Power of Partnerships
2011 A N N U A L R E P O R T
Table of Contents
12
Mission
1
Vision
1
Foundation History
1
2011 Staff
2
2011 Board of Directors
2
Executive Summary
3
Foundation Headquarters LEED Certified
4
Regional Collaboration for Student Success in the Rio Grande Valley
6
Student Success BY THE NUMBERS: Building Data Capacity in Texas Community Colleges
10
Update on GTF Scholars
14
2011 Grant Activity
15
The Big Picture: Total Grants Approved by Funding Principle; Total Requests Declined
18
Financial Activity
19
Looking Forward: Collective Impact in Action
21
Vision
Greater Texas Foundation’s vision is for all Texas students to have equal opportunity to access and succeed in postsecondary education.
Mission
Greater Texas Foundation supports efforts to ensure all Texas students are prepared for, have access to, persist in, and complete postsecondary education. We put particular focus on helping underserved and disadvantaged populations. We pursue our mission by forming partnerships, supporting research, sharing knowledge, and making grants.
Foundation History
Greater Texas Foundation and its predecessor entities have a long history as a nonprofit organization serving the citizens of the state of Texas. To learn about the foundation’s history, please visit our website at www.greatertexasfoundation.org.
“Now more than ever, philanthropic and policy leaders must cultivate partnerships, which forge alignments between policy and practice to create meaningful opportunities to access and complete a quality postsecondary education for all students. GTF not only gets this unique partnership concept, it skillfully and courageously leverages its intellectual capital to nurture the ecosystem for these high impact partnerships.” – Jacob Fraire, Vice President, Student and Institutional Success, TG
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Power of Partnerships
2011 Staff Erin Arnold, Accountant Amber Bass, CPA, Controller Judy Brock, Office Administrator Victor Gongora, Graduate Assistant Allison Grainger, Student Assistant Leslie Gurrola, Strategy Manager Judy Holt, Consultant Amy Landers, Student Assistant Carol Miller, Grant Manager Kate Richardson, Project Associate Wynn Rosser, Ph.D., Executive Director Kim Ulbricht, Executive Assistant
Not all staff pictured.
2011 Board of Directors Dr. J. Malon Southerland
Mr. Ralph Rushing
Dr. Samuel Gillespie
Mr. A.D. James, Jr.
Mrs. Judy Holt
Dr. Terry Jones
Dr. John Moss
Dr. Wesley K. Summers
Dr. Alonzo Sosa
Mr. Bill Youngkin
President & Chair, Student Loan Committee
Vice President & Chair, Audit & Accountability Committee
Secretary
Past President & Co-Chair, Charitable Activities Committee
Co-Chair, Charitable Activities Committee
2
Chair, Investment Committee
Director
Director
Director
Director
Executive Summary Dear Friends and Colleagues:
Some say it takes a village, but we say it takes a region. It takes a region to ensure that every child has the opportunities and support structures in place to reach his or her academic potential and earn a postsecondary credential. If you read our last annual report, you’ll know 2010 was a building year, literally and metaphorically, for the foundation. Just as much as 2010 was a year for building, 2011 was a year for further learning and implementation. As we continue to learn about the challenges students face on the road to postsecondary completion, the more we realize that working toward a sustainable solution takes a long-term and comprehensive commitment that no one entity can accomplish on its own. As we reflect on 2011 and move into 2012, the midpoint of our five-year strategic plan, we are humbled by the extreme dedication and commitment of individuals across the state and country to create better avenues for students to reach their full academic and career potential.
