Oswald Family Foundation

Oswald Family Foundation (formerly Oswald Charitable Foundation).

According to a 2003 Council on Foundations report:

"The Oswald Family Foundation (OFF) was founded six years ago in Minneapolis by entrepreneur and patriarch Charley Oswald. In searching for themes around which two or more members of the family could coalesce, his daughter Julie Oswald Umbarger, president of the foundation, established an international committee. She and her five siblings had traveled and studied abroad, participated in student exchanges through World Learning and in church and teacher exchanges as adults...

"The foundation made four different kinds of grants in Bolivia and then took three generations of the family to visit these grantees to learn more about being open-minded and effective funding partners. The grants were to:

• "Build a community center in the village of Viloma through World Vision, the program and home of the original sponsored child;
• "Support Unidad Academica Campesina-Carmen Pampa, a fledgling university for campesino youth in Northern Bolivia that trains students in fields needed by their villages: public health, veterinary medicine, sustainable agriculture, land and water management, childcare and elementary education,
• Provide loan funds to the Bolivian arm of ACCION International, a microfinance institution active across Latin America, and Support “social entrepreneurs,” innovative individuals pioneering programs with the potential for major national or regional impact, through ASHOKA: Innovators for the Public. In this case, the individuals are involved in educating street children through theater and art.

"The family found these grantees through granddaughter Betsy Workman, staff research, and Katy Oswald’s neighbor who raises funds for Carmen Pampa. A year later the family spent two weeks in Bolivia and Peru, visiting each site and listening to the grantee organizations and their clients; making art out of found objects in the plaza with street children; learning about the microentrepreneurs’ businesses and how their lives have been improved by the foundation’s loan funds; standing in the rain at

the college while public health students recounted their three-hour walks in the dark to deliver advice and medicine to farmers before 7:00 a.m. when they left their homes to work in the fields..."

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch articles

• Nonviolent Peaceforce
• Carmen Pampa Fund
• Scojo Foundation
• ProMujer