Irvine, Calif. – The nonprofit JAMS Foundation announced that it approved five new grants to organizations using innovative ways to promote and advance conflict prevention and dispute resolution. The foundation will distribute the money in the form of three Foundation Grants, which provide financial support up to $50,000 for ADR initiatives with national impact, and two Opportunity Grants, which award up to $10,000 for smaller scale and more localized projects.
“The JAMS Foundation is honored to fund initiatives that work to improve and increase uses of ADR around the country,” said Jay Folberg, executive director of the JAMS Foundation. “These programs will make a positive impact in resolving disputes and we’re pleased to help support them.”
The JAMS Foundation will provide Foundation Grants to the following initiatives:
- Mediators Beyond Borders (New York, NY) – Ecuador Project (Phase II) – $40,000 to continue support for a collaborative effort involving government agencies, courts, non-profits, universities and practitioners to develop ADR in Ecuador. Building on the Phase I development of an online resource, Phase II focuses on the development of a series of symposia in three major cities, providing continuing education in advanced mediation techniques for professionals and promoting mediation among the courts and community.
- University of Colorado, Conflict Information Consortium (Boulder, CO) – Website Upgrade - $31,000 to update and upgrade the nation’s most comprehensive online conflict resolution information website, CRInfo. It also includes the addition of social networking tools to foster a web-based learning community and integration with a companion website, Beyond Intractability, focusing on long-standing, large scale ethic, religious and political conflicts.
- Community Mediation Center (Independence, MO) – Road to Restoration Project – In collaboration with the Kansas City Health Department’s Aim4Peace program, the Center received $35,000 to support a multi-tiered, community-based training and education program introducing mediation and restorative justice in several communities at risk of devastating violence. It also will help fund the development of an online conflict resolution certification program available to all members of CeaseFire, Aim4Peace’s national partner, in order to enhance the prevention of violence in more communities.
The JAMS Foundation will provide Opportunity Grants to the following programs:
- Access Youth (Washington, DC) – Victim/Juvenile Offender Training Manual and Video – In collaboration with Howard University School of Law and its student clinic, Access Youth received $10,000 to fund the creation and dissemination of a community-oriented, victim-juvenile offender mediation training manual and video, based on the organization’s Early Intervention Juvenile Mediation Program for at-risk youth. It will be distributed to community organizations, universities and law schools to promote the use of mediation in a juvenile justice context.
- Mediation Center of Greater Green Bay (Green Bay, WI) – Mobile Mediation Clinics for Seniors - $5,375 to support the development of a mobile mediation clinic for seniors, addressing some of the physical limitations and psychological barriers preventing elderly clients from participating in mediation by setting up satellite mediation clinics – including outreach, education and services – at several established senior centers around the state.
About the JAMS Foundation (www.jamsfoundation.org)
The nonprofit JAMS Foundation is the largest private provider of ADR-related grants in the world. The Foundation was established in 2002 by JAMS, The Resolution Experts, the nation’s largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services, and is funded by JAMS mediators, arbitrators and employee associates who contribute a percentage of their income. The JAMS Foundation has provided more than $4.4 million in grant funding since its inception. Founded in 1979, JAMS and its more than 280 full-time mediators and arbitrators are responsible for resolving thousands of the world’s most important cases.
