SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-08-25
This page last modified: 2021-10-20 10:34:46 -0700 (PST)
See also
Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), funded in part by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
[Criticism] Writing in The Wall Street Journal in March 2005, commentator John Fund accused the Center for Public Integrity of being a member of what he termed the "campaign finance lobby." Citing a speech by Sean Treglia, former program manager at Pew Charitable Trusts, Fund argued that a "stealth campaign" by "eight liberal foundations" fomented a false sense of public demand for new restrictions on the financing of public campaigns. Fund singled out CPI as a front group pushing Pew's agenda, arguing that "reporters are used to attempts to hoodwink officials into thinking an issue is genuinely popular, and they frequently expose them. But when "good government" groups like the Center for Public Integrity engage in the same tactics, journalists usually ignore it."
CPI's Bill Allison responded to criticisms arising from Tregalia's speech by emphasizing that Pew's contributions to the CPI's work on campaign finance have always been forthrightly disclosed. In a published argument with blogger Ryan Sager, Allison also disputed the notion that the CPI's work amounted to advocacy. Allison stated, "the purpose of our grants is to do things like code hundreds of thousands of public records, put them in a database and post them on our Website so anyone can use them. The amount of money we've gotten to push campaign finance reform is $0.
In 2011, Politico called into question the Center for Public Integrity's collaboration with advocacy organizations. Politico reported that CPI had coordinated the release of a report on Koch Industries with Greenpeace. Politico also reported that Pew Charitable Trusts, a funder of the "Looting the Seas" report, hosted a screening of a CPI documentary and then organized a call to action with other NGOs for the protection of bluefin tuna. In 2008, CPI published a report on tobacco that was both funded by and promoted by an advocacy group called "Tobacco Free Kids."
The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948.
With over US$6 billion in assets, its stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life."
The Pew Charitable Trusts (a single entity) is the successor to -- and sole beneficiary of -- seven charitable funds established between 1948 and 1979 by J. Howard Pew, Mary Ethel Pew, Joseph N. Pew, Jr., and Mabel Pew Myrin -- the adult sons and daughters of Sun Oil Company founder Joseph N. Pew and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. Honoring their parents' religious conviction that good works should be done quietly, the original Pew Memorial Foundation was a grantmaking organization that made donations anonymously. The foundation became the Pew Memorial Trust in 1956, based in Philadelphia, the donors' hometown. Between 1957 and 1979, six other trusts were created, representing the personal and complementary philanthropic interests of the four siblings. The Trusts continues to be based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with offices in Washington, D.C., London, and Brussels.
Although today The Pew Charitable Trusts is non-partisan and non-ideological, Joseph Pew and his sons were politically conservative. The modern day organization works to encourage responsive government and support scientific research on a wide range of issues, including global ocean governance, correction reform, and antibiotic resistance.
Early priorities of the Pew Memorial Trust included cancer research, the American Red Cross, and a pioneering project to assist historically black colleges. Later beneficiaries included conservative organizations such as the John Birch Society, the American Liberty League, and the American Enterprise Institute, as well as environmental organizations such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oceana, and mainstream think tanks like the center-left Brookings Institution. The Pew Charitable Trusts continues to fund charities and the arts in Philadelphia.
In 2004, the Pew Charitable Trusts applied to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to change its status from private foundation to nonprofit organization. Since that change it can now raise funds freely and devote up to 5% of its budget to lobbying the public sector.
According to the Pew Trusts' website, five of the ten Directors serving on the Board are named "Pew."
The Trusts' public policy areas include the environment, state policy, economic policy and health and human services.
The Pew Charitable Trusts, with other groups, backed an effort to create marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean, near the Mariana Islands. The protected area was officially designated in January 2009, and includes the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean canyon in the world. Another marine protected area that the Pew Charitable Trusts and other groups sought to protect is Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument which was protected by President Bush in 2006 and expanded by President Obama in 2016.
The Pew Charitable Trusts also funds the Pew Research Center, the third-largest think tank in Washington, D.C., after the Brookings Institution and the Center for American Progress.
The Pew Charitable Trusts have worked closely with the Vera Institute of Justice on issues related to state correction policies in the Public Safety Performance Project. In 2008, The Pew Charitable Trusts reported that more than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high. The cost to state governments is nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more. The report compiled and analyzed data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics and Federal Bureau of Prisons and each state's department of corrections.
The Pew Charitable Trusts reported in 2009 that "explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults." "One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections" examined the scale and cost of prison, jail, probation and parole in each of the 50 states, and provides a blueprint for states to cut both crime and spending by reallocating prison expenses to fund stronger supervision of the large number of offenders in the community.