The challenge is great, but we see successes every day, and we know we are not in it alone. Illustrative of this, we are very pleased to include statements from a few of our colleagues about how their organizations value the power of partnerships. As you read through our annual report, you’ll learn from guest authors
about how several organizations are working to improve postsecondary outcomes for students in the Rio Grande Valley through a “collective impact” model and about how the Community College Leadership Program at The University of Texas at Austin is working with fourteen community colleges in the state to build a culture of evidence to support effective student success agendas on their campuses. You will also find updated photos of the foundation’s new office in Bryan, Texas and can catch up on the launch of Greater Texas Foundation Scholars, our new scholarship program for graduates of Texas early college high schools. Thank you for your interest in the foundation’s work, and thank you for being great partners and friends in this critically important goal to ensure a more educated Texas. Sincerely, Wynn Rosser, Ph.D. President & CEO
"In an era of limited resources, austerity, and a heightened focus on impact and accountability in the field of philanthropy, building and sustaining partnerships is essential. The Ford Foundation's partnership with Greater Texas Foundation in supporting college completion in distressed communities in Texas will go a long way to ensure that the most vulnerable populations will have the opportunity to access and complete a college degree with labor market value." – Doug Wood, Program Officer, Ford Foundation www.greatertexasfoundation.org 3
All building photos by Casey Dunn
Foundation Headquarters LEED Certified
Greater Texas Foundation has always had high standards for its grantmaking, partnerships and research. Sustainability is very important to the foundation in its funding and work to increase postsecondary education attainment for Texas residents. It’s no surprise that the board of directors would carry those same standards and commitment to sustainability over to the design and construction of the foundation’s new facility by using the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) principles. Following this vision to a tee, Furman & Keil Architects and Braun & Butler Construction
succeeded in designing and building the first new construction LEED Gold Certified building in Bryan, Texas -- which we now use to consider using LEED sustainable and environmentally responsible building principles. Team member Dunnam Tita Architecture and Interiors developed interior architecture and furnishings consistent with this mission and assisted in the development of our LEED educational component. We welcome you to visit and take a tour of our new office, or if you can’t visit in person, learn about our LEED Gold building on our website at www.greatertexasfoundation.org.
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Power of Partnerships
"Educate Texas joins with Greater Texas Foundation in the belief that long-term, positive impact for Texas students can best be achieved through collaboration. We are proud of our many projects with GTF that are in place and already changing the lives of families across our state, such as the Rio Grande Valley Collective Impact Initiative." – John Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, Educate Texas
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Regional Collaboration for Student Success in the Rio Grande Valley
By Jeff Kutash
Jeff Kutash is a Managing Director at FSG, a nonprofit research and consulting firm. Jeff leads FSG’s national Education and Youth Practice.
I
first visited the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), the southernmost area of Texas along the US/Mexico border, in October 2010 on a tour arranged by Greater Texas Foundation. During that visit, I met a remarkable young woman whose story I will now forever keep in my heart. “Luz” was the daughter of Hispanic immigrants, and every year, her parents pulled her out of school months early so that she could pick produce with them as a migrant worker. While her peers were in school, Luz was working fourteen-hour days, carrying a plastic bag so that she didn’t have to stop picking to go to the bathroom. At fifteen, she told her parents that her education was too important, and that she wouldn’t be going with them anymore – at which point they basically disowned her. She “couch-surfed” for several years on her own and continued to work fourteen-hour days – only this time on her school work. Upon graduating from high school, Luz received a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Brownsville, and she then went on to get a full scholarship to dental school. Hers is a story of grit, determination, and desire – a story of success. However, that success was against great odds. As she told her
story, I kept thinking over and over to myself that it just shouldn’t be that hard, that we have an obligation to make it easier for young people in the RGV to attend and complete college. A few months later, FSG had the privilege of working with a group of funders in Texas, including Greater Texas Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas/Educate Texas, Houston Endowment, and The Meadows Foundation, to conduct action-focused research aimed at improving postsecondary persistence and completion across the state. As part of that effort, we developed an evidence base for five regions including the Gulf Coast, the Dallas/Forth Worth Metroplex, Central Texas, El Paso, and South Texas including the Rio Grande Valley. We collected and analyzed extensive secondary research, visited all five regions, and interviewed a broad array of educators and community leaders to understand and describe the existing landscape and identify opportunities to significantly improve postsecondary persistence and completion. The full set of reports can be found at www.greatertexasfoundation.org under the “Research” tab. www.greatertexasfoundation.org 7
