Partners
Overview

Working with the educational technology provider Acadeum, the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU) will build and launch an “Expedia for transfer” platform for community college students in North Carolina who are exploring transfer to independent colleges in the state. In addition to Teagle and AVDF, the $1.3 million project is supported by the ECMC Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Belk Foundation. In addition, the Lumina Foundation has agreed to provide funding to NCICU to cover their administrative costs for the project.

The partnership aims to expand Hillman’s Serious Illness and End of Life Emergent Innovation program. Launched by Hillman in 2018, the Emergent Innovation program provides grants to nurse-driven, early stage projects that are designed to improve palliative care and end of life services for vulnerable populations. The AVDF and Hillman partnership will expand the number of grants available for competitive projects in 2021.

On Monday, October 19, 2020 the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF) announced a partnership with the Teagle Foundation to address the academic obstacles that community college students face when trying to transfer to independent four-year colleges. Four out of five community college students hope to earn a bachelor’s degree, but few are able to succeed by transferring to and graduating from a four-year institution. The Teagle Foundation and AVDF’s partnership under Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts will provide planning grants of $25,000 over 6 to 12 months and implementation grants ranging from $250,000-$350,000 over 24 to 36 months to improve opportunities for students to transfer from two-year public institutions to four-year private liberal arts colleges.

What is less known is Ali’s religious journey from Baptist Christianity in his youth, to the Nation of Islam at age 18, and then, in his more mature years, to Sufi Islam—a Muslim order that promotes peace and interfaith harmony. With funding from AVDF and the El Hibri and Henry Luce Foundations, America Abroad Media is producing a podcast series that traces these key developments in Ali’s life. The podcast will launch in early 2021 and will be distributed by PRX.

Oberlin, a progressive, liberal arts college, and Spring Arbor, a conservative, Evangelical university, typically enroll students from different ends of the spectrum. AVDF partnered with the Fetzer Institute and Stand Together to support a January term course for students from these schools to learn from each other and form enduring bonds of friendship. In 2021, 8 more colleges will support similar programs with funding from AVDF and the Templeton Religion Trust.

As a result, instructors were seeking new, high quality resources to use in their courses. While more institutions are developing interfaith and religious literacy courses, there are relatively few online curricular resources that are available for use in such courses. To help address this gap, AVDF has partnered with the Foundation for Religious Literacy to develop a suite of online course materials that can be used across many disciplines and departments.

Three prizes are offered each year. The Peace Education Prize is awarded to an individual who has supported Muslim and Muslim-inclusive communities in America, and of successfully building others’ capacity for work of the same sort. The Community Builder Award is given in recognition of the recipient’s recent success in building thriving and inclusive American Muslim communities. Finally, The Fearless Ally Award recognizes the recipient’s work as an ally to American Muslim communities, using his or her platform to challenge anti-Muslim bias and promote inclusion.

To address this need, AVDF joined with three partners—the Foundation for Religious Literacy, the Issachar Fund, and the Templeton Religion Trust—to convene 12 funders with over $25 billion in assets to share strategic plans and explore collaborations. The gathering created new alliances and opened doors for new funding priorities for some participating foundations.