May 22, 2012, 11:34 am
Public anger over the salaries of public-university presidents has not affected what many of the institutions are paying their leaders, according to a recent report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The report points out that in 2010-11, the median total compensation for public-college presidents stood at $421,395, a 3-percent increase from the previous year.
In 2009 and 2010, the median increase in executive compensation for leaders of charities and foundations was 2 percent, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s most-recent annual survey of executive compensation and benefits.
Experts said that while many charities and foundations budgeted last year for a 3-percent increase in 2012, the salaries at public universities have been, in most cases, much higher than those at other types of nonprofit groups. For example, the highest-paid president of a public university …
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May 22, 2012, 11:34 am
A magazine that is published by Metropolitan Opera Guild, the fundraising arm of the opera company, has announced that, on orders from the guild, it will no longer review the opera company’s productions, The New York Times reports.
The move was prompted by the opera company’s displeasure with the magazine’s criticisms of some of the Met’s production. The magazine recently published a negative review of the opera’s new production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle last month and followed it this month with an essay that was highly critical of the direction the opera company is taking.
Peter Gelb, head of the opera company, told the newspaper that the decision was made “in collaboration with the guild” but that he never warmed to the idea that the nonprofit guild was supporting a publication that could criticize the opera’s productions.
Some experts in the opera world…
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May 21, 2012, 10:50 am
Thousands of charities do not accurately report to the Internal Revenue Service how they raise money, according to Scripps Howard News Service.
Of the nearly 38,000 nonprofits that garnered at least $1-million in gifts, 41 percent reported to the IRS that they spent no money doing so. In total, those groups raised $116.7- billion
“It is ridiculous to think an organization could raise significant amounts of money without spending money to do it,” said Robert Ottenhoff, head of GuideStar, which provided data for investigation.
Charity leaders say they are under pressure from donors to minimize overhead costs, which include fundraising. However, several organizations said they will re-evaluate how they report those costs in the wake of the study, which examined charities’ most recently available informational tax returns.
For example, among Goodwill Industries International’…
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May 21, 2012, 10:49 am
The signers of the Giving Pledge are moving beyond merely promising to give away their wealth and beginning to help each other learn how best to implement their philanthropy, according to The Economist.
The magazine points to a gathering in early May of many of the 81 wealthy individuals and families who have thus far vowed to give away at least half of their fortunes in their lifetime. The California event found attendees engaged in a “serious conversation about lessons learned,” according to the AOL founder Steve Case, the host of the gathering.
The tenor of the meeting, The Economist suggests, “was evidence of a rapid evolution of the Giving Pledge from a collection of individual promises into a movement focused on collectively achieving results.” Mr. Case says “impact investing,” in which giving is designed to both make profits and do good, was a popular topic among…
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May 21, 2012, 10:49 am
A new insurance company designed to help land-conservation trusts with the legal costs of fighting property owners who defy land-use restrictions has won approval for nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service, according to The New York Times.
The company, Terra Firma, was started by national Land Trust Alliance to combat a problem that the nation’s estimated 1,700 land trusts increasingly face. The legal costs of fighting improper land use can damage the mostly volunteer-run organizations, say leaders of those groups.
Thus far, the alliance has raised $3-million of the $4-million it says it will need to get Terra Firma off the ground.
The number of trusts and the acreage they protect grew rapidly over the past decade, fueled by falling property prices during the recession. Parallel to that growth, however, Land Trust Alliance officials say they began seeing more…
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May 21, 2012, 10:44 am
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has received a gift of artwork from a trustee, the value of which the organization’s officials would only estimate at “nine figures,” according to The Boston Globe.
Saundra Lane, a trustee of the museum, and her late husband, William, who made his fortune in plastics manufacturing, have been influential collectors of American modernist paintings and photography. Ms. Lane’s latest gift to the museum included 6,000 photographs (most of which are by Charles Sheeler and Edward Weston), 100 works on paper, and 25 paintings, including major creations Hyman Bloom, John Marin, Stuart Davis, and Franz Kline.
The works’ quality and quantity, says Malcolm Rogers, the museum’s director, makes Ms. Lane “one of only a few collectors who have changed the face of the museum.’’
The museum has said it plans to be generous in making loans from the…
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May 21, 2012, 10:32 am
An alumnus of Davidson College has given $25-million for scholarships to the North Carolina institution, says The Charlotte Observer.
Ted Baker, a businessman and 1957 graduate of Davidson, gave the money to support the Baker-Vagt Scholarship, which he previously created to help students who are in financial need.
The current gift is the second largest the college has ever received, said Davidson officials. Mr. Baker has served as a trustee at the institution, where 47 percent of students receive some form of financial aid.
May 18, 2012, 10:46 am
The Los Angeles Times announced Thursday that it has received a $1-million grant from the Ford Foundation and will use the money to improve coverage of minority issues and field a full-time correspondent to South America.
The newspaper said it will use the two-year, no-strings-attached grant to hire reporters to focus on the Vietnamese, Korean, and other immigrant communities, the southwest U.S. border region, and the state prison system and to base a journalist in emerging economic powerhouse Brazil.
Foundations are increasingly subsidizing nonprofit newsrooms, and Ford has given money to for-profit media outlets like the online Global Post, but the Times grant marks its first support for a major mainstream newspaper, according to The Wall Street Journal.
As traditional newspaper revenue sources decline, “we and many other funders are experimenting with new approaches to…
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May 18, 2012, 10:46 am
The new downtown Philadelphia home of the Barnes Foundation art collection won effusive praise from The New York Times and ArtInfo magazine for what critics termed a sensitive re-creation of the trove’s previous suburban display.
The long-planned relocation of Albert Barnes’s collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces generated fierce controversy for departing from the late donor’s stipulation that the works be permanently displayed as he had arranged them at his mansion in Lower Merion, Pa.
Times crtiic Roberta Smith wrote that “against all odds,” the new museum, which opens on Saturday, “is still very much the old Barnes, only better,” with the galleries and arrangement of works closely patterned on the former facility but with better lighting and greater accessibility to the public.
May 18, 2012, 10:46 am
Big-dollar competitions to come up with solutions for pressing social problems are gaining currency as donors search out ways to maximize the effectiveness of their philanthropic investment, writes the Financial Times.
Competitions that offer $100,000 or more for winning scientific and social innovations in areas such as energy and the environment have exploded in popularity, with their aggregate value more than tripling to $375-million in the past decade, according to a study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
Such prizes offer significant advantages over more traditional giving, capturing media attention, raising the profile of a particular cause, cutting out costly development of programs or institutes, and yielding multiple problem-solving ideas that can attract private investment.
“Philanthropists are saying: ‘We are innovative capital,’” said Lynn Taliento, …
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