Bedrock Foundation

Three-year Granting Plan

09.04.2021

Feng Dong

Bedrock Foundation

2501 M ST NW UNIT 208 

WASHINGTON, DC 20037

Ⅰ. Background

Bedrock Foundation is issued as a charitable and educational organization within the meaning of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 by the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Corporations Division of the Government of the District of Columbia on Feb. 5th, 2021 for the following purposes:

1. To aid the realization of everyone’s right to education, prioritizing the poorest and most vulnerable, and the belief that education plays a fundamental role in human, social, and economic development.
2. To pursue the essence of education and galvanize and coordinate better efforts to deliver a good and quality education;
3. To increase the quality of instruction and help ensure lasting education, and develop education strategies, promote collaboration in education, share solutions to challenges facing educators, and finance the implementation of programs.

The founding capital of the organization is USD 5 million.

Ⅱ. Granting Goals For The First Three Years

Bedrock Foundation plans to spend around one million dollars on educational projects from 2021 to 2023.

The Bedrock Foundation would like to support the fields of education during the first three years, including cross-cultural communication education, community history and culture, environmental protection education, humanities education, and traditional value advocacy and action education.

The current granting plan has five targeted projects and one backup project. Among the five targeted projects, two are from local non-full time-staff grassroots nonprofit organizations, two are staffed organizations, and one is an international project.

For different types of grantee organizations, the foundation will adopt different funding strategies and set corresponding goals. 

1. For grassroots organizations, Bedrock Foundation will adopt a granting strategy of trust-based philanthropy, simplify paperwork as much as possible in the early stage of the organization’s development, and focus on providing non-restricted funds. There are two goals when supporting grassroots nonprofits: (1) To support the education value of the organizations. (2) To support the sustainable development of the organizations.
2. For staffed organizations, Bedrock Foundation will implement the project-based granting strategy with the restricted fund and higher requirements for the project management and reports. Such grants have two goals: (1) To support the education value of the organizations. (2) To expand Bedrock Foundation’s impact.

In terms of grantee organizations, Bedrock Foundation hopes to select trustworthy partner nonprofits through the first three years of cooperation and prepare for long-term investment.

As a newly established foundation, to expand the impact of granting, improve operation efficiency and learn more about the philanthropy practices, Bedrock Foundation chose the strategy of co-granting. It formed a strategic partnership with Daofeng and Angela Foundation.

Ⅲ. Overview Of The First Three-year Granting Plan

In 201-2023, the Bedrock Foundation plans to provide five non-profit organizations with a total of 1 million US dollars in grants. The annual granting amounts are respectively 200,000 U.S. dollars, 300,000 U.S. dollars, and 500,000 U.S. dollars.

Regarding how to grant 1 million to 5 nonprofits in the first three years, Table 1 below provides an overview. 

Table 1: Bedrock Foundation Granting Plan for 2021-2023

Ⅳ. Project Introduction And Granting Description

This section will introduce the educational projects planned to be funded by the Bedrock Foundation in the next three years and the reason and progress of the granting.

1. CFHR Garden Building & Experiential Learning Project

Grantee Organization: China Folk House Retreat (CFHR)

Fund Type: Non-restricted Fund

3-year Granting Plan: 

Table 2: Bedrock Foundation’s 3-year Granting Plan to CFHR

Grantee Organization Introduction

The China Folk House Retreat (CFHR) is a non-profit 501c(3) organization providing experiential learning programs for students of all ages, families, and life-long learners in the greater Washington DC region.  CFHR offers a range of experiential learning opportunities, from day visits to the house site as a “living museum” to weekend workshops on sustainability and cultural programs, to a series of intensive two-week apprenticeships during the summer craft school. 

Official Website: https://www.chinafolkhouse.org/

Grantee Project Introduction

The Bedrock Foundation plans to provide three gifts in a total of 150,000 US dollars between 2021-2023 to The China Folk House Retreat (CFHR) for the Garden Building & Experiential Learning  Project.

The China Folk House Retreat (CFHR) preserves a farmhouse from the village of Cizhong that would have been inundated by a dam on the headwaters of the Mekong River by documenting the house and its landscape, disassembling and moving the physical structures, and then reassembling the homestead along the Shenandoah River at the Friends Wilderness Center in Jefferson County, West Virginia.

CFHR’s project mainly includes two dimensions, one is construction, and the other is educational activities. The project’s research goal is to understand the house as a text of its place, as a location of skill and craftsmanship, and as a tool of agricultural production, connected to its fields, orchards, and pasture. CFHR believes that rebuilding the house at the site along the Shenandoah River is ideal for this project of cultural translation because the similarities of landscape and folkways will make the CFHR a center for cross-cultural programs in experiential education, folklife studies, and environmental sustainability. When all the building projects are completed, CFHR will serve as an experiential, interactive museum showcasing the diverse folk cultures, vernacular architecture, agriculture, handicrafts, and folklife of northwest Yunnan. 

1. (1)Construction: 

As of the end of July 2021, CFHR has completed the construction of the gate（Figure 1） and the main structure of the main house (Figure 2). 

Figure 1 Gate of CFHR

Figure 2 Main House of CFHR

The gate wall and the main house were constructed with hempcrete, an eco-friendly material mixed with hemp hued, lime, and sand. The project uses this kind of material because it is similar to the original house’s traditional craft in Yunnan, China, and meets governmental building requirements. The green value is part of the educational meaning of this house. 

The kitchen (Figure 3) and bathroom (Figure 4) are under construction. 

Figure 3 Kitchen of CFHR

Figure 4 Bathroom of CFHR

The kitchen, bathroom, and main house’s roof are expected to be completed before the summer of 2022. 

The garden is the next major construction project of the CFHR Center. At present, CFHR has completed the garden project’s map surveying and feasibility assessment (see attachment for details). The working modules of the garden project will mainly cover the construction of a Chinese pavilion, two ponds, and a botanical garden.

The overall elevation view draft of the garden project is as follows:

Figure 5 Elevation view of Chinese Pavilion across the pond

Figure 6 Elevation View of CFHR from the dam

The Bedrock Foundation plans to invest 40,000 and 50,000 US dollars in 2021-2022 to support the construction of the CFHR garden project, including the overall planning and design of the garden, the silt dredging of two ponds, the structure of the barrier, and the construction of the Chinese pavilion. In 2023, the Bedrock Foundation will invest 60,000 US dollars to support the continued construction project and the educational activities, including the garden path and decoration, planting and maintenance of flowers and trees, and those cross-cultural educational events based on the house and garden. A possible plan is to open a three-dimensional planting yard in the garden to show that Chinese farmers use such agricultural technology to maximize space efficiency and deal with scarce arable land.

（2）Educational Activities:

Currently, CFHR has conducted three cross-cultural educational camps in 2019, 2020, and 2021. 

The inaugural program in the summer of  2019 was the reassembly of the timber frame of the China Folk House at its new home, the Friends Wilderness Center in Jefferson County,  West Virginia, by a team from the Timber Framers Guild in the Harpers Ferry area, high school and college students participating in an experiential work-study program, and community volunteers (Figure 7).