"Based on data, science, and non-partisan research, The Pew Charitable Trusts works to reduce hidden risks to the health, safety, and well-being of American consumers." One program, the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences, is intended to support promising early and mid-career scientists investigating human health, both basic and clinical. The awards provide flexible support ($240,000 over a four-year period). Grantees are encouraged to be entrepreneurial and innovative in their research.
The trust also helped fund the Gospel and Our Culture Network, which published books such as "Missional Church: A vision for the sending of the Church in North America."
According to the 2019 Consolidated Financial Statements, as of 30 June 2019, the Pew Charitable Trusts owned over US$6.7 billion in assets. For the 12 months ending on that date, total revenues were about US$374 million and total expenses were about $341 million, of which about $6.6 million were for fund raising expenses.
The Pew Charitable Trusts have supported the relocation of the famed Barnes Art Collection from its longtime home in Lower Merion, PA, to Center City. This has been controversial in the art world. The Barnes Foundation was established by Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture." "The Barnes is home to one of the world's largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, with especially deep holdings by Renoir, Matisse, and Picasso," as well as important examples of African art, Native American pottery and jewelry, Pennsylvania German furniture, American avant-garde painting, and wrought-iron metalwork."
Opponents of relocating the collection to a new museum along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway said that move violates Barnes' will that the collection stay intact at its original location and not be loaned, transferred or sold. Columnist Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in 2010, "It is perfectly clear exactly what Barnes specified in his will. It was drawn up by the best legal minds. It is clear that what happened to his collection was against his wishes." Yet the Barnes Foundation prevailed in a series of legal actions and the new museum opened on May 16, 2012. At the opening Barnes trustee and treasurer Stephen Harmelin noted, "There were financial challenges to be faced...questions about how the foundation as it existed could go on with its mission, worries about the safety and integrity of the collection in the long run," he said. "We were convinced that the only change that could save the Barnes was to redouble our commitment to its mission, to reach out more widely than ever before, to build, to expand and to move the collection to a more accessible location."
The Pew Charitable Trusts became involved with the Barnes Collection when the foundation overseeing the art collection had serious financial trouble, ultimately contributing more than $20 million for a new museum. The New York Times' Roberta Smith said of the new building, "Against all odds, the museum that opens to the public on Saturday is still very much the old Barnes, only better."
The controversy involving The Pew Charitable Trusts, other donors, the Barnes trustees and the collection was the subject of a documentary film "The Art of the Steal." The Pew Charitable Trusts did not participate in the film. Rebecca Rimel, then head of The Pew Charitable Trusts, said they believed the film would not be fair.
Between 2011 and 2015, financial returns show The Pew Charitable Trusts gave $4.7 million to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) earmarked specifically for the organization's criminal justice reform project.
SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-08-25
This page last modified: 2021-10-20 10:34:46 -0700 (PST)
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It also conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis, and other empirical social science research. The Pew Research Center -- a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts -- does not take policy positions.
In 1990, the Times Mirror Company founded the "Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press" as a research project, tasked with conducting polls on politics and policy. Andrew Kohut became its director in 1993, and The Pew Charitable Trusts became its primary sponsor in 1996, when it was renamed the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
In 2004, the trust established the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. In 2013, Kohut stepped down as president and became founding director, and Alan Murray became the second President of the Pew Research Center. In October 2014, Michael Dimock, a 14-year veteran of the Pew Research Center, was named President.
The Pew Research Center is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization and a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. For its studies focusing on demographics of religions in the world, the Pew Research Center has been jointly funded by the Templeton Foundation.
The Pew Research Center's research is divided into nine areas:
Researchers at the Pew Research Center annually comb through publicly available sources of information and publications. Each annual report looks at events that took place about 18 months to two years before its publication.
The Pew Research Center released its 10th annual report on Global Restrictions on Religion as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation. While the previous reports focused on year-over-year change, this report provides a broader look at the trend in particular regions and in 198 countries and territories. The report documents how government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion have changed and increased, from 2007 to 2017. It said 52 governments impose high levels of restrictions on religion, up from 40 in 2007, while 56 countries experienced the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion, up from 38 in 2007. According to the report, laws and policies restricting religious freedom and government favoritism of religious groups are the two types of restrictions that have been the most prevalent. The trends suggest that religious restrictions have been rising around the world but not so evenly across all geographic regions or all kinds of restrictions.
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