Children's Defense Fund@ 2004 Annual Report
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CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND@ 2004 ANNUAL REPORT • Knoxville News-Sentmel Langston Riggio-Lynch Chapel Designed by Maya Lin Hughes CDF Haley Farm Freedom School Library Copy The Mission of the Children's Defense Fund he Children's Defense Fund's Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy TStart, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF provides a strong, effective voice for all the children of America who cannot vote, lobby,-or speak for themselves. We pay particular attention to the needs of poor and minority children and those with disabilities. CDF educates the nation about the needs of children and encourages preventive investment before they get sick or into trouble, drop out of school. or suffer family breakdown. CDF began in 1973 and is a private, nonprofit organization supported by foundation and corporate grants and individual donations. We have never taken government funds. John Deardourff e dedicate this annual report to our beloved friend and former CDF board W member John Deardourff who passed away December 24, 2004. John was a man of impeccable character, wisdom, and capacity for friendship. A moderate Republican, he was a pioneer political campaign consultant for many national and state campaigns including President Gerald Ford's. We miss him mightily and are very grateful for the many years we shared. Our prayers and thoughts continue for his wife, Betsy Griffith, Headmistress of the Madeira School, and for all of the Deardourff children. 2004 Annual Report I JjJ Children's Defense Fund Board of Directors Robert F. Vagt, Chair Marian Wright Edelman Wendy Puriefoy President Founder and President Davidson College Chief Executive Officer Public Education Network (PEN) Davidson, NC Children's Defense Fund Washington, DC Washington, DC Angela Glover Blackwell Dennis Rivera • Vice Chair James Forbes, Jr. President Founder and Senior Minister 1199 SEIU-New York's Health Chief Executive Officer The Riverside Church and Human Services Union PolicyLink New York, NY New York, NY Oakland, CA James Forman, Jr. J. Michael Solar Geoffrey Canada Associate Professor Solar & Associates, LLP Vice Chair Georgetown Law School Houston, TX President and Co-Founder, Maya Angelou Thomas A. Troyer Chief Executive Officer Charter School Partner Harlem Children's Zone, Inc. Washington, DC Caplin & Drysdale New York, NY Winifred Green Washington, DC Maureen A. Cogan President Deborah Wright Vice Chair Southern Coalition President and Child Advocate for Educational Equity Chief Executive Officer New York, NY New Orleans, LA Carver Federal Savings Bank Carol Oughton Biondi New York, NY Dorothy Height Child Advocate Commissioner President Emerita and Los Angeles County Chair of Board Commission for Children National Council of Negro Board of Directors and Families Women, Inc. Emeritus Los Angeles, CA Washington, DC Kirbyjon Caldwell Lisle Carter, Jr. David W. Hornbeck Senior Pastor Chair 1973-1986 President The Windsor Village - Laura Rockefeller Chasin Children's Defense Fund St. John's United Methodist Washington, DC Hillary Rodham Clinton Churches Chair 1986-1992 Houston, TX Michael Klein Howard H. Haworth Leonard Coleman, Jr. Chief Executive Officer Cendant Corporation Global Banking for Citigroup, Inc. James Joseph New York, NY New York, NY Chair 1993-1994 Leslie Cornfeld William Lynch, Jr. Marylin Levitt President Child Advocate Charles E. Merrill, Jr. New York, NY Bill Lynch Associates, LLC New York, NY Leonard Riggio Leslee Dart President Katie McGrath Donna E. Shalala The Dart Group Child Advocate Chair 1992-1993 New York, NY Los Angeles, CA Susan P. Thomases ~ ii I Children's Defense Fund Table of Contents • CDF Mission i Dedication to Former Board Member John Deardourff i CDF Board of Directors ii Message from the Chief Executive Officer iv Key 2004 CDF National Accomplishments 1 Key Regional, State and Local Office Achievements 4 2004 Donors 8 Foundation 8 Corporate 9 Individual 9 Organizations and Religious Networks 12 Memorials and Bequests 13 Report of Independent Auditors: PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP 14 CDF Regional, State and Local Offices 30 Join the Leave No Child Behind® Movement! 