About Us
Institute for World Justice has two major missions: to help prevent future genocides and other intercultural violence and injustices through education, and to aid in the post-genocide recovery and rebuilding of Rwanda. Through these efforts, Institute for World Justice proposes to help teach the next generation of world citizens to be active in confronting societal conditions that might lead to genocide, including prejudice, hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, social inequality, and intolerance of any kind.
In 2012, through invitation-only grants of $100,000 each, Institute for World Justice is pleased to partner with the below national and international organizations.
Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village
Rubona, Rwanda
To support its professional skills program, designed to provide students with the tools they need to enter the job market after they graduate and leave the Village.
Akshaya Patra Foundation
Stoneham, Massachusetts
To help underwrite the cost of an environmentally friendly steam boiler, to be used to provide needy schoolchildren in India with healthy midday meals, often their only meal of the day.
Butaro Hospital
Butaro, Rwanda
To collaborate with Partners In Health to construct a much-needed National Cancer Infusion Center in Burera District to address Rwanda’s rising incidence of cancer.
Clark University
Worcester, Massachusetts
To fund four years of education for one student at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the landmark Ph.D. program in the emerging field of genocide studies.
Kigali Genocide Memorial
Kigali, Rwanda
To help fund the creation of the “Peacemaking After Genocide” mobile exhibition, as well as the training for staff and teachers, and the delivery of the program in rural areas of Rwanda.
Facing History and Ourselves
Brookline, Massachusetts
To help nurture democracy and combat racism, anti-Semitism, and prejudice through educational programs, including the June 2012 Holocaust Remembrance Project.
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
To support the research of Arlan Fuller, Jr., which explores how Roma (Gypsy) youth in Serbia, Romania, and Italy experience exclusion, and also identifies mechanisms for change.
Rwinkwavu Hospital
Rwinkwavu, Rwanda
To support Partners In Health’s food security program, designed to combat chronic malnutrition, one of Rwanda’s most vexing development challenges.
Tufts University
Medford, Massachusetts
To support the Cummings/Hillel Program for Holocaust and Genocide Education, which hopes to teach a new generation the importance of moral action in the face of persecution.
United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum
Washington, D.C.
To support the Fellowship Program for the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, offering scholars access to more than 60 million pages of Holocaust-related archival documentation.
United to End Genocide
Washington, D.C.
To help fund two genocide prevention programs: the STAND student movement and the End Genocide Network, made up of diverse community leaders.
Yahad – In Unum
Paris, France
To support Father Patrick Desbois’ work to better understand the fate of the Roma (Gypsies) during World War II through interviewing eyewitnesses and locating mass graves.
Cummings Foundation
Institute for World Justice, Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) operating subsidiary of Cummings Foundation, Inc. (CFI). CFI is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a private operating foundation and is fully authorized to receive tax-deductible contributions. It owns and operates two large New Horizons continuing care retirement communities in Marlborough and Woburn, Massachusetts. It also owns Veterinary School at Tufts, LLC, in Grafton, Massachusetts, which is operated on its behalf exclusively by Tufts University. Current well-known members of the Foundation's Board include a retired president of the Boston Globe, a current and a former president of Tufts University, and a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Biographies
Joyce and Bill Cummings
Born in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1937, Bill Cummings grew up in nearby Medford, where he attended public schools and, in 1958, graduated from Tufts University. Bill was thereafter employed in sales and marketing positions with Vick Chemical Company (Vaporub, etc.) of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Gortons of Gloucester, Inc., and he served in the U.S. Army Reserves. Subsequently, he acquired, built up, and sold a very old Medford, Massachusetts food products manufacturer, Wilmot H. Simonson Company.
Since 1970, Bill has been very successful in buying, building, and managing mostly commercial real estate in eastern Massachusetts. His firm has built or restored dozens of large or very large structures totaling 10 million square feet. Cummings Properties, LLC (CPL) currently provides business homes for more than 2,000 Massachusetts businesses and organizations. Apart from his role as founder of CPL, Bill is also the founder of Cummings Foundation, Inc. and New Horizons not-for-profit assisted and independent living communities in Woburn and Marlborough, MA, which currently provide homes for more than 500 seniors.
Bill's wife, Joyce, is a director of Cummings Properties and a trustee of Cummings Foundation, Inc. She has served as women's golf chair at Winchester Country Club, is a past president of Winchester's EnKa Society (a women’s service organization), and is a former trustee of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. In addition, Joyce was a longtime member of the board of trustees of Winchester Community Music School and VNA Hospice Care, Inc. of Woburn.
Bill served 10 years as a charter trustee of Tufts University and is a former overseer of Tufts Medical School, director of Winchester Hospital, and founder and former publisher of three community newspapers-the Woburn Advocate, Stoneham Sun and Winchester Town Crier. He is still a trustee emeritus of Tufts University, and was chairman of Tufts' property-holding corporation (Walnut Hill Properties), as well as a bank director, and elected member and chairman of the Winchester Planning Board. He has worked as a licensed real estate broker, a licensed auctioneer, and even as a Massachusetts Justice of the Peace. Other outside activities include many philanthropic involvements, and several decades as a director and honorary director of Woburn Boys and Girls Club, Inc.
Bill was named 1998 Real Estate Entrepreneur of the Year for New England by Ernst & Young, LLP, and he was also awarded Tufts University's Distinguished Service Award "for service to Tufts, his community and his profession." His firm's restoration of the historic United Shoe Machinery Corp. complex in Beverly, Massachusetts was the subject of a very laudatory October 2, 1997 feature story in The Wall Street Journal by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable.
Bill was awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree by Tufts University in May 2006, and was named one of the "50 most influential Bostonians" by the Boston Business Journal in 2011 and 2012. He is a golfer and a former director of Winchester Country Club, is an avid ocean sailor, and a licensed Scuba diver. In May 2011, he and Joyce joined a national philanthropic organization known as "The Giving Pledge." Later that year, they were named runners-up in the Boston Globe's annual "Bostonian of the Year" selection.