Mission:
To research and identify unfulfilled needs of society and to develop, implement, and/or fund breakthrough solutions that have a lasting impact and offer people a choice and hope for the future.

Purpose of Site:
The Web site describes the foundation's programs, partnerships, and initiatives in the areas of entrepreneurship and youth development. It also offers feature stories about the foundation's work, as well as links to additional external resources.

Background:
Entrepreneur Ewing Marion Kauffman, born in 1916, founded Marion Laboratories Inc. in 1950. By 1989, when the company was sold to Merrell Dow, it had become a global diversified pharmaceutical giant with annual sales of nearly $1 billion. Kauffman's most enduring gift was to establish a foundation to help others live self-sufficiently in healthy communities. Established in the mid-1960s, the foundation became fully funded after he died in 1993.

Home Page:
The home page features articles on the foundation's work, news, and announcements. Across the top of the page is a toolbar with links to the major areas of the site: About the Foundation, Publications & Resources, Current Grants, News, Employment, Foundation Web sites, Funding Guidelines, Features Archive, and Public Affairs. Directly below the toolbar are two pulldown menus to links related to the foundation's major program areas — children & youth and entrepreneurship.

Outstanding Feature:
The foundation's Youth Development Division considers youth in the full context of their families, schools, communities, and social and economic circumstances. The section of the site devoted to youth development welcomes Web users with a summary of the program and its three main areas: Early Education, K-12, and Healthy Neighborhoods. Within each of those categories, the site describes its various programs and partnerships, and a sidebar along the right side of each of those pages includes links to feature articles on related grant recipients and beneficiaries.

Honorable Mention:
Under the Current Grants link, the site offers lists of grants from the 2002 fiscal year. The lists are updated monthly and organized by five outcomes: Children enter school prepared to succeed; children and youth make a successful transition through childhood and adolescence to responsible adulthood; youth and adults have the knowledge, skills, and values to make entrepreneurship a choice for the future; entrepreneurs have the knowledge, skills, and values to accelerate job and wealth creation in America; and not-for-profit leaders have the entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and values to advance their organizations' social missions. Another list features grants that support more than one outcome. Each list entry includes the name of the grant recipient, the amount of the award, and a summary of the funding purpose.