Monday, March 10

 

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Foundation Creates $300-Million Program to Support Scientific Research

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute plans to announce today the creation of a $300-million program to help about 70 young scientists who are finding it increasingly difficult to get federal grants to support their research, reports The Boston Globe.

The new program at Hughes, a grant maker in Chevy Chase, Md., comes just as a consortium of universities is releasing a report showing that as the federal government has kept financing of the National Institutes of Health flat over the past five years, scientists have been forced to trim the size of their laboratories and abandon creative research in favor of safer projects.

The report also touches on concerns that young scientists, who have watched their senior colleagues struggle to get federal support, will abandon research in favor of teaching, clinical work, or the business world.

Tom Cech, a Nobel laureate and the Hughes Institute’s president, said that the current federal climate for financing scientific research is stressful and distracting for scientists.

“Here you have these people who’ve been in school for 30 years, they’ve just gotten their labs going, and instead of spending their time making discoveries in the lab or mentoring younger scientists, they spend all their time in an office writing federal grant applications. It’s not a very effective use of their talent.” Mr. Cech said.

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Politicking by Churches Raises Increased Concerns

As increasing number of religious congregations are venturing into partisan politics and possibly getting involved in illegal activities, scholars and tax experts tell The Wall Street Journal.

“There have never been more audits than in the last three or four years” involving churches, said Marcus Owens, a Washington lawyer who represents some congregations and is a former director of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division.

The Journal examines several ministers’ comments about Barack Obama, noting that the United Church of Christ, which oversees the church he attends, is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. The church has previously denied wrongdoing.

The IRS won’t say exactly how many congregations it is currently investigating, but the agency reported last year that it was reviewing complaints involving 44 churches and 56 other nonprofit groups related to the 2006 election cycle. It also acknowledged that it had found 26 cases of improper political activity.

What Makes Donors Give and Other Philanthropy Topics Appear in a Special Report

Two economists explore why people donate to charity in a special report on money and philanthropy in The New York Times Sunday magazine. The authors look at how effective matching gifts and challenge grants are.

Another article in the report looks at how celebrities such as the actress Natalie Portman are using their status to help nonprofit groups raise awareness and money. “I’m not particularly proud that in our country I can get a meeting with a representative more easily than the head of a nonprofit can,” says Ms. Portman.

Also in the special section is an article about whether big gifts from donors and foundations have a lasting impact.

Other articles include a transcript of a conversation with philanthropists and education experts about donating to schools and a profile of Herbert and Marion Sandler, a billionaire couple who are directing their philanthropy toward a new nonprofit organization they created to focus on investigative journalism.

See The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s article about the Sandlers’ new charity.

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California Community Colleges Step Up Fund-Raising Efforts

California’s 109 community colleges, which rarely receive big gifts, are embarking on a search for large donations from businesses, foundations, and alumni, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Officials at community colleges throughout the state say they must seek donations much more aggressively because their enrollments are expanding faster than the amount they receive from the state government.

“It [used to be] a very mom-and-pop operation,” said Paul Lanning of the Foundation for California Community Colleges, which works for all 109 community colleges and has hired a trained fund-raising staff to kick off a $100-million campaign to build a scholarship endowment for community colleges.

The new effort to reach alumni and community members is paying off. While the state’s community colleges have a combined endowment of $266-million, only about $2.5 million each, colleges that have put an emphasis on private fund raising have seen their endowments grow rapidly.

City College of San Francisco is one example. The college used to raise money from its own faculty and staff members, but since a new foundation board was formed several years ago, the college’s endowment has grown from $1.3-million to $22.3-million, partly from donations like the $6.3-million from Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinko’s. The college is also planning a capital campaign.

Priest Apologizes to Breast-Cancer Charity

Monsignor J. Gaston Hebert, the head of the Roman Catholic diocese in Little Rock, Ark., apologized last week for asking parishioners to withhold their donations to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a charity that fights breast cancer, the Associated Press reports.

In a letter last month, Mr. Hebert had told parishioners that giving to Komen, which makes grants to Planned Parenthood to provide breast exams and offer education to women in its clinics, would make more money available for abortions and contraceptives.

Mr. Hebert said last week that his earlier assertions about Komen “turned out not to be true. … To let that statement stand would be an act of injustice,” he said.

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From The Chronicle: Response to Home Foreclosures

As home foreclosures soar, charities and foundations are trying to figure out how they can help, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

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Give and Take, a Roundup of Nonprofit Blogs

Give and Take is a service of The Chronicle of Philanthropy that rounds up the best postings that appear on blogs about the nonprofit world.

Among the most-recent postings:

• Why wealthy people should think more critically about the life spans of their foundations when they create them.

• A plea for caution on the part of nonprofit theaters before diving into a new building project.

You can also read previous postings on issues about philanthropic giving, fund raising, and management of nonprofit organizations.

Give and Take is updated regularly throughout the day.