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Rice University's Kraft Hall for Social Sciences was built in 2020.
Rich and Nancy Kinder are photographed in the tunnel after the opening of the Lynn Wyatt Theater in the Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston Friday Dec. 03,2021.
The Kinder Foundation on Friday announced a $50 million grant to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, more than tripling its endowment and ensuring longevity for the Rice University-based consortium.
Foundation Chairman Rich Kinder said he believes that the grant is a “shot in the arm” for the institute – one that will take it to new heights and allow for greater research capacities to the benefit of Houston.
“Rice over the last couple of decades has enormously expanded its outreach to Houston, and I think that this is a good indicator of that,” he said. “While the grant is to Rice, we think it’s really a grant to the whole Houston metropolitan area.”
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The institute is known for its research projects across the city, which provide government agencies and other organizations data and insights into issues such as COVID-19, demographics, education, politics, urban planning and housing. Its most prominent project is the annual Kinder Houston Area Survey, a wide-ranging study assessing locals’ views on urban problems.
Profits generated from the new investment will give the institute more financial security to conduct its research, Director Ruth López Turley said.
The grant will provide a cushion for the institute to work with its partners, regardless of whether they can afford to pay, she said. And it will allow for the quick rollout of community research in times of crisis, when fundraising usually slows down the process.
“We really do want to take on the long view, in terms of really trying to do work that informs systemic change,” she said. “This kind of revenue from an endowment does two things: The first is it saves us a lot of time, and the second is it gives us flexibility, because we don’t know ahead of time what our community partners’ research needs will be.”
While the institute will continue raising funds for longer-term research projects, López Turley said that the grant will also bolster recently announced plans to double the size of her staff.
That initiative focuses on surveys, education, housing, economic mobility and public health, according to a news release. Those topics will be organized under research centers, including the Houston Education Research Consortium and the Houston Population Research Center, and more will be established.
The Kinder Institute was founded in 2010 with a $15 million gift from Richard and Nancy Kinder. The endowment currently sits at $22.4 million, López Turley said.
Samantha Ketterer is a Houston Chronicle reporter covering higher education.
She joined the staff as a breaking news reporter in 2018. She later covered criminal justice and the Harris County courthouse.
Samantha, who is from Houston's suburbs, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and is a proud alumna of The Daily Texan. She is a former reporting fellow for the Dallas Morning News' state bureau and a former city hall reporter for The Galveston County Daily News.
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