The Board
The CarEth Foundation is a small all volunteer organization based in Duvall, Washington.
History
About the Founder
George Sterling Grumman was born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 18th, 1920.
Sterling, as he chose to be called, graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1943. He served in the American Field Service and then received a Masters from Yale Business School.
Sterling, a Conscientious Objector in the Second World War drove an ambulance to pick up the dead & wounded and came home changed. This experience along with his own innate governing principal, high standards for ethical conduct and reverence for all humanity, lead him to commit to doing all he could to move our world towards peace and justice.
Sterling became engaged with the opposition of the Vietnam War and at the bidding of Cora Weiss, noted for her leadership of the Vietnam War era anti-war movement made one of his first strategic contributions in funding the resistance to the Vietnam War in Washington DC.
Sterling was an activist and sought to build coalitions of peace groups, strengthen effective lobbying techniques. He became involved as a board member in several credible DC peace organizations such as the Members of Congress for Peace Through Law, The Center for Defense Information, and The Fund for Peace.
Sterling, an avid hiker who found great inspiration, peace and well-being in the mountains, died in a fall while trekking in the Himalayan Mountains October 22, 1978 at age 58.
The Name CarEth
Sterling established, what is now called the CarEth Foundation, in 1967. It was originally named The Grumman Peace Foundation and its principal purpose was to promote world peace by applying “Judeo-Christian ethics to current U. S. foreign policy”. In 1972, he changed the name to CarEth Foundation in adoration of his mother Carol and her sister (Sterling’s Aunt) Ethel who exemplified to him the principals he sought to emulate in the world.
The CarEth Board
At its founding, in 1967, the Board was comprised of Sterling, his sister, Helen Burr Grumman, Dr. Paul Deats, professor of Social Ethics at the Boston University School of Theology and Gregory Finger who was active with Sterling in efforts to end the Vietnam War and other peace activities.
After Sterling’s death in 1978, other family members joined the Board. Currently there are seven board members comprised of Sterling’s children, grandchildren, nephews and non-family.
The History of CarEth’s Funding Focus
As the peace movement spread in the 1980’s, the focus broadened to the support of grassroots as well as national peace organizations in their efforts to change U.S. foreign and domestic policies. Connections between peace, justice and human rights were made.
Throughout the 90’s CarEth’s focus was wide-ranging: building civil society in the U.S. which included supporting grassroots peace efforts, addressing “hot spots” – targeting specific regions around the world in crisis, promoting early warning systems and multilateral non-military solutions to conflict as well as peacekeeping and conflict prevention both nationally and internationally.
We continued to find ourselves narrowing in on systemic change and the importance of considering the root cause of violence, oppression and injustices as integral to our principal purpose, to promote world peace and justice for all. In first decade of the twentieth century CarEth’s focus was on Global economic justice, cooperative governance and citizenship, global human rights and multilateral systems that support human rights standards.
CarEth has maintained its focus on human rights to this day targeting movement building, networking and resource sharing within the US to foster human rights as well as women’s human rights internationally.
Alliances
Over our 50 years of growth, CarEth has fostered alliances and memberships with many organizations and networks in solidarity to promote a global community and empower a collective voice for change. Our relationships with these and many others have opened greater opportunities for learning exchanges, collaboration in service of our grantee partners, and building shared goals and vision for a more peaceful future.
EDGE (Engaged Donors for Global Equality)
International Human Rights Funders Group
AWID (Association for Women's Rights In Development)