Dekko Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Dekko Foundation supports early childhood learning, civics education, vocational exploration, youth philanthropy and arts education in select counties in Alabama, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota.
IP TAKE: The Dekko Foundation has a penchant for collecting data and sharing its findings with the communities it serves. This is an accessible funder for schools and organizations working in its specific areas of interest. It likes to support it grantees in a variety of ways and remains a responsive and sensitive education funder.
PROFILE: Based in Kendallville, Indiana, the Dekko Foundation was established in 1981 by the late Chester E. Dekko, a manufacturer of wire harnesses that are used extensively in the lighting and automotive industries. Chester Dekko chose the mission of "fostering economic freedom through education" for his foundation, and it continues to work in this vein today. The foundation makes grants in the areas of early childhood and K-12 education with an emphasis on helping “young people gain skills, knowledge and character.” Its geographic areas of priority include select counties in Alabama, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota.
Grants for Early Childhood Education
The Dekko Foundation supports early childhood education mainly through its Before 5 and bloom! initiatives. Before 5 is a signature program that aims to “transform parents from overwhelmed to overjoyed” through workshops with “teachable moment mentors.” It also publishes an Owner’s Manual, a 46-page pamphlet that shares information on child development and parenting best practices. The manual is available free at the foundation’s website. Before 5 grantmaking supports organizations that support and educate parents of infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children. Grantees include the Oak Farm School, a Montessori learning center in Avilla, Indiana, and numerous early childhood programs at YMCAs and public libraries.
Dekko’s bloom! initiative has recently focused on teacher development toward responsive early childhood education. Partnering with teacher education and early childhood learning programs, bloom! helps adults recognize and use preschoolers’ natural curiosity as an important starting point for self-directed learning. Together with its grantees, the foundation produced its own publication, 7 Simple Steps to Make Your Classroom Bloom!, which is available free to educators online. Past grantee-partners in this program include the Agape Child Care and Ministry Preschool in Hudson, Indiana and the Garrett Keyser Butler Head Start Program in Garrett, Indiana.
Grants for K-12 Education
Dekko’s grantmaking for K-12 education stems from its civic responsibility, vocational exploration and youth philanthropy initiatives. The foundation maintains civic responsibility as an integral part of the foundation’s larger goal of fostering economic freedom and works to get older children involved in democracy at the local, state and national levels. The Indiana Policy Review Foundation used funding to run civic literacy programs, and the Wawasee Community School Corporation in Indiana received a grant to run leadership education programs in its high schools.
Vocational exploration is one of Dekko’s largest areas of giving and aims to help “young people discover their place, or places, in the world and contribute in ways that are meaningful to them.” Recent grants have gone to summer learning, STEM and entrepreneurship programs. In Iowa, Mount Ayr Community Schools used funding for an innovative summer experience in which teenagers learned about the skills involved in various popular career choices. Another public school district ran a digital arts lab that helped students develop proficiency in technology skills that are in high demand.
The Dekko Foundation has run its youth philanthropy program for 26 years. The initiative targets high school students and partners with schools and youth organizations to “increase the number of young people who experience the contagious feeling of doing good to help others.” In addition to grantmaking, the foundation runs its Youth Pod signature program, which allows teens to learn about philanthropy and service by working with adults at local community foundations. Past grantees include the Limestone Area Community Foundation, the Community Foundation of Whitley County and Youth for Christ of Northern Indiana.
Grants for Arts Education
The foundation sees the arts as central to children’s cognitive, language, social and emotional development and dedicates its arts initiative to expanding access to arts programs for elementary, middle and high school students. Funding tends to be spread evenly between music, theater and visual arts programs. Music education grants generally support band and music theory programs, and recipients have included public school districts and churches. A funded program at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Kendallville, Indiana provided music theory instruction to elementary- and middle school-aged children, and in Capshaw, Alabama, a grant helped purchase brass instruments for East Limestone High School’s marching band. In theater education, Dekko has supported both performance and theater appreciation programs. At the Westview School Corporation in Topeka, Indiana, the foundation supported a comedy performance program designed to increase students’ self-confidence. The public school district in Athens, Alabama used funding to run a high school ceramics program, and schools in Lamoni, Illinois used funding for art appreciation programs that focused on concept development through visual arts.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
In addition to its education grantmaking, the Dekko foundation offers programs and resources that help organizations build capacity. Through its stronger organizations initiative, it awards nonprofit toolbelt grants for nonprofits that work with children and youth. Grants support small organizations in order to help them develop leadership, organization, technological capacity and fundraising programs.
Important Grant Details:
Dekko grants range from a few hundred to several million dollars, but its average grant size is a modest $10,000. The foundation awards about $10 million a year in grants. Funding is strictly limited to Limestone County, Alabama; DeKalb, LaGrange, Kosciusko, Noble, Steuben and Whitley Counties in Indiana; Clark, Decatur, Lucas, Ringgold and Union Counties in Iowa and Norman County, Minnesota. For additional information about past grantmaking, see the foundation’s annual reports.
The Dekko Foundation accepts applications for funding from nonprofits working with children under the age of 18 and operating in their geographic areas of priority. Applications are accepted at any time via the foundation’s online system. General inquiries may be addressed to foundation staff via email or telephone at 260-347-1278.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS:
