Open Society Institute, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Archer Daniels Midland, Dresser Industries, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service.

The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, based in Jacksonville, Florida, are a national philanthropic organization established through the generosity of the late American industrialist, Arthur Vining Davis.

The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations currently provide grants in higher education (private liberal arts colleges and universities), secondary education (strengthening teaching and teachers in high schools), graduate theological education, public television (major educational series), and for projects that encourage caring attitudes in the delivery of health care to patients.

For more information about the Foundations, please visit our web page.

Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) was incorporated in Delaware in 1923, successor to the Daniels Linseed Company founded in 1902. The Company is headquartered in Decatur, Illinois, and has European headquarters located in the United Kingdom.

ADM is engaged in the business of procuring, transporting, storing, processing and merchandising agricultural commodities and products. It is one of the world's largest processors of oilseeds, corn and wheat. ADM also processes cocoa beans, milo, oats, barley and peanuts. Other operations include transporting, merchandising, and storing agricultural commodities and products. These operations and processes produce products which have primarily two end uses, either food or feed ingredients. Each commodity processed is in itself a feed ingredient as are the by-products produced during the processing of each commodity. ADM's overall processing capacity is greater than that of any other agricultural enterprise in the world. ADM and affiliates process grains and oilseeds which contain enough calories to feed 358 million people a day.

The Company is widely diversified in the global agribusiness market, and during the last ten years has experienced significant growth. The Archer Daniels Midland Company:

• has 190 processing plants in the United States of which 133 are owned and the balance are leased. The Company also owns or has a 50% or greater owners interest in 88 foreign processing plants.
• operates 37 domestic and nine foreign oilseed crushing plants with a daily processing capacity of approximately 84,000 metric tons. The foreign plants are located in Canada, England, Germany and the Netherlands.
• operates four wet corn milling and tow dry corn milling plants with a daily grind capacity of approximately 1.6 million bushels. ADM also owns interest, through joint ventures, in corn milling in Mexico, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey.
• operates 29 domestic wheat and durum flour mills, a domestic bulgur plant, and thirteen foreign flour mills with a total daily capacity of approximately 408,000 hundredweight of flour. The Company also operates seven bakery mix and specialty ingredient plants, three corn flour mills, two milo plants, two pasta plants and two starch and gluten plants.
• operates 11 domestic oilseed refineries as well as eight foreign refineries in Canada, England, Germany and the Netherlands.
• produces feed and food additives at seven bioproducts plants located in Illinois, North Carolina and Ireland. ADM also operates formula feed, animal health and nutrition, and through a joint venture, formula feed and pet food plants.
• operates three domestic and seven foreign chocolate and cocoa bean processing plants located in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Singapore.
• operates five North American barley malting plants.
• operates various other food ingredient plants in England, France and Germany.
• operates 128 country elevators, 62 domestic terminal and river loading facilities, and three grain export elevators. Domestic grain terminals, elevators and processing plants have an aggregate storage capacity of approximately 401 million bushels. The Company also has an interest through a joint venture in fourteen grain elevators located in five states with an aggregate storage capacity of approximately 58 million bushels. ADM also operates 46 foreign grain elevators in Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, and Germany. The Company also has 13 cotton gins located in Texas which serve the cottonseed crushing plants in that area.

In 1967, the United States Congress created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). CPB created the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1969 and National Public Radio (NPR) in 1970. PBS and NPR produce and distribute national programs that CPB cultivates and funds in its efforts to serve communities better.

CPB develops public telecommunications services (radio, television and new media—such as online programming), investing in nearly 1,000 local radio and television stations that reach virtually every household in the country. It is the largest, single source of funding for public programming that provides the useful information of “Marketplace,” the dispassionate reporting of “All Things Considered,” the educational value of “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” and the best seat in the house for “Great Performances.”

The United States Congress appropriates federal tax dollars for PBS. The Congress authorizes funds for CPB in three-year advance cycles and appropriates these funds two years ahead of the fiscal year in which they are to be spent. This advanced funding stabilizes PBS and allows it to plan future programming. CPB also receives grants from foundations and corporations for specific projects. These grants allow CPB to provide for a variety of public service and telecommunications projects, including helping communities and creating inventive and effective use of technology to educate. CPB distributes more than 95 cents of every dollar of its budget to local station producers and service providers for operations, community service grants and programming. CPB’s overhead averages four percent of its total budget.

A nine-member Board of Directors governs CPB, sets policy and establishes programming priorities. The President of the United States appoints each member, who, after confirmation by the Senate, serves a six-year term. The Board, in turn, appoints the president and chief executive officer, who then names the other corporate officers.

CPB is also involved in numerous educational and technological endeavors including: Ready-To-Learn, an outreach program that brings together local public television stations, community organizations and national producers to help parents use television to teach their children; Teacher’s Digest, a publication that enables teachers to use public television as a learning tool; the K-12 Internet Testbed, an on-line service connecting public radio and television stations with local museums, schools, universities and teachers; Technology Summit, a forum that travels to various communities around the country to inform teachers about emerging technologies; Community Networking, an online bulletin board community service; and two Web sites—EdWeb that examines technologies in K-12 education online and the CPB’s web site.

