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Apogee Adopts Anti-Corruption Strategy in Working within the Former USSR

NEW YORK, May 24, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Apogee Foundation, a leading international supporter of performing arts education, today announced new policies aimed at shielding its beneficiaries and donors from corruption permeating performing arts institutions in the former Soviet Union.

The new policies are based on a study produced by a team of specialized graduate students with expertise in the fields of public policy and philanthropy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Entitled "Helping Talent Thrive: Mitigating Corruption in Performing Arts Institutions in the Former USSR," the study was commissioned by Apogee as a result of the Foundation's decade of efforts and experience in support of high-potential performing artists in the former Soviet Union.

"Helping Talent Thrive" analyzes the ways in which the potential success of students and professionals in the deteriorating systems of the former USSR, as well as those who seek to help them, is severely constrained by the impact of corruption. The study pays particular attention to the radical depreciation of human resources resulting from administrative practices such as non-merit based manipulation of educational and professional opportunities, as well as the catastrophic depletion of economic resources resulting from conversion of institutional assets to private advantages.

In addressing these phenomena, the study highlights the critical need for transparency, institutional restraints and accountability, and draws upon the most widely respected anti-corruption models employed by international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the United States Agency for International Development to provide both general frameworks and specific recommendations designed to mitigate the devastating effects of corruption upon Apogee's constituencies and objectives.

Based on the Harvard study's recommendations, Apogee's new policies seek to:

 -- sponsor and verify fulfilment of merit-based educational and
    professional opportunities and, where needed, provide alternative
    merit-based opportunities

 -- institute both direct delivery and interlinked aid programs which
    minimize the opportunity and incentive to convert available
    resources to private advantages

 -- promote modernized accounting and reporting practices and
    professional codes of conduct, together with reliable systems of
    implementation and review

 -- proactively engage with other civil society, philanthropic and
    multilateral organizations as well as the media to synergize
    collective wherewithal in fulfilling complementary aims

In discussing the study and Apogee's response, Foundation President Kenneth Schneider said: "We are grateful to this outstanding team of specialists for the reality check they have provided in view of the challenges our Foundation has faced over the past decade in fulfilling its mission. Apogee owes our benefactors and beneficiaries the highest possible quality of professionalism, including the obtaining and employing of expert third-party analysis, so that we can maximize our effectiveness in helping talented people achieve their potential even in extremely complex environments."

"Helping Talent Thrive" is dedicated to the children of the former Soviet Union who, in seeking to fulfill their dreams, continue to face tremendous obstacles. It was presented to Apogee President Kenneth Schneider at Harvard University on May 12, 2005. The study is publicly available at the library of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

About the Apogee Foundation:

The Apogee Foundation began activities in Russia in 1997 and was incorporated in the United States in 2004 as a New York based not-for-profit corporation. Apogee is dedicated to the development of human excellence in the performing arts. It supports cultural institutions and individual artists, providing administrative, promotional, and financial support to help talented individuals achieve their full potential, and enabling this potential to be showcased to the world.

About Harvard University and the Kennedy School of Government:

Harvard University, now approaching its 370th anniversary, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, and the Harvard Corporation (the University's executive board) is the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere. Seven presidents of the United States were graduates of Harvard, and its faculty have produced 40 Nobel laureates. The Kennedy School of Government, one of the University's eleven major divisions, is dedicated to the goals of preparing leaders for service to democratic societies and contributing to the solution of social problems.

CONTACT:  The Apogee Foundation
          Kenneth Schneider, President
          (646) 722-0247
          KS1@ApogeeFoundation.org
          www.ApogeeFoundation.org