Power of Partnerships
Here is what we learned about the Rio Grande Valley. Only 16 percent of students complete a higher education degree or certificate. Hispanic students, who currently represent more than 90 percent of the region’s students and whose numbers are projected to grow 25 percent in the next 20 years, attain degrees at an even lower rate of 13 percent. At the same time, by 2016, the fastest growing occupations in the region will require a postsecondary degree and demand for college graduates will grow by 35 percent. So unless graduation rates are improved, particularly for Hispanic students, the region’s overall performance and its economic prospects will decline. This presents a significant and complex challenge, one that no single organization is going to be able to address. There is no “silver bullet” solution. Instead, it will require the combined efforts of a wide array of actors including schools, community groups, after-school programs, county and city agencies, 8
parents, and others to move the needle in the Rio Grande Valley. We at FSG think problems like this are best addressed through collective impact – which involves a set of cross-sector actors holding a common vision for success, coordinating their actions, and striving to achieve the same goals. You can read more about collective impact at www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/collective_impact. By studying such efforts, which are currently emerging in incredible numbers across the country and around the globe, we’ve honed in on five success factors that tend to drive meaningful improvement: • Common Agenda – all of the actors develop a joint understanding of the problem and a common vision for change • Shared Measurement – everyone signs on to and pursues a targeted set of indicators that are used to track progress and improve efforts • Mutually Reinforcing Activities – cross-sector actors coordinate their efforts through a joint plan of action • Continuous Communication – there are regular meetings, at the leadership level, to build trust and ensure action • Backbone Support – the effort is supported by a separate staffed organization with the resources to convene and coordinate action Although it sounds simple, the truth is that collective impact initiatives are messy and only succeed when funders and operating organizations are willing to put aside their individual agendas, adapt their activities, and integrate their efforts. Collective impact isn’t about funding or being the best organization, but about supporting the best set of solutions
and ensuring that all of the actors who are needed to deliver those solutions are involved, aligned, and improving. And we are excited to see great energy, investment and momentum behind efforts to align the education system and key education actors in the Rio Grande Valley. The leadership at multiple school districts and institutions of higher education across the region are highly motivated and committed to improving their coordination and effectiveness. For example, the district-wide scaling of early college high school models at Hidalgo and Pharr San Juan Alamo school districts in partnership with South Texas College is having a great impact on students. And the RGV is now being recognized nationally for this work, as well as for other innovative practices being implemented at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Based on these factors, the RGV emerged in our research as a region of promise and great opportunity. Capitalizing on the high level of synergy and leadership within the region, Greater Texas Foundation has made a significant investment with its grant making, with its convening power, and with its ability to leverage partners to increase regional collaboration and improve student success. This has included commissioning research; highlighting the region’s successes and needs via speeches, conference sessions and blogging; convening and attending a set of highly productive meetings with local organizations, including school districts and institutes of higher education; developing partnerships with state and national funders and education reform
organizations to increase their awareness and support of regional efforts; and laying the ground work for the creation of a more formal regional plan to align the involved actors, integrate ongoing initiatives, and further develop the full set of solutions that are needed to drive dramatic gains. These efforts are a great start, but there is still much work to be done to increase collaboration and to move to true collective impact in the region. Doing so will require building on progress to date to finalize a common vision; determining and tracking progress toward agreed upon goals and outcomes; designing a strategy to coordinate regional activities; and developing an infrastructure to ensure ongoing communication, knowledge sharing, accountability, and action across all the actors. Succeeding in such an effort will also require the region’s educators to build trust, develop new ways of working together, and engage the broader community including business leaders, nonprofits, community groups, and policy makers. Although the path to collective impact is a challenging one, we at FSG truly believe that such an approach to system alignment has the potential to transform the RGV, greatly increasing educational attainment and workforce readiness for a substantial number of Texas’s most underserved students. We are proud to be a partner with Greater Texas Foundation and others in this important work, and we will do everything we can to make sure that young people in the Rio Grande Valley don’t have to make the extreme sacrifices that Luz made, but instead receive the support they need to succeed.