31 I Want to Make a Contribution to Children's Defense Fund 32 2004 Annual Report I iii :JjJ Dear CDF Friend and Supporter: The year 2004 was a very challenging one for the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), for children, rhe poor, our nation, and our world. In our post 9/11 era of terrorism, our real threats and fears often have been manipular ed for partisan political gain and the wat in Iraq has been used to quell voices of dissent and deflect attention from radical domestic policies which are shifting government resources from the poor and middle class to the very rich. A huge federal revenue surplus has been dissipated by massive tax cuts to the super wealthy and two costly wars and growing budget deficits threaten decades of social progress. A breakdown in national bipartisan civility, numerous proposals to erode the rights ofand investments in children, minorities, women, the poor and the dis abled, judicial appointments which may change the nation's direction for decades to come, an entertainment ori ented and timid media, and an ideologically driven message and mission discipline among many current political • leaders in power and the "religious right" all have contributed to a negative national climate for children and the poor. The infant mortality rate increased for the first time in 44 years in 2002 and child poverty rates increased for three consecutive years among all racial groups. Health coverage continues to erode as employers export jobs and erode worker benefits and state budget cuts curtail health coverage for children and adults. The growing fed eral budget deficit and debt from irresponsible tax cuts will starve the nation of resources to invest in children now and in the future unless efforts to extend and make tax cuts permanent are prevented and new tax cuts for wealthy and powerful special interests are avoided. Despite this difficult climate, CDF has kept its eyes on the future. We have expanded our longstanding focus on building a strong successor generation ofyoung servant-leaders at Haley Farm; continued to expand our regional, state and local work; accelerated efforts to ensure mission and message discipline, eliminate internal silos, and foster interdisciplinary teamwork; better integrated our federal and state work to pursue pieces of a proactive national policy vision even as we worked and continued to hold on to existing child programs. In 2004, we trained nearly 2,000 young leaders and began to meld all ofCDF's youth development tracks into a more intentional and coherent ladder ofyouth leadership, expanded longstanding ties with faith communities through the annual interfaith National Observance of Children's Sabbaths® celebration, interfaith alliances for children in five cities, and greater engagement of women faith leaders, and reached out to and convened powerful women from every continent to begin to forge a more united voice for powerless women and children left behind. Providing a safe haven for seasoned and emerging leaders ofall generations, races, faiths and disciplines to connect, debate ideas, share best practices, and build or renew a sense of community and common purpose around children is an overarching goal. Haley Farm is CDF's movement building, leadership development and spiritual renewal center. The beautiful and simple ark-shaped Riggio-Lynch Chapel on the cover, named for its benefactor, Barnes & Noble Chair, Len Riggio, and his dear friend Bill Lynch, former Deputy Mayor of New York City, was dedicated with an inspiring amalgam of music, dance, preaching, and intellectual discourse on where we go from here to realize America's promise for children. Attended by over 600 people, it included a stim ulating symposium on Closing the Achievement Gap: Building the 21st Century MovementfOr Children. Symposium speakers included Bill Moyers; John Payton, Lead Counsel in the University ofMichigan affirmative action case; Ted Shaw, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Tom Saenz of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund; Karen Narasaki, Executive Director of National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC); Stewart Kwoh, Vice Chair, NAPALC; Roger Wilkins, Professor of History and American Culture, George Mason University; Dr. Dorothy Height; and Riverside Church's Reverend James Forbes. Chapel dedication speakers included Len Riggio, Bill Lynch, Mayor David Dinkins, and Elizabeth Edwards. Haley Farm is the only place in the world with two Maya Lin designed buildings-the Chapel and the Langston Hughes Library-both made possible by the extraordinary generosity of Len and Louise Riggio. We invite you to come and experience Haley. We thank all of you who support our independent advocacy voice for children. With your help, we will never give up until we truly leave no child behind. Gratefully and hopefully, J!k.'-- lj,rn.,_._ Marian Wright Edelman Founder and CEO ~ iv Children's Defense Fund Key 2004 National Accomplishments Training a New Generation ofEffective Servant-Leaders Training a successor generation ofyoung leaders for the children's movement has been an overarching CDF focus since 1990. In 2004, CDF provided a week of intensive training for 627 college leaders and CDF Freedom SchoolssM community program