Altus receives general support from the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additionally, support for the creation of Altus in 2003- 2004 came from the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute (OSI), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, and the City of The Hague. Program support is also received from the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID).
Department for International Development
The Department for International Development (DFID) is the part of the United Kingdom’s government that manages Britain's aid to poor countries and works to get rid of extreme poverty. DFID adheres to two sets of targets. First, are the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), international targets agreed by the United Nations to halve world poverty by 2015. Second, the UK government’s Public Service Agreement (PSA) sets objectives and targets by which progress is measured. DFID’s Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department (CHASE), supports Altus’ Police Station Visitors Week, which seeks to improve civilian oversight of police.
For DFID, Altus represents the opportunity to tackle the daily issues confronted by communities in their interactions with the police and empower them to make changes in their local communities by participating in a global program that promotes capacity building. Additionally, Altus focuses on the inclusion of women, the poor and the most marginalized groups and attempts to give them a voice.
The Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide. For more than half a century, the Ford Foundation has aimed to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Created with gifts and bequests by Henry and Edsel Ford, the Foundation is an independent organization, with its own board, and is entirely separate from the Ford Motor Company.
Ford is investing in Altus because the alliance will continue the Foundation's longstanding efforts to promote public safety and human rights through accountable policing in democracies worldwide, and because it will strengthen links between domestic organizations and international institutions in The Hague. For more information about the Ford Foundation, visit http://www.fordfound.org/.
MacArthur Foundation
One of the ten largest private philanthropic foundations in the United States, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grant-making institution dedicated to improving the human condition. The Foundation fosters the development of knowledge, nurtures individual creativity, helps strengthen institutions, helps form effective policy, and provides information to the public through supporting public interest media.
The Foundation's Program on Global Security and Sustainability, which focuses primarily on international issues and has offices in India, Nigeria, and Russia—home countries for three of the six Altus member organizations—is particularly keen to support the work of the alliance in these areas of the world. For more information about the MacArthur Foundation, go to http://www.macfound.org/.
Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grant-making foundation based in New York City that serves as the hub of the Soros foundations network, a group of autonomous foundations and organizations in more than 50 countries. OSI was founded in 1993 by investor and philanthropist George Soros to support foundations he created in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. OSI and the network of foundations promote open societies by shaping government policy and supporting social, legal, and economic reforms.
For OSI, Altus fills a need for an international organization dedicated to practical reform of criminal justice practices, and the Altus member organizations comprise a strong set of potential collaborators with OSI's international Justice Initiative. For more information about OSI, go to http://www.soros.org/, and learn more about the Open Society Justice Initiative at http://www.justiceinitiative.org/.
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