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Power of Partnerships
"As a national funder with a small education team, we are limited in our ability to work deeply in any particular place beyond our home state of Michigan. A number of Texas foundations, most notably GTF, have actively sought to build partnerships with us over the past few years, and we truly appreciate their outreach. These relationships have given us the confidence that Kresge Foundation dollars can be well-deployed in Texas - where not only is there tremendous need, but there is a comprehensive strategic effort in place to improve postsecondary access and success for underserved students." Caroline Altman Smith, Senior Program Officer, The Kresge Foundation
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Student Success BY THE NUMBERS:
Building Data Capacity in Texas Community Colleges
By Byron N. McClenney and Kay M. McClenney
Byron N. McClenney and Kay M. McClenney are co-directors of Greater Texas Foundation-funded Student Success BY THE NUMBERS initiative, part of the Community College Leadership Program at The University of Texas at Austin. When reviewing letters of inquiry and proposals from community colleges around the state, foundation staff and directors noticed a stronger use of and understanding of student data and outcomes from institutions that have had the benefit of participation in Achieving the Dream. (GTF supports 11 Achieving the Dream colleges around the state.) In response to this observation, at the board’s request, staff approached Drs. Byron and Kay McClenney from the Community College Leadership Program at The University of Texas at Austin to create an initiative designed to build data system and data use capacities at the mostly small and rural Texas community colleges that have not participated in Achieving the Dream. In this article, Kay and Byron describe the outcomes of the first year of the resulting three-year initiative, Student Success BY THE NUMBERS.
ecent years of work with community and technical colleges have demonstrated that there is no more powerful or potentially constructive prompt for change than the process of engaging a campus community with data that accurately depict the experiences of students as they move to and through the college. Or don’t. The overall purpose of the Student Success BY THE NUMBERS (SSBTN) initiative is to strengthen data-use capacities at participating Texas community colleges and to help them build an increasingly powerful culture of evidence to support an effective student success agenda.
Work with invited colleges began in summer 2011 with an invitation to host a two-day campus visit by a two-person team of expert project consultants. The purpose of that visit was to engage campus leaders and constituent groups in conversations about their current data use, as well as their aspirations and challenges in building both that capacity and a campus-wide culture of evidence. After the initial “diagnostic” visit, colleges were invited to commit to focused work over a two-and-a-half year period, with the project team providing support through assignment of an expert consultant to each college and through additional training and development
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Power of Partnerships
Student Success BY THE NUMBERS: Participating Colleges Angelina College Cisco College Clarendon College Eastfield College Grayson County College Howard College Laredo Community College McLennan Community College Midland College Mountain View College North Central Texas College Northeast Texas Community College Ranger College Vernon College
opportunities, as well as online resources. Fourteen Texas community colleges made the commitment, identifying the goals they plan to achieve through work with SSBTN. Although each college has unique strengths and challenges, several cross-cutting themes emerged during the initial visits. Brief highlights are provided below.
Desire for a Shared Vision of Student Success Through initial dialogues, it became evident that people at each college recognize that development of a shared definition of student success— along with clearly defined measures for assessing student success— should obviously undergird the college’s student success efforts. Many participants acknowledged that college-wide conversations aimed at developing a common understanding of what student success means are a necessary first step. Through SSBTN, some colleges already have initiated those conversations. Scheduled consultant visits offer additional opportunities for facilitated dialogue on how the college can use a clear set of indicators to define, ascertain and monitor student success.
