new mission and to increase programmatic effectiveness.  Sharon will be a key representative of the foundation externally, working with partners in the field to advance an agenda of justice and sustainability in U.S. communities and national action on sustainability.  In his expanded role, Marc will ensure that the administrative, financial, and investment functions of the organization are enhancing the impact of the foundation's programs.

Sharon is particularly well equipped for this new role due to the knowledge of Surdna's programs and strategy she has acquired over the past 7 years, her understanding of what's needed to support high caliber grantmaking, and her overall experience working on sustainable community development for over 15 years.  Marc has been with the foundation for 20 years and this change will allow him to fully employ his institutional knowledge and engage his financial investment skills in service to the foundation's mission.

The grantmaking of the foundation will continue to be carried out through our three core grantmaking programs, and the strategies and guidelines announced by those programs throughout the past year will continue.  However, with the promotion of Sharon to this new role, we will be looking for a new director of our Sustainable Environments Program.  During the search, Sharon will continue to oversee the Sustainable Environments Program, and grantees of that program will receive additional information as we transition to the leadership of a new Program Director.

We are excited by this change at the foundation, and we anticipate that it will allow us to be even more effective innovators, collaborators, and partners with all of you as we all work to create social change.

Sincerely,



Phillip Henderson
President

In 2009, as part of Surdna’s mission and program revision, Foundation Initiatives (FI) was created to ensure flexibility and ongoing cross-programmatic thinking at the foundation. FI does this through research and development (R&D) that supports the exploration of innovation, new strategies, and emerging trends identified by foundation staff; and through time-limited grantmaking initiatives based on the outcomes of our R&D. Results of our ongoing R&D and the establishment of specific grantmaking initiatives will be announced on our website and through our monthly newsletter.

We currently have two grant opportunities in FI: The New Orleans Fund, and the Capacity and Infrastructure Fund.

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