Joyce Foundation Announces $7 Million in Summer 2011 Grants

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Aug 10, 2011, 08:00 ET

CHICAGO, Aug. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Joyce Foundation is awarding 35 organizations more than $7 million in its summer 2011 grant-making cycle. The Foundation supports efforts to protect the Great Lakes, to reduce poverty and violence in the region, and to ensure its residents good schools, decent jobs, a strong democracy, and a diverse and thriving culture. In July 2011, Joyce awarded $7,369,338 in grants in six different program areas including Education, Employment, Environment, Gun Violence, Culture, and Special Opportunities.

Examples of Joyce's summer 2011 grants include:

Education: $200,000 to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research to help the nation's top policy makers and researchers identify critical human capital policy lessons and future research questions as state and district debates about how to train, pay, and evaluate teachers intensify.

Employment: $325,000 to the Women Employed Institute to support a network of community colleges and other providers to launch innovative strategies to strengthen the skills of adult workers; the ultimate goal is to increase Illinois's proportion of adults with high-quality degrees and credentials from 41 percent to 60 percent by 2025 so they can get and keep good jobs.

Environment: $100,000 to the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources to support two weekend Institutes designed to prepare 30 or more journalists for covering the restoration, protection, and management of watersheds and vital inhabitants in the Great Lakes region.

Gun Violence: $199,952 to the Police Foundation to support management activities of the National Law Enforcement Partnership's goal to create a unified law enforcement voice on policies impacting public safety.

Culture: $30,000 to the Jazz Institute of Chicago to support capacity building and an artist residency with local jazz trumpeter and composer Orbert Davis as part of the 2011 Chicago Jazz Festival.

Special Opportunities: $500,000 to MDRC to support College Match, a pilot program in Chicago Public Schools to assist low-income, high-achieving students attend more selective colleges through specialized advising.

For a complete list of all grants, visit www.joycefdn.org.

Information on how to apply for a grant is available on the How to Apply page of the Foundation's website. Grant proposals are considered at meetings of the Foundation's board of directors three times a year in April, July, and December.

The Joyce Foundation supports efforts to protect the natural environment of the Great Lakes, to reduce poverty and violence in the region, and to ensure that its people have access to good schools, decent jobs, and a diverse and thriving culture. We are especially interested in improving public policies, 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. To ensure that public policies truly reflect public rather than private interests, we support efforts to reform the system of financing election campaigns. Learn more at www.joycefdn.org.

SOURCE The Joyce Foundation