Making Institutional Research a Priority College leaders acknowledge that institutional research plays a vital role in supporting student success work. Especially among colleges that have been operating without a designated institutional research function, but across other participating institutions as well, the need to develop the institutional research capacity is well recognized. Through a project partnership 12
with the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), SSBTN colleges have selected participants to complete online training courses on a variety of institutional research topics. With the goal of building data capacity in mind, each college has begun to identify key members of the campus community to participate in this training.
Using Data for Planning and Decision Making Many colleges expressed a need to "do better with data" and recognized the limited manner in which data currently are used on campus. Facilitated data-informed discussions and inquiry-based decision making—the capacity to convert data into useful information and then into action—are not currently standard ways of conducting business. However, the prospect of building those skills and institutional habits resonated with many of the colleges. As part of their preparation for a two-and-a-half day data-intensive SSBTN Institute in spring 2013, the colleges will undertake longitudinal student cohort tracking (typically for the first time at their institution); administer either the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) or the Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE); and complete structured assignments to understand their student engagement data. Through these tasks, they will get a clearer picture of students’ educational experiences—both areas where they are successful and those where they are likely to falter. Throughout this work, colleges will closely review and consider the mix of
current practices—people, data management, policies and procedures—used in planning and decision making around student success.
Broadening Access to Data In order to move successfully to a more data-centered approach to planning and decision making, colleges also recognize an immediate need to improve data transparency and access. Several colleges also described “pockets” of data use—typically within programs or departments—where data have been collected to answer questions about student success and the impact of current student success initiatives. Moving from isolated islands of data to a more systematics approach and converting data into actionable information for decision making will be key elements in the colleges’ work on the SSBTN initiative.
Training on Data Access and Data Use The key to broadening access to data is training. Providing training to faculty, staff, and administrators on understanding what data are available, how those data can be retrieved through the college’s data systems, and what questions the data can answer will facilitate the development of a culture of inquiry. Through SSBTN work, colleges will have an opportunity to expand student success conversations beyond those who typically work with data to leadership, faculty, and staff who are interested in determining whether or not new initiatives are bringing about higher levels of student success.
Identifying Critical Data for Student Success One member of a college commented, “We are sitting on a mountain of data,” a statement that rings true for all the colleges, as they have been accustomed to submitting compliance reports to state and federal governments as well as the regional accrediting association. Needed now is focus on identifying which data are critical for student success work. Many of the colleges recognize that the process of inventorying and organizing the data they have on hand, identifying how the data currently are being used, and determining how they could and should be used to greater effect, are necessary steps in improving their skill and purposefulness in data use. As the SSBTN project moves forward, the colleges will gain that focus on gathering, analyzing, and communicating about data elements that are essential for depicting student progress, engagement, and success. Making the commitment to build data capacity and a culture of inquiry and evidence requires engaging individuals throughout the college in the continuing process of using data to understand their students and their educational experiences. To do this successfully, active involvement of college leaders is essential. The college presidents involved in this project are keenly aware of the growing importance—even urgency—of pursuing a focused, data-informed student success agenda. The future of their students, their communities and their state depends on it.
