The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation (f. 1985) was created by Robert (1914-1997) and Patricia (b. 1913) Switzer and their children with the proceeds from the sale of the Day-Glo Color Corporation. The brothers Robert and Joseph Switzer (1915-1976) founded Switzer Brothers, Inc. in 1946 after their discovery of a fluorescent pigment that produced a brightness up to four times that of ordinary colors. The corporation changed its name to the Day-Glo Color Corporation in 1969.
The Robert and Patricia Switzer family, with the help of Robert's brother Fred Switzer (b. 1922), established the foundation originally to promote the education of graduate students in the environmental sciences. The foundation soon included environmental improvement projects in its mission. The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation does not grant graduate student scholarships directly. It instead gives grants to foundations in California (where Robert, Joseph, and Fred Switzer grew up and Ann Switzer Swander, daughter of Robert and Patricia Switzer, resides) and New Hampshire (where Robert and Patricia's son Paul and his wife, Margaret, live) to disburse to deserving graduate students. The Switzer family remains actively involved in the scholarship candidate selection process and has established a network of environmental scholars and fellows. Environmental improvement projects managed by former Switzer Scholars and Fellows are also funded by the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation through grants to other foundations. Other environmental improvement projects are funded directly by the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. In very rare circumstances, grants are made to fund projects that do not fit within these very specific parameters.
The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation Records, 1932-1997, consist primarily of family and program correspondence, legal documents, financial reports, scholarship applications, candidate selection documents, grant proposals and reports, and publications of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation and other foundations.
This collection is of value to researchers studying the history of philanthropic organizations in Cleveland, Ohio, in general and the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation in particular, and trends in environmental and educational philanthropy in the late twentieth century. This collection will also interest researchers who are studying foundation creation, development, organization, philosophy, and management. These records are valuable to those interested in environmental improvement projects and graduate environmental education in California and New England. While there are no records in this collection directly related to the Day-Glo Color Corporation, these records will interest those studying the role industrialists in the chemical production field can play in environmental improvement. This collection contains valuable information related to the Oakland Scottish Rite Scholarship Foundations, the Northern California Scholarship Foundations, the Scaife Scholarship Alumni Association, the San Francisco Foundation, the Marin Educational Foundation, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Researchers will also find records related to the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. There is detailed information related to the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation graduate scholarship candidate selection process and the subsequent accomplishments of Switzer scholars and fellows. Robert Switzer's vision for the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation was key in the foundation's early development, and this leadership is well documented in this collection.
The collection is arranged in five series.
Processed by Margaret Burzynski-Bays in 1998
Consultation with Head of Manuscripts.
The grant files contained in this collection have been entered in the Philanthropic Archives Grant Files Database.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4781 Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation Records, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Provenance: Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation, 1997.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.