DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

Contact information:
650 Fifth Avenue, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-974-7000
Fax: 212-974-7590

Website: http://www.ddcf.org/

Type of foundation: Independent

Types of grants: Most grants are made to intermediary organizations for re-granting.

Description: The mission of the Foundation is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child abuse, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties. The Foundation’s grantmaking programs are:

• Arts Program: See description below.
• Child Abuse Prevention Program.
• Environment Program.
• Medical Research Program.
• African Health Initiative.
• Building Bridges Program: Funded through the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, this program seeks to increase public understanding of Islamic cultures through media and the arts.

The Arts Program supports performing artists with the creation and public performance of their work. The Foundation focuses its support on contemporary dance, jazz and theatre artists and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them.

The Arts Program’s current five-year strategy was adopted in 2007 and has three complementary components:

• Artistic Creation & Distribution: Through national competitive initiatives administered by intermediary organizations, the Foundation supports commissioning, production and presentation of new work in each of its fields of interest.
• Organizational Transformation: To complement its support for artistic creation and distribution, the Arts Program works to build strong organizations to serve performing artists. Through competitive initiatives administered by intermediary organizations, the Foundation offers grants to support bold, innovative approaches to addressing current issues affecting the performing arts: the impact of technology, loss of audiences and/or changes in leadership.
• National Sector Building: The Arts Program supports activities that will build strong national performing arts fields. The Arts Program directly supports national organizations critical to the health of contemporary dance, jazz, presenting and theatre, as well as national projects that have the potential to improve the health of a given field.

Through 2014, The Fund for National Projects (part of the National Sector Building component) will support projects that:

• Strengthen the national infrastructure of the professional nonprofit dance, jazz, presenting and/or theatre fields.
• Improve conditions for the national community of performing artists in professional nonprofit dance, jazz and theatre.

Sample grants:

• $1.5 million to National Public Radio for its news programming and to help underwrite its Climate Connections series. (Given in recognition of the Foundation’s 10th anniversary.)
• $750,000 to Link Media, San Francisco, CA, to support the development and distribution of programming that highlights the arts and culture of Muslim societies through the Understanding Islam program, which aims to educate American and international audiences about the many disparate Muslim societies around the world through the broadcast of documentaries, feature films, television series and taped programs on the Link TV satellite television network and website (Building Bridges Program, 2008).
• $500,000 to Independent Television Service, San Francisco, CA, to support the Diverse Muslim Voices Initiative, which will identify and distribute films from or about Muslim societies in order to build awareness and improve understanding in the US of Muslim societies (Building Bridges Program, 2011).
• $500,000 to National Public Radio, Washington, DC, for NPR news programming (2009).
• $450,000 to National Public Radio, Washington, DC, for NPR news programming, including coverage of energy, the environment, and climate change (2011).
• $450,000 to America Abroad Media, Washington, DC, to support the development of multi-media educational materials about Muslim societies aimed at college and university students for integration into course curriculum, as well as distribution on the internet (Building Bridges Program, 2008).
• $350,000 to Link Media, San Francisco, CA, to support the expansion of Understanding Islam programming, including research on the availability of media resources on Muslim societies (Building Bridges Program, 2011).
• $300,000 to National Public Radio, Washington, DC, for NPR news programming, including coverage of science and biomedical research issues; reporting on children, youth and families; and general news programming (2010).
• $200,000 over one year to Theatre Bay Area to support the national launch of Free Night of Theater in Fall 2008 in more than 100 cities (2008).
• $151,400 to National Public Radio, Washington, DC, for technological innovations to forward jazz appreciation, education, and innovation (2010).
• $120,000 over two years to DANCECleveland, for a consortium comprised of DANCECleveland, Dance St. Louis and Dance Affiliates-Philadelphia to stem the decline of dance in the Midwest via the stimulation of presenter growth, enhanced opportunities for dance companies and presenter mentorships (2009).
• $100,000 over 15 months to the August Wilson Center for the National Black Theater Initiative Convening, a national gathering of Black playwrights and theater practitioners to identify critical issues of common concern and plan for collaborative development (2009).
• $100,000 over one year to Fractured Atlas to develop ATHENA Tix, a new open-source ticketing application for the national performing arts community (2009).
• $82,000 over 21 months to the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre to build and establish the Digital Performance Institute, a national multi-disciplinary and publicly accessible performing arts production/artist database (2008).
• $50,000 to National Geographic Society (Washington, DC) to support NG Live! programming and family festival for the 1001 Inventions: Discover the Golden Age of Muslim Civilization exhibit (Building Bridges Program, 2011).
• $50,000 to National Public Radio to support general news programming; in particular, to support NPR's coverage of Muslim societies, including both domestic and international coverage (Building Bridges Program, 2011).
• $50,000 to National Public Radio to support NPR’s coverage of Muslim societies and cultures (Building Bridges Program, 2010).
• $50,000 over two years, to Newark Public Radio Inc. (NJ), to support production and distribution of segments of the nationally syndicated radio series "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater" that feature new jazz works commissioned through Chamber Music America’s DDCF-funded New Jazz Works program (2010).
• $25,000 to Public Radio Capital, Boulder, CO, to assist nonprofits in securing new radio frequencies for public radio programming, including jazz formats, during FCC noncommercial filing window (2007).

Fit for public broadcasting: The best fits for media are the Building Bridges Program and the Fund for National Projects (Arts). Applicants to the Fund for National Projects should demonstrate ways in which they fit program criteria and inform the public about the Foundation’s priorities.

Eligibility: Giving on a national basis. Single nonprofit organizations and consortia are both eligible to apply. The Fund for National Projects does not support:

• Projects by single performing arts entities (e.g., national tours of a particular dance or theatre work, even if they aspire to be a national model for others).
• Ongoing annual conferences.
• Individually produced conferences, performances or symposia (e.g., a festival produced by a single organization or by a consortia of local groups in a specific city or locale).
• Re-granting programs.
• Translations or commissions of new works (even if expected to have national impact).
• Production start-up activities/production costs.
• Arts education.
• Avocational arts activities.
• Capital projects.
• Endowments.

Deadline: Deadlines vary by program. Letters of inquiry may be submitted at any time.

How to apply: Inquiries about future support for projects that fall within the Arts Program’s funding priorities can be submitted through a letter of inquiry. The Building Bridges Program will accept letters of inquiry from interested applicants.

Giving range: The Fund for National Projects awards grants ranging from $60,000 to $200,000. Grants cannot exceed 40 percent of a project’s total cost. Building Bridges grants generally range from $50,000 to $500,000.

Assets: $1.7 billion (2010).

Total giving: $76,569,323 (2010).