Name of Foundation: The Public Welfare Foundation
Location: Washington, D.C.
Contact Info: http://www.publicwelfare.org, 202-965-1800
Coverage Area: United States
Subject Area: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice, Worker’s Rights
Assets: $450 million (2011)
Last Year Total Giving: $22 million (2011)
In a Nutshell: Public Welfare is considered a mid-size foundation and awards multi-year grants and grants of varying amounts to address a wide variety of needs.
Charles Edward Marsh, a founder of The Marsh-Fentress newspaper chain, formally began the Public Welfare Foundation in 1947, designating it to receive his newspapers’ assets upon his death in 1964.
Marsh began the foundation with a vague name to allow the foundation to evolve with time and have the flexibility to fund a wide range of programs.
Marsh oversaw the Foundation’s work until his health began to decline in 1953. Claudia Haines Marsh, his third wife, was the Foundation’s president from 1952 to 1974, and she remained a guiding influence until her own death, at the age of 100, in the year 2000.
The foundation had a wider portfolio of youth-related grantees in the early 2000s, including juvenile justice, child welfare and health and pregnancy prevention. It has always been a grant maker open to making general support grants, and its more targeted grants were made for everything from the purchase of library books for a home for abused children to a national campaign against the death penalty.
Today, the foundation concentrates on four major areas, and tends to make larger investments in a smaller slate of grantees that are mostly focused on either national or statewide strategies to change policy.
Its primary youth-related interest is juvenile justice, and efforts to shield all juveniles from involvement in the adult criminal system.
Major Programs:
Criminal Justice
Juvenile Justice
Workers Rights
Civil Legal Aid
How to Apply: The Public Welfare Foundation has a two-step application process that includes both a letter of inquiry (LOI) and a full proposal. Grant seekers will be able to submit full proposals only after the foundation reviews letters of inquiry and invites grantees to submit proposals.
For further information on submitting a letter of inquiry, click here.
For general information on the Foundations’ grant making process, click here