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Power of Partnerships
Update on GTF Scholars
“As a statewide funder, the impact of our grants in a specific community or around a specific issue can often be limited. Being able to leverage additional resources by collaborating with funders such as Greater Texas Foundation is beneficial not just to the grantee, but to us as well as both thought-partners and co-funders.” – Linda Perryman Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Meadows Foundation
s highlighted in last year’s annual report, in 2010, GTF’s board of directors authorized the development of Greater Texas Foundation Scholars, a signature scholarship program designed for graduates of Texas early college high schools to successfully transition to a four-year institution of higher education and complete a baccalaureate degree. The program is the first of its kind in the nation. Beginning in the fall of 2012, approximately $3.32 million in scholarships will be awarded to selected institutions over a six-year period, during which time the program is expected to impact more than 700 students. For GTF Scholars, the foundation sought proposals from four-year institutions in Texas committed to creating a comprehensive program that includes a scholarship component and non-financial retention components, which are based on evidence of success or promising and effective practices. After a rigorous review of proposals, the following universities were selected in 2011 for the six-year program: Texas
14
A&M University, the University of Houston, the University of Texas at Brownsville, the University of Texas at El Paso, and the University of North Texas. In 2011, we hosted and co-hosted official launches of the program in Brownsville, El Paso, Denton, and in our new building in Bryan. The highlight of each event was an early college high school student speaker, each of whom eloquently illuminated the importance and need for scholarship programs of this type. Additionally in 2011, the “Dollars for Degrees” reports – scholarship research conducted by FSG upon which the program is based – and resulting scholarship program were presented at two national conferences: National College Access Network and National Scholarship Providers Association. We are excited to welcome our first cohort of scholars in Fall 2012. For additional information about the GTF Scholars and to read the “Dollars for Degrees” reports, visit www.greatertexasfoundation.org and www.gtfscholars.org.
2011 Grant Activity
Access
Persistence
Completion
GRANTMAKER Convener
Postsecondary
Success
OPPORTUNITY
$7.6 Million for Education in Texas. In 2011, Greater Texas Foundation disbursed $3,301,047 to increase postsecondary outcomes for Texas students and approved 26 new grants for a total of $7,568,105 in new funding. The following report provides details for 2011 by funding principle. For an overview of the foundation’s strategy and funding principles, please visit our website at www.greatertexasfoundation.org.
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Power of Partnerships
“At Houston Endowment, the term ‘partnership’ carries tremendous weight and is relevant to almost everything we do. We do not run a single program and the only real product at our disposal is money, and not a lot of it considering the size and complexity of the community the foundation is committed to serve. How well we do—Houston Endowment’s potential impact—is based on our ability to leverage the power of partnerships. Money becomes relevant from the knowledge and ideas we gain from the remarkable individuals working in those organizations we are privileged to interact with. Money becomes relevant when our horizons are expanded by our friends in the foundation community. Without partnerships, the potential power—community benefit—of Houston Endowment’s resources is diminished.” – George Grainger, Senior Grant Officer & Director of Research and Planning, Houston Endowment
Postsecondary Education $10,000 to CEOs for Cities NFP (Chicago, IL) to support conference activities for the CEOs for Cities 2012 Spring National Talent Dividend Meeting in Houston, Texas. $330,750 to College for All Texans Foundation Closing the Gaps (Austin) to support Advise Texas, a college access program in the Rio Grande Valley. $54,000 to the United Way of Southern Cameron County (Brownsville) to support a partnership between United Way of Southern Cameron County, Brownsville ISD, The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College, Workforce Solutions Cameron, Brownsville Economic Development Council, Brownsville Chamber of Commerce and other local businesses and nonprofit organizations to increase the number of low income adults who complete a postsecondary education and connect with labor market value jobs. $20,000 to Texas A&M University – San Antonio to support need based scholarships. $20,000 to Texas A&M University – Central Texas (Killeen) to support need based scholarships. $10,000 to Complete College America Inc. (Zionsville, IN) to support the Annual Convening of the Alliance of the States in Austin, Texas.
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$2,000 to The University of Texas at Brownsville to support a two-day training for faculty, deans and department chairs on effective practices for student success. $400,000 to Achieving the Dream Inc. (Silver Spring, MD) to support nine Texas colleges previously funded by Greater Texas Foundation to participate in Achieving the Dream for a third year. $1,804,719 to The University of Texas at Austin to support Student Success BY THE NUMBERS to build the data system and data use capabilities at 14 mostly small and rural Texas community colleges. $5,000 to Donna Independent School District to support educational activities to enhance student learning at W.A. Todd 9th Grade Campus. $150,000 to Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA) (Weslaco) to facilitate education and training for 20 low income residents of the Rio Grande Valley. $118,000 to The University of Texas at Austin to support the development of a strategic plan for executing The Charles A. Dana Center’s work in developmental education in Texas.
