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The David and Lura Lovell Foundation Awards $2 Million To Support 15 Nonprofits Serving Southern Arizona


TUCSON, AZ – The Tucson-based David and Lura Lovell Foundation approved nearly $2 million in grants for 15 Tucson nonprofit organizations in the first quarter of 2015.

The three largest grants from the family foundation are: $620,000 to Interfaith Community Services, $545,938 to the University of Arizona College of Nursing and $300,000 for the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. The entire grant allocation totals $2,026,338 for 23 distinct projects, including six family-initiated projects located in various parts of the country. Highlights include:

  • Interfaith Community Services received awards for two projects over the next three years. A grant for $560,000 will establish a program that connects faith communities with healthcare facilities to provide support for at-risk and vulnerable patients who need non-medical support after discharge from the hospital. Such support has been shown to reduce re-admissions and improve quality of care and patient satisfaction. This is modeled on a successful evidence-based program in Tennessee.

The second grant provides $60,000 for ICS to continue to provide mental health training in the community to help people learn the facts about and recognize the signs of mental illness and how to address crisis and non-crisis situations. Interfaith Community Services was established in 1985 and now works with nearly 80 faith-based communities that provide volunteer services for the elderly, disabled and disadvantaged.

  • UA College of Nursing, established in 1957, is ranked in the top 6 percent of nursing programs in the nation. The Lovell Foundation grant, over three years, will help the college transform nursing education to include more extensive integrative nursing knowledge and skills that can help improve the outcomes of patients with acute and chronic healthcare issues. Mary Koithan, associate dean of the college, is leading the project. She is co-author of the widely used text “Integrative Nursing,” published last year that is already in its third printing.
  • Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine plans to open an Integrative Health clinic in Tucson in late 2015, after opening its first clinic in Phoenix in 2012. The clinic became a successful model of care delivery where patients receive individualized comprehensive primary care with a strong focus on personal empowerment, prevention, self-care and optimal health. The Tucson clinic will also provide a setting to train medical students, residents and fellows. The Lovell Foundation awarded $300,000 in honor of Lura Lovell as part of the In Honor of Our Mothers fundraising campaign. To date $1.3 million of the $2.5 million needed has been raised. Previously the Lovell Foundation awarded AzCIM $1.6 million, including a multi-year commitment to establish the Institute on Place and Well-Being, headed by Dr. Esther Sternberg.
  • Arizona Public Media was awarded $198,250 for two projects. One will continue to co-fund a producer/reporter for mental health. In 2012 the Lovell Foundation funded this project for three years. During that time reporter Gisela Telis produced numerous award-winning mini-documentaries on mental health issues for AZPM. The AzPM award includes $98,250 to support this position for another three years. The other $100,000 will be used to develop a documentary on death and dying to educate people about the resources available for end-of-life care and coping with death and grief. AZPM will work with community partners to develop outreach and educational opportunities.

Other substantial grants awarded in 2015 include:

  • $80,000 for St. Elizabeth’s Health Center, providing medical, dental and healthcare for the uninsured and underserved since 1961, staffed by volunteer physicians, nurses, dentists and hygienists.
  • $50,000 over two years for NAMI of Southern Arizona, an organization that advocates, educates and offers support to people living with mental illness and their families.
  • $45,000 for the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation to develop an online merchant website for vitamins and supplements to reach extremely underserved rural communities of Southeastern Arizona.
  • $35,000 to HOPE, Inc., a treatment center for people with behavioral health disorders, to develop a Young Adult Peer Music Program, based on the success of a project previously funded by The Lovell Foundation.

Additional grants are:

  • $15,000 to Social Venture Partners Tucson
  • $12,150 to the Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona
  • $12,000 to UApresents
  • $10,000 each to the Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson Museum of Art and Tucson Symphony Orchestra
  • $8,000 to Invisible Theatre

The Lovell Foundation also made awards to support projects of special interest to its family members. Those grants total $75,000 including:

  • $30,000 to support CNN student journalist training to extend outreach and awareness of “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary film about rape on college campuses in the United States.
  • $20,000 for The Children’s Center in Salt Lake City. This center focuses on mental health care for families with young children.
  • $10,000 for Challenge Day in San Francisco, which provides youth and their communities with experiential programs that celebrate of diversity, truth and full expression.
  • $10,000 for Demand Abolition, a national initiative focused on reducing the demand for sex trafficking. This year Phoenix became the 11th pilot city to join a collaborate coalition of community leaders, criminal justice professionals, activists, survivors, researchers and philanthropists.
  • $10,000 for the Tucson Public Voices Op-Ed Project, training women to use their expertise to write and publish op-ed articles.
  • $5,000 for equipment and supplies for the Mexico Dental Mission , a Phoenix- based organization providing dental services to communities in Mexico several times each year.

Going forward, the Lovell Foundation now has more resources and can better support nonprofits – not just for projects and programs – but also in ways that can help these organizations evolve and expand their capacity to better serve their communities,” said Ann Lovell, foundation president. “This round of foundational grant awards reflects that new focus, as well as our ongoing commitment to the nonprofits with whom we have partnered for many years.”

Background

In the early 1990s, David and Lura Lovell were planning to establish a family foundation with proceeds from the sale of the chemical company David founded and grew for 25 years in Toledo, Ohio. When David died unexpectedly, his wife Lura and daughter Ann moved the foundation forward.

Since 1994, the Lovell family foundation has awarded more than $13 million in grants to support the four pillars of its mission to support mental health, integrative medicine, cultural/spiritual enrichment and philanthropic education. Over the past 20 years the Lovell Foundation has partnered with 60 nonprofits in local communities, including 20 in Tucson, plus a few projects that were national in scope.

The foundation is in its second year of transition since the death of Lura Lovell in September, 2013, and during this time is only accepting proposals from its current grantee partners. The foundation is also under-going an executive search and hopes to have the new executive director named by the end of the summer.