Grantmakers in the News
January 1, 2005
Name: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Year founded: 1950
Contact: Larry Meyer, Vice President of Communications
Address: Wachovia Financial Ctr., Ste. 3300
200 S. Biscayne Blvd
Miami, FL 33131-2349
Telephone: 305-908-2610
E-mail: meyer@knightfdn.org
URL: www.knightfdn.org/
The Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced grants totaling $1.4 million to twenty-nine organizations working to help immigrants become citizens and engaged members of society in the 14 U.S. communities where Knight serves as a funder.
The grants, which were awarded through the foundation's recently established American Dream Fund, support organizations serving Latino, Haitian, Asian, African, and other immigrant communities in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, Florida; Boulder, Colorado; Charlotte, North Carolina; Columbia and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Detroit, Michigan; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Lexington, Kentucky; Long Beach and San Jose, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Wichita, Kansas. Most of the organizations will receive $50,000 over two years for projects ranging from naturalization assistance and English-language education to advocacy and public policy programs.
The $6 million American Dream Fund is the local component of the foundation's $13.5 million Immigration Integration Initiative, which welcomes newcomers into American life by encouraging civic participation, naturalization, voting, and education. The Fund is administered by New York City-based Public Interest Projects, New York-based philanthropy advisers with expertise in the area of immigration. Knight's local community advisory committees recommended potential grantees for the fund.
While Knight is the sole contributor to the fund, the foundation coordinates its broader immigrant strategy with other funding partners, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Joyce Foundation. National nonprofit groups supported by Knight in its work to increase immigrant civic participation are the National Immigration Forum, Center for Community Change, National Council of La Raza and Hispanics in Philanthropy.
"Our goal is to help hard-working, tax-paying immigrant families achieve the American dream of economic self-sufficiency and individual liberty," said Knight president and CEO Alberto Ibargüen. "The purpose of the American Dream Fund is to provide grassroots groups with direct funding for general support of their work and to link them to national resources."
For a complete list of grant recipients, see:
http://www.knightfdn.org/.
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