Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
/OVERVIEW: The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations are longtime supporters of private higher education and children’s educational television. Its newer initiatives include environmental engagement and palliative care.
IP TAKE: These foundations tend to work with well-established institutions and organizations with which they maintain longstanding partnerships, but letters of inquiry are accepted for some programs. Recent areas of interest include interfaith campus initiatives and environmental research and education. Though this can be a crowded and competitive grant space, this is a relatively accessible and supportive funder that likes to help its grantees grow long-term.
PROFILE: The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations were established in 1952 by Arthur Vining Davis, a former president of the aluminum and industrial giant Alcoa and a real estate investor and developer. Based in Florida, this funder aims to "strengthen America" through the support of "religious, charitable, scientific, literary and educational purposes.” The foundations have made over $300 million in grants to date. Their current funding initiatives are private higher education; public educational media; interfaith leadership and religious literacy; environmental solutions and palliative care. Grantmaking is limited to the U.S. and its territories.
Grants for Higher Education
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations' investment in higher education stems from its private higher education initiative and is its largest area of giving. The program invests in liberal arts and sciences education at private institutions of higher education. Recent areas of interest within this initiative include leadership development, diversity and inclusion, institution-based sustainability initiatives and student-faculty research collaborations. One past grantee is the Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts. Consisting of eleven liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania, this organization used funding to enhance curricular integration of member institutions. Another grantee, Marquette University, used funding to support a program aimed at promoting inclusion in its arts and sciences curricula.
Grants for Humanities Research
Grants supporting the humanities stem from the foundations’ private higher education and interfaith leadership and religious literacy initiatives, as the study of religion is part of the humanities canon. The interfaith and religious program emphasizes “religious diversity” and tolerance as vital elements of democracy. A broad goal of this program is to encourage awareness and appreciation of various religions in current and future religious leaders, students and others. Grantees must be “closely linked to a degree granting institution of higher education or be a national organization with significant ties to private education.” Past humanities recipients include George Washington University, which used funding to run programs for interfaith leaders and clinicians, and Middlebury College, which created a symposium on teaching and learning for campus-wide interfaith excellence.
Grants for Film
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations have a 50-year history of supporting documentary and children’s educational television productions for public television, and they continue to support these causes through the public educational media initiative. This grantmaking program only supports projects that are “assured of national airing on PBS or other national distribution platforms.” Recent priorities have included children’s programming that focuses on “literacy, character development or science” and general audience programming in the areas of history, science, the environment and religion. Productions that involve innovative uses of film technology as a means of connecting with audiences have also been funded. Grant recipients consist mainly of public television stations or production companies that work closely with public broadcasting networks. New York’s WNET received funding for its production of the documentary “Becoming Hellen Keller” and Virginia’s WETA used funding to produce “Ken Burns: Telling America’s Stories.”
Grants for Journalism
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations do not have a funding initiative dedicated to journalism, but it has supported some journalistic programming for public television via the educational media initiative. New York’s, WNET received a grant to produce Sinking Cities, a four-part documentary about the potential effects of rising sea levels on urban life.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Climate Change
Environmental conservation is a newer area of grantmaking for the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. The environmental solutions program has considerable overlap with the foundations’ private higher education initiative in that it prioritizes education, research and fellowships at private colleges and universities. Specific areas of interest include the sustaining and rehabilitating endangered species, reversing the effects of pollution and climate change and increasing public awareness of the environment and the climate crisis. Past grantees include the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Mote Marine Laboratory, which used funding toward coral reef research and preservation.
Grants for Public Health
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation funds public health through its palliative care program. This program supports research and access to high quality palliative care for individuals with terminal and chronic illnesses. Recent areas of interest of the program include pediatric palliative care, patients’ spiritual needs, improved access and the development of curricula and standards for the field. This program works mainly with existing partner organizations, including Ariadne Labs, the Center to Advance Palliative Care, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Duke University School of Medicine.
Important Grant Details:
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ grantmaking usually totals more than $6 million each year. Grants range from $25,000 to $350,000, but organizations with longstanding partnerships with the foundations tend to receive much larger amounts. For information about past grantees, see the foundations’ grants history and grantee spotlights pages.
This funder accepts letters of inquiry for its private higher education and interfaith leadership and religious literacy programs; the children’s media, environmental and palliative care programs work exclusively through existing partnerships. Letters of inquiry may be submitted through the foundations’ portal up until a specific date in late August. After review, the foundations will invite full proposals, with a due date in mid-November. Specific due dates may change from year to year but are available at the foundation’s grant calendar. General inquiries may be directed to foundation staff via email or telephone at 904-359-0670.
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