RE: [EDEQUITY Dialogue] increasing foundation support

From: Sevo, Ruta (rsevo@nsf.gov)
Date: Tue Oct 31 2000 - 11:15:38 EST


What will it take to increase foundation support for this mission?

Very proactive lobbying and solicitation, with well-formed requests based
in
research. The appropriate "agents" for advocacy are public interest
groups.
In education, that can be professional associations. The Glenn Commission
report encourages every parent to lobby the local school board for change.
(See http://www.ed.gov/americacounts/glenn/) The issue of equity in
education needs to get on the agenda, over and over again. We have seen it
attract significant focused resources, for example, in the Ad Council ads
in
national newspapers "Expect the Best from a Girl" (sponsored by the Women's
College Coalition - www.academic.org). If you search google.com on "Glenn
Commission Report" you will see that a lot of organizations picked up the
themes and endorsed them via press releases and comment. This is also true
of the report from the Commission on the Advancement of Women and
Minorities
in Science, Engineering and Technology (see www.nsf.gov/od/cawmset). Any
of the recommendations of Commissions give a person or an organization a
"research base" on which to build a proposal that could go to a Foundation.

The biggest constraint is that you usually need additional resources (time
and money, personal or organizational) to influence others and compete
effectively for their investments.

-Ruta Sevo

Program for Gender Equity in Science, Math, Engineering and Technology
National Science Foundation
rsevo@nsf.gov



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