Greater Texas Foundation Scholars $3,325,000 to The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College, University of Houston, University of North Texas Foundation (Denton), Texas A&M University (College Station) and The University of Texas at El Paso to support a scholarship and retention program to increase the number of Texas early college high school graduates who successfully transition to a four-year institution of higher education and complete a baccalaureate degree.
Math and Science for Postsecondary Readiness $500,000 to The University of Texas at Austin to support the replication of the UTeach math and science preparation program at The University of Texas at Brownsville and The University of Texas-Pan American.
Educational Matching Grant Distributed as part of the Educational Matching Grant Program, whereby the foundation matches eligible contributions of officers, board members, committee members, and employees. $5,000 to Austin College (Sherman) to support academic scholarships at Austin College. $10,000 to Baylor University (Waco) to support need based scholarships at Baylor Law School. $10,000 to Baylor University (Waco) to support need based scholarships at Baylor Law School.
$10,000 to Texas A&M Foundation (College Station) to support need based scholarships at Texas A&M University. $5,000 to Texas A&M Foundation (College Station) to support need based scholarships at Texas A&M University. $2,000 to Texas A&M Foundation (College Station) to support need based scholarships at Texas A&M University. $10,000 to Texas State University – San Marcos to support scholarships in the McCoy School of Business at Texas State University-San Marcos.
Membership Organizations $2,250 to Grantmakers for Education (Portland, OR) to support a membership organization that connects funders with knowledgeable leaders, promising programs, experienced colleagues and actionable research in the education sector. $1,000 to Grantmakers for Education (Portland, OR) to support a membership organization that connects funders with knowledgeable leaders, promising programs, experienced colleagues and actionable research in the education sector. $2,000 to Grants Managers Network Inc. (Washington, DC) to support a membership organization for grant managers.
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Power of Partnerships
The Big Picture: Total Grants Approved by Funding Principle; Total Requests Declined
The following table provides a snapshot of the foundation’s grant activity for 2011. Questions regarding these figures may be directed to the foundation’s grant manager, Carol Miller.
Total Grants Approved in 2011 by Funding Principle: Funding Principle
“Strong partnerships are the core of what we do. Lumina Foundation’s recent Latino Student Success effort is based on the premise that community members working across sectors and education levels can move the needle on student outcomes. When individuals and organizations work collaboratively and the goal is clear, promising outcomes can be achieved. Whether through a single initiative in one community or a national movement, Lumina values working with organizations that build and sustain effective partnerships to improve educational outcomes for all students.” – Tina Gridiron Smith, Program Officer, Lumina Foundation for Education
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Number of Grants
Amount of Funding
Postsecondary Education (preparation, access, persistence, and completion)
11
$3,572,105
Math & Science for Postsecondary Readiness
1
$500,000
GTF Educational Matching Grant Program
6
$50,000
Greater Texas Foundation Scholars
5
$3,325,000
Other
3
$121,000
TOTAL
26
$7,568,105
Total Requests Declined in 2011: Funding Principle
Number of Declinations Amount Requested
Math and Science for Postsecondary Readiness
2
$77,000
Postsecondary Education
4
$3,654,921
TOTAL
6
$3,731,921
Financial Activity
Additional financial information is available upon request.
Greater Texas Foundation & Subsidiaries Consolidated Balance Sheets December 31, 2011 and 2010
Assets
2011
2010
14,002,739
18,267,364
Investments
190,486,152
185,946,974
Student loan notes receivable, net
140,553,846
164,937,029
Accrued interest and other accounts receivable
1,547,849
4,626,923
Land, property and equipment, net
8,630,228
5,729,691
162,548
195,749
$
355,383,362
379,703,730
$
143,027,687
163,116,232
Accounts payable
413,470
879,069
Accrued interest payable
116,609
177,522
10,107,902
8,271,389
153,665,668
172,444,212
201,631,169
207,169,993
86,525
89,525
201,717,694
207,259,518
355,383,362
379,703,730
Cash and cash equivalents
$
Prepaid expenses
Liabilities and Net Assets Line of credit and note payable
Grants payable Total liabilities Unrestricted net assets Temporarily restricted net assets Total net assets Commitments and contingencies $
Additional financial information is available upon request.