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Dresser Industries is a leading global supplier of products and services for the energy industry. The company had revenues of $7.5 billion in fiscal 1997 and employs more than 30,000 people around the world.

From exploration, drilling, production and transmission to processing, power and marketing, Dresser is committed to enhancing the value of customer businesses and, consequently, the company’s shareholder returns.

Through 19 operating units and three major joint ventures, Dresser maintains the industry’s broadest capabilities. Many of its brand names, products and services have secured market-leading positions that are the hallmark of Dresser’s long-term success.

Founded in 1880 in Western Pennsylvania during the nation’s initial oil boom, Dresser has grown from a single-product company serving the domestic petroleum industry to its position today as a premier supplier worldwide for the total hydrocarbon energy stream.

Over the years, Dresser has played an integral role in the industrialization of the U.S. as well as international regions from which it currently derives about two-thirds of its business.

Dresser is a responsible corporate citizen, operating professionally and ethically in more than 60 countries. The company upholds its obligation to protect the environment and to contribute to educational, charitable, cultural and other causes that benefit communities and society as a whole.

The Open Society Institute is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that seeks to promote the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and often controversial issues.

Created and funded by philanthropist George Soros, the Open Society Institute is part of the Soros foundations network, which consists of autonomous nonprofit organizations operating in 31 countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, as well as in Southern Africa, Haiti, Guatemala and the United States.

In 1994, the foundations in the network spent a total of approximately $300 million; in 1995, $350 million; and in 1996, $362 million. Spending for 1997 is expected to be maintained at a similar level.

At the most fundamental, philosophical level, the concept of open society is based on the recognition that people act on imperfect knowledge and that no one is in possession of the ultimate truth. In practice, an open society is characterized by the rule of law; respect for human rights, minorities, and minority opinions; the division of power; and a market economy. Broadly speaking, open society is a way to describe the positive aspects of democracy. The term “open society” was popularized by the philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 book “Open Society and Its Enemies.”

PBS in Brief

• A private, nonprofit corporation whose members are America’s public TV stations.
• Founded in 1969.
• Provides quality TV programming and related services to 349 noncommercial stations serving all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.
• Created American broadcast television’s first (1978) satellite program distribution system.
• 470 staff members in Alexandria, Va., New York City and Los Angeles direct program acquisition and scheduling, education and online services, advertising and promotion, audience research, broadcast and technical operations, fundraising development, video marketing, and engineering and technology development.

PBS Member Stations

• 172 noncommercial, educational licen-sees operate 349 PBS member stations.
• Of the 172 licensees, 87 (51%) are community organizations, 56 (32%) are colleges/ universities, 21 (12%) are state authorities and 8 (5%) are local educational or municipal authorities.

The Public Television Audience

• The public TV audience reflects the demographic composition of the United States.
• From October 1996 to September 1997, 95.8 million viewers in 55.5 million homes watched public TV each week, according to the Nielsen Television Index. This represents 56.6% of America’s 98.0 million TV households.
• During prime time in this period, public TV was watched each week in 31.8 million homes by 49.0 million people.
• The average viewing household watches just under three hours of public TV a week; about half of that time is spent with prime-time programming.
• 78.7% of all American television-owning homes—77.1 million households representing 150.7 million people—watched public TV in October 1997, with the average home tuning in for just over eight hours during the month.

PBS Programming Activities

• National Program Service—the major package of programs PBS distributes to its member stations. It includes quality children’s, cultural, educational, news and public affairs, science and nature, fundraising, and skills programs.
• Adult Learning Service—a partnership, involving public TV stations and colleges, providing college-credit TV courses to more than 425,000 students each academic year.
• Teacher Resource Service—quality instructional programs and related materials for classroom use in grades K-12.
• Programs are obtained from public TV stations, independent producers and sources around the world. PBS does not produce programs.

Public TV Funding

• Public TV’s total national, regional and local income in FY96 was $1.49 billion, according to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Four-fifths (82.2%) came from nonfederal sources, particularly viewers (22.0%), state governments (17.3%) and businesses (15.0%).
• 4.8 million individuals and families contributed $327.5 million to public TV in FY96.

PBS Funding

• The PBS budget for FY98 (July 1, 1997-June 30, 1998) of $252.6 million comes from member stations (51%), educational products and services (24%), CPB (11%), and strategic partnerships and other sources (14%).
• More than three-quarters (77.5%) of PBS’s FY98 budget goes to program production, acquisition, promotion and distribution. (Program funds administered by PBS represent only a portion of the total cost of PBS’s National Program Service.)
• In FY97, support for the PBS National Program Service’s 2,189 hours of original-broadcast programs amounted to an estimated $326 million. Sources included public TV stations, 27%; private producers, 21%; corporations, 20%; CPB, 13%; foundations, 10%; federal and state government, 7%; and others, 2%.