Funder Spotlight: Five Things to Know about New Jersey’s Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Newark skyline. Mihai_Andritoiu/shutterstock

Inside Philanthropy periodically publishes quick overviews of the grantmakers that are on our radar, looking at recent developments and key details about how they operate. Today, we’re taking a look at the Morristown, New Jersey-based Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. With more than $300 million in assets, the funder supports the arts, education, the environment, informed communities, and poetry, and has distributed over $500 million since its inception in 1974. Here are five things to know about the foundation.

It reimagined its grantmaking in response to the events of 2020

A September 2020 post by foundation President Tanuja Dehne titled “Imagine a New Way” laid out how Dodge was transforming its philanthropic approach to advance social change in response to the pandemic and calls for racial justice.

The following year, Dodge sharpened its focus by prioritizing efforts that address the root causes of structural racism. As part of this effort, it launched the Momentum Fund, which, according to Dehne, “engages with organizations that are working in service to under-invested communities in New Jersey that are most directly impacted by structural barriers to equity — namely communities of color.”

In mid-January, the foundation announced the winners of the inaugural cohort. The 10 organizations were selected through a community-engaged process and will each receive $150,000 in unrestricted funding over three years along with other capacity-building support.

“From fighting for food justice, workplace safety and immigrant rights to offering programming in the arts, health and wellness and environmental justice, Momentum Fund cohort members are leading some of the most vital, strategic, and creative efforts to address the longstanding impact of structural racism and inequities throughout New Jersey,” Dehne said. The foundation “is working to review and adapt our current guidelines and processes to align with our vision of a just and equitable New Jersey” through 2022.

Building informed communities is a top priority

Largely an arts and education funder, Dodge has also taken on funding for “informed communities.” Like other place-based funders, Dodge has been ramping up support in this last area in response to what it calls “a need and a hunger for constructive dialogue, access to quality information and public data, and community participation in local decision-making.”

In 2020, Dodge developed an equity theory of change for its Informed Communities program, pledging to increase support to historically underfunded outlets led by and serving communities of color over the next three years. Organizations that have recently received grants through the program include Chalkbeat Newark ($50,000), the Newark News & Story Collaborative ($51,000), and Stories of Atlantic City ($75,000).

Its namesake was a Rockefeller heiress

Geraldine Dodge was born Geraldine Rockefeller — as in, that Rockefeller — in 1882. She was the youngest child of Almira Geraldine Goodsell and William Avery Rockefeller Jr., who helped found Standard Oil with his brother John D. Rockefeller Sr.

In 1907, Geraldine married Marcellus Hartley Dodge, president of the Remington Arms Company. Nine years later, the couple purchased the estate in Madison, New Jersey, now known as Giralda Farms, located about 25 miles west of New York City. Like other affluent families at the time, Geraldine embraced philanthropy and was a prodigious patron of the arts. An avid dog lover, in 1924, she was the first woman invited to judge Best in Show for the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club.

Dodge passed away in 1973, leaving an estate with an estimated value of $75 million to $80 million. Through her will, she endowed the foundation that bears her name, along with the St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center, which she established on 16 acres of her Giralda Farms estate.

Most funding flows to New Jersey-based organizations

A search of the foundation’s grants database shows that it awarded 208 grants for a total of $6.5 million in 2020, the most recent year for which records are available. Ninety-three percent of the grants and 95% of total funding flowed to organizations based in New Jersey.

The foundation awarded 10 grants over $100,000 in 2020. The three largest grants went to Princeton’s Institute for Citizens and Scholars ($309,500), the Community Foundation of New Jersey ($300,000), and the Foundation for Educational Administration in Monroe Township ($145,000).

The foundation provides a healthy mix of general operating support and project support. Last June, it announced its second round of grants in 2021—a total of $4.3 million to support 96 organizations. Sixty-eight percent of the grants were earmarked as general operating support.

Dodge is not accepting letters of inquiry or unsolicited proposals for its four main program areas. That said, program staff may invite new proposals and the foundation may issue specific calls for proposals at some point in the future.

It produces the largest poetry event in North America

The Dodge Poetry Festival is widely acknowledged as the largest poetry event in North America. Held in even-numbered years since 1986, the 14 festivals combined have drawn approximately 155,000 people from 43 states, including 18,000 teachers and 45,000 high school students from across the country, and poets from all over the world. (No wonder the festival’s legions of fans call it “Wordstock.”)

After a successful virtual production in 2020, the Dodge Poetry Festival will take place in-person from October 20-23, 2022 in Newark’s Downtown Arts District. Twenty-eight poets are confirmed thus far.