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- Assets: $59,053,806 (2005)
- Grants Received: $150 (2005)
- Grants Awarded: $2,991,499 (2005)
Charles F. Noyes established the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation in 1947 as a memorial to his second wife, who he married in 1926, six years after the death of his first wife, Eleanora. During her married life, Jessie Smith Noyes gave a great deal of her time and energy to crusades for religious tolerance and racial equality.
Charles F. Noyes was born in 1878 in Norwich, Connecticut. In 1905 he established his own firm, Charles F. Noyes & Company, which came to dominate the real estate market of lower Manhattan. Mr. Noyes' most famous deal was the 1951 sale of the Empire State Building for the largest price in real estate history up to that time. In 1959, he turned over all his stock in Charles F. Noyes & Company to its employees, but remained active in the business until 1965, when he became too ill to work any longer.
From 1947 through 1959, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation's scholarship and loan program made individual grants to cover the cost of students' tuition at the accredited colleges or professional schools of their choice. Half of these grants were earmarked specifically for minority students, mostly black. To control administrative costs, in 1960 the Foundation stopped giving the awards directly to students, and began instead to award the grants to institutions which would then select the individual recipients themselves. The Foundation requested that these institutions continue to apportion all funds in equal measures to white and nonwhite students.
With the rise of affirmative action in the early 1970s, colleges and universities nationwide launched a major drive to recruit minority students. This initiative caused a precipitous decline in enrollment at predominantly black colleges. At that point, the Noyes Foundation decided to channel all future scholarship aid for black students through black colleges.
After Charles F. Noyes died in 1969, his heirs radically shifted the Foundation's political orientation far to the left -- particularly vis a vis environmental issues, abortion rights, peace activism, multiculturalism, welfare rights, and the rights of illegal immigrants. At the time of Mr. Noyes' death, the Foundation had some $30 million in assets at its disposal.
Today the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation's self-identified funding priorities include the following: (a) "Protect the health and environment of communities threatened by toxins," a goal to be achieved by "supporting organizations … that bring together activists" who work toward this same goal; (b) "Advance environmental justice" by working "to counter environmental degradation in low-income communities and communities of color"; (c) "Counter the actions of public and private sector institutions and corporations that further the concentration of food production and the industrialization of agriculture"; and (d) Support organizations that "broaden the base and agenda of the reproductive rights movement through the involvement of new constituencies, primarily at the state level and in communities of color."
Viewing the United States as a nation rife with discrimination against minorities, the Noyes Foundation supports organizations that seek to make major changes in American society under the banners of "social, … economic, and political justice." The Foundation further identifies the cultivation of racial and ethnic "diversity" as a top concern. "Prior to bringing on board members and staff of color," says the Foundation, "we had little real knowledge about environmental justice and talked about it even less. Now it's a thread that runs through our grantmaking. Our environment and agriculture grants are directed toward grassroots groups and people of color fighting for a healthier environment. … Diversity [also] helped us understand that the most effective and humane way to address population issues was to ensure that women have the power to make their own reproductive choices."
Among the recent beneficiaries of Noyes Foundation grants are the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; the National Organization for Women; the Ms. Foundation for Women; Public Citizen; the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation; the Environmental Research Foundation; the Farmers Legal Action Group; the National Family Farm Coalition; the Environmental Justice Alliance; Citizen Alert; the Utah Progressive Network Education Fund; Communities for a Better Environment; DataCenter; Women's Voices for the Earth; Green Guerillas; the White Earth Land Recovery Project; the Military Toxics Project; the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment; the Alternative Energy Resources Organization; the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; the Environmental Support Center; the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy; African American Women Evolving; the Environmental Community Action; Cultural Survival; the Alaska ProChoice Alliance; the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund; the Center for Health, Environment and Justice; the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability; the Coal River Mountain Watch; the Environmental Health Coalition; the Asian Pacific Environmental Network; Make the Road By Walking; the Center for Women Policy Studies; Native Action; the Northern Plains Resource Council; the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; Abortion Access Project; the Western Shoshone Defense Project; Ecopledge.com; the Environmental Justice Action Group; the Indigenous Environmental Network; the Washington Toxics Coalition; Mothers on the Move; the Citizens Coal Council; Just Food; Community Coalition for Environmental Justice; the Sustainable Food Center; Physicians for Social Responsibility; the Southwest Public Workers Union; Council on the Environment; the Center for Economic Justice; Jobs with Justice Education Fund; United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park; Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy; the Idaho Women's Network Research and Education Fund; Friends of the Earth; the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticide; the Oil and Gas Accountability Project; the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture; the Southwest Organizing Project; West Harlem Environmental Action; Georgia Poultry Justice Alliance; the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice; Save Our Cumberland Mountains Resource Project; Rural Coalition; Southern Echo; the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice; the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation; Sicangu Way of Life Project; the Women's Health Rights Coalition; the Environmental Grantmakers Association; the National Religious Partnership for the Environment; Power U Center for Social Change; the Rainforest Alliance; the Federation of Southern Cooperatives; the Farmers Legal Action Group; the Asian Pacific Environmental Network; the Asians and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health; the Poultry Justice Alliance; Save the Harbor-Save the Bay; the Indigenous Women's Network; the Third Wave Foundation; Medical Students for Choice; Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations; the National Black Women's Health Project; Sustainable South Bronx; the National Asian Women's Health Organization; La Mujer Obrera Program; the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; the Literacy for Environmental Justice; the National Network of Abortion Funds; the Social Investment Forum Foundation; the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center; the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR); the Colorado Peoples Environmental and Economic Network; the Northwest Women's Law Center; the Progressive Technology Project; the Southwest Research and Information Center; and the SPIN Project.
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