Our Grantmaking Reinvented
On January 14, the John Templeton Foundation announced the completion of a comprehensive restructuring of its grantmaking system. Having been closed for grant applications during most of 2009, the Foundation will start accepting new requests again on Monday, February 1.
"We are very excited about the improvements we have made," said Dr. Jack Templeton, chairman and president of the Foundation. "We are confident that it will enhance the experience of our grant applicants." There are also many new features on the website explaining the mission of the Foundation. "We have tried to make a much clearer link, for potential grantees and the public at large, between my father's distinctive philanthropic vision and the grantmaking of the Foundation," Dr. Templeton said. "We want to let Sir John be Sir John!"
A full description of the new system can be found on the JTF website. Highlights include:
- A new, simpler division of the Foundation's grantmaking into five Core Funding Areas: Science and the Big Questions, Character Development, Freedom and Free Enterprise, Exceptional Cognitive Talent and Genius, and Genetics
- More than a dozen 2010 Funding Priorities, across all the areas of the Foundation's work
- A much clearer connection between the grantmaking of the Foundation and the philanthropic vision of the late Sir John Templeton
- A more efficient and user-friendly application process, with a grantmaking calendar of two cycles per year with specific submission windows
The new procedures and calendar are intended to create a more dynamic grantmaking system, with a focus on the competitive assessment of proposals. Members of the program staff at JTF will be able to look at grant applications on the same subjects side by side and select the best ones. And rather than waiting for proposals to arrive, the Foundation will take a more active role in soliciting them, with more of a focus on designing large-scale strategic initiatives.
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| Dr. Jack Templeton |
For the first funding cycle of 2010, applicants may submit an Online Funding Inquiry (OFI) related to the Foundation's Core Funding Areas or the first round of 2010 Funding Priorities. OFI's will be accepted from February 1 until April 15. They must include a project description, an explanation of the project's strategic promise, its capacity for success, and the amount of funding requested. Applicants will be notified by May 21 whether the Foundation will be inviting them to submit Full Proposals. The second funding cycle of 2010 will begin with the acceptance of OFI's on August 1 and will follow a similar timeline.
For the first grant cycle of 2010, the Funding Priorities are:
Setting out particular Funding Priorities is a new approach for the Foundation. According to Dr. Templeton, "They are meant to provide very specific, concrete ideas about the sort of Big Questions we care about." He also emphasized that the Foundation would continue to accept funding requests based on the traditional full range of the Foundation's interests.
JTF Welcomes Rod Dreher
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| Rod Dreher |
In January, Rod Dreher, a former columnist and editorial writer for the Dallas Morning News, a blogger for Beliefnet, and the author of Crunchy Cons (an exploration of countercultural conservatism), joined the staff at the Templeton Foundation as director of publications. A seven-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, Dreher will be responsible for the Templeton Report and other Foundation publications. He and Gary Rosen, the Foundation's Chief External Affairs Officer, will be working together over the next six months to create and launch Big Questions Online, an Internet-based magazine that will combine a journalistic sensibility with scholarly insight on issues of science, religion, markets, and morals. BQO (as the magazine will be known) is the Foundation's most ambitious effort to date to engage the global public about the ideas at the core of JTF's mission. Rosen called Dreher "a top journalistic talent and a real catch for us."
Dreher is not exactly a newcomer to the Foundation. Last summer, he participated in the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in the UK, a two-month program that allows fellows to attend seminars on topics in science and religion and to work on independent projects. He recalls: "I'd heard of the Templeton Foundation before, but only in connection with the Templeton Prize. When I looked into the fellowship, I was astonished by how much the program's focus appealed to my intellectual interests."
He looks back fondly on his time in the program, saying it gave him new and fruitful ways of thinking about science and faith in his work as an editorial writer and columnist. "It opened so many new doors for me intellectually by helping me to make connections across disciplines," he said. "This is not an easy thing to accomplish given the mutual suspicion that sadly exists in many places between scientists and religious believers."
As a 20-year veteran of newspapers, Dreher sees the current fragmentation of the mainstream media landscape as a terrific opportunity for JTF to establish an online platform for vital debates and discussions. "The ongoing collapse of print journalism is distressing in many ways, but the need for intelligent and relevant commentary and inquiry on the Big Questions remains." Though Dreher has often been a strong voice in the country's political debates, he emphasizes that "we will not publish Big Questions Online with a partisan or sectarian agenda, but rather in the generous, questing spirit of Sir John Templeton."
