{"value"=>"<p>This is the largest series in the collection, containing nearly 1,000 proposals from organizations throughout the United States and Africa. Proposals were received from various ethnic groups in the United States (black, Chicano, Asian-American, Mexican-American, Puerto Rican), poor and working class urban communities, and agricultural and rural communities. A variety of organizations, including social service, community, and grass roots organizations, self-help groups, health care, church groups, employment and training agencies, publishers, and educational organizations, among others, submitted proposals. Folder contents include proposals, reports, printed material and correspondence.</p> <p>Also in this series are files kept by the staff regarding the administration of the grant-making program, including preliminary and follow-up files on the proposal review process from 1967 through 1986. There are status reports detailing the amount of money dispensed to a community group or organization, evaluations of proposals and recommendations by year, summaries, and information on model projects. IFCO staff established three categories for proposals: those that were not funded because they were outside of IFCO's guidelines; proposals that merited funding, but were not due to insufficient funds or because revisions were needed, and funded proposals. The files in this series, however, have been reorganized by the name of the organization or program, in one alphabetical arrangement for easy access. Whether or not a project was funded, can be determined by the correspondence and other documentation in the folders.</p> <p>Files do not exist for all of the projects funded by IFCO, such as MASS (Material Assistance Support System) in the former Portuguese African colonies, or the grants to FRELIMO in Mozambique and ZANU/ZAPU in Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, it is in this series that the full range of the organizations that IFCO worked with and the full impact of its power as a minority-controlled foundation can be found. The list of organizations and programs provides us with a snapshot of community action in the 1970s, a period when so-called minority groups sought to empower themselves and their communities in numbers that were unprecedented up to that time. The proposals frequently provide the only extant information on an organization, many of which are now defunct.</p>"}