The Phelps Stokes Fund (PS) is a nonprofit fund established in 1911 by the will of New York philanthropist Caroline Phelps Stokes, a member of the Phelps Stokes family. Created as the Trustees of Phelps Stokes Fund, it connects emerging leaders and organizations in Africa and the Americas with resources to help them advance social and economic development.
Some organizations Phelps Stokes has influenced or supported the founding of are UNCF, the Booker Washington Agricultural and Industrial Institute (BWI), the American Indian College Fund, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and the Association of Black American Ambassadors.
Phelps Stokes has contributed to education in the U.S. South and British colonial Africa.
Work in the United States
Phelps Stokes has promoted published studies on social issues. In the United States, it commissioned groundbreaking studies of black intellectual potential for college education at the University of Virginia and the University of Georgia. Phelps Stokes also supported the historic Jeanes Teachers Program, which became a model for education in the rural South.
Edward Berman writes that between 1911 and 1945, Phelps Stokes "played a role in American Negro and especially in African education disproportionate to the rather meagre financial resources it contributed directly to these endeavors between 1911, when it was incorporated, and 1945. [Phelps Stokes'] endowment of slightly less than $1 million was small when compared with other philanthropic organizations established early in the twentieth century."
The original charter of Phelps Stokes (PS) included a focus on the needs of American Indians, particularly for the educational and human development of those who were historically underrepresented and marginalized. Throughout its history, PS has built upon this foundation in a variety of ways.
1911–1941
During the first thirty years, PS made small grants totaling approximately $19,000 for Indian schools, organizations, and scholarships. Its first grant was allocated in 1915 with $1,000 to Reverend Henry Roe Cloud and Professor F.A. McKenzie to conduct a preliminary survey of the state of Indian schools.
In 1926, PS gave a $5,000 grant to the Institute for Government Research (now the Brookings Institution) to conduct a research project under the leadership of Lewis Meriam. John Rockefeller Jr. provided primary financial underwriting for that program. The report, The Problem of Indian Administration, commonly known as the Meriam Report, served as the basis in the 1930s for the Roosevelt Administration's policy towards American Indians. This policy, a break from previous policies, urged the U.S. government to allow American Indians to exist as culturally unique peoples and to retain reservation land bases in their control. The policy also established most of the contemporary tribal governments through the Indian Reorganization Act.
In 1939, the Indian Rights Association (IRA) requested assistance to study the controversy over the range management controversy on the Navajo Reservation. Phelps Stokes provided $1,800 for the study. This inquiry was eventually published by Thomas Jesse Jones as The Navajo Problem: An Inquiry. One aspect of that study was Ella Deloria's The Navajo Indian Problem. That year, PS also helped found the American Indian Institute in Wichita, Kansas under the leadership of Henry Roe Cloud.
1942–1969
Phelps Stokes' involvement in American Indian communities waned after World War II until the appointment of Dr. Wilton Dillon as Executive Secretary and Director of Research in 1957. During the initial years of Dillon's leadership, PS became involved in planning studies and conferences related to American Indian development. This assistance typically came in the form of $1,500 grants to organizations such as Arrow, Inc., an affiliate of the National Congress of American Indians.
In 1958, Phelps Stokes provided $1,500 for a group of American Indian leaders to travel to Puerto Rico. There, the group studied a local community development program, which resulted in scholarships for Indian students to study at the University of Puerto Rico. On a smaller scale, PS informally helped the Museum of Primitive Art in New York to organize an art exhibit.