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Power of Partnerships
Financial Activity
Additional financial information is available upon request.
Greater Texas Foundation & Subsidiaries Consolidated Statements of Activities Years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010
2011
2010
Unrestricted operating revenues: Interest on student loans
$
6,303,486
6,671,243
(2,237,578)
(2,466,452)
3,022,744
2,750,008
(3,844,773)
17,770,684
120,675
125,512
3,000
4,000
3,367,554
24,854,995
Interest on lines of credit
862,865
1,127,725
Loan servicing fees
684,467
773,916
21,458
81,224
823,446
764,704
Professional, consulting, rent and related travel
1,116,412
1,391,933
Grants expense
5,087,856
3,863,878
10,200
10,700
299,674
165,921
8,906,378
8,180,001
(5,538,824)
16,674,994
Changes in temporarily restricted net assets: Net assets released from restrictions – satisfaction of restrictions
(3,000)
(4,000)
Change in temporarily restricted net assets
(3,000)
(4,000)
(5,541,824)
16,670,994
207,259,518
190,588,524
201,717,694
207,259,518
Special allowance expense Interest on investments Unrealized and realized gain on investments in securities, net Other Net assets released from restrictions – satisfaction of restrictions Total operating revenues
$
Unrestricted operating expenses:
Provision (recovery) for uncollectible student loans Salaries and wages
Trustee fees Miscellaneous expense Total operating expenses Change in unrestricted net assets
Change in net assets Net assets at beginning of the year Net assets at end of the year
20
$
Looking Forward: Collective Impact in Action
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n 2010, Greater Texas Foundation, Educate Texas at Communities Foundation of Texas, Houston Endowment, and The Meadows Foundation engaged FSG Social Impact Advisors to develop the Texas Regional Action Plan, a research study analyzing the historical postsecondary performance of five key regions within the state and establishing a framework for prioritizing investments and initiatives for driving postsecondary success. The five regions in this plan include Central Texas, El Paso, Gulf Coast, Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and South Texas. As highlighted by Jeff Kutash, after a review of the opportunities across all regions, we found South Texas, and specifically the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), to have a number of initiatives and programs highly aligned with our state’s needs and the Regional Action Plan. At the same time we were honing in on the RGV, we were learning about the power of partnerships and, in particular, the collective impact framework as a model for scalable, system-wide change for a region’s students. With the Regional Action Plan and collective impact framework in our tool belt, we hope to capitalize on the momentum and commitment from local, state, and national stakeholders to establish a plan for coordinating and accelerating change for the communities within the RGV.
This overall approach is highly aligned with Greater Texas Foundation’s strategic focus on postsecondary preparation, access, persistence and completion. The regional, collective impact approach would significantly impact the number of underserved students who can access and complete a college credential by utilizing approaches specifically suggested in the strategic plan, such as improved alignment of and thus smoother transitions through the education pipeline and investments in support of systemic reform. Further, supporting a collective impact approach in the Rio Grande Valley has and will allow the foundation to function in each of the roles highlighted by the strategic plan, including grantmaker, convener, capacity builder, and research/information clearinghouse. Be on the lookout in 2012 for updates on the work in the RGV. Also, visit our website to keep up with the foundation’s grants and initiatives to ensure all Texas students are prepared for, have access to, persist in, and complete a postsecondary education.
www.greatertexasfoundation.org 21
6100 Foundation Place Drive Bryan, Texas 77807 Ph: 979.779.6100 Fax: 979.779.6699
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www.greatertexasfoundation.org