Decisions made at the Mason Ranch Retreat resulted in the formalization of ARNOVA's relationships with Independent Sector and the academic centers, and the affiliation of NVSQ with the Program on Non-Profit Organizations (PONPO) at Yale University and the executive office with the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy in 1994. These affiliations strengthened ARNOVA's position as a research organization. Consequent funding from the Ford Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation gave the organization the wherewithal to become the "interdisciplinary fellowship of scholars" its founders had envisioned.[2]