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September 25, 2012, 6:03 pm
At Clinton Philanthropy Summit, Obama Spotlights Human Trafficking
President Obama today called human trafficking a “debasement of our common humanity” and said the United States must do more to protect the estimated 20 million people worldwide who participate in forced labor, the sex trade, domestic servitude, or other conditions against their will.
Speaking at former President Clinton’s annual philanthropy event, in New York, Mr. Obama said that human trafficking must be called by its “true name”: “modern slavery.”
“I don’t use that word lightly, ” he said. “It evokes one of the most painful chapters in our nation’s history.”
“But there’s no denying the awful reality that when a man desperate for work finds himself in a factory or fishing on a boat or in a field, working, toiling for no pay, and beaten when he tries to escape, that is slavery,” Mr. Obama continued. “It’s barbaric and evil, and it has no place in a civilized world.”…
September 24, 2012, 10:52 am
Bill Clinton Urges Donors to Think About Results From the Start
Former President Bill Clinton’s seventh annual philanthropy conclave opened in New York Sunday with its hallmark blend of high-powered talk about the world’s biggest problems and announcements of new financial commitments designed to alleviate them.
In one session, World Bank leader Jim Yong Kim, Queen Rania of Jordan, Wal-Mart chief executive Michael Duke, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon discussed how to reduce youth unemployment in the Arab world, maintain peace in countries like the Ivory Coast, and ensure that students are taught skills that businesses need.
They were preceded on stage by Tom Golisano, founder of Paychex, who announced a $12-million gift to help the charity Special Olympics expand its work to improve the health of people with mental disabilities.
The theme of this year’s Clinton Global Initiative is “Designing for Impact,” a nod to the…
September 19, 2012, 8:52 am
IKEA Foundation Expands Its Giving to American Groups
The IKEA Foundation, in the Netherlands*, is expanding its giving to American nonprofits that fight poverty in the developing world, the organization said today.
The foundation says it will provide seven grants this year totaling more than $40-million to nonprofits in Britain and the United States.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative was awarded two grants, totaling about $26-million, to combat children’s diarrhea in India and Kenya. The Earth Institute won about $2.5-million to improve primary education in India. A new $9-million gift to another U.S. charity will be announced at next week’s Clinton Global Initiative, the foundation said.
“Our ambition at the IKEA Foundation is to help improve the lives of children and youth in the developing world. Our commitments so far will impact more than 100 million children,” Per Heggenes, chief executive, said in a statement. …
September 18, 2012, 10:46 am
With 11 New Members, ‘Giving Pledge’ Signers Now Numbers 92
Eleven more families have signed the “Giving Pledge,” a public commitment to donate at least half their wealth to charity, the pledge’s organizers said today. That brings to 92 the number of families who’ve joined the campaign to increase philanthropy among the super rich, started by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
While the list announced today includes well-known philanthropists such as Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance Companies, it also counts people who haven’t yet made a name for themselves in major-league giving, such as Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, and Jonathan M. Nelson, founder of Providence Equity Partners.
At least three people on the list are immigrants. Manoj Bhargava, founder of the 5-Hour Energy drink, and Romesh Wadhwani, founder of the private-equity firm Symphony Technology Group, were born in India. Jorge M. Perez,…
September 13, 2012, 9:15 am
Nonprofits Are Dissatisfied With Foundations’ Evaluation Efforts
Nonprofits say they want more help from donors in measuring their performance, according to a new survey from the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
More than 70 percent of the 177 nonprofit officials surveyed said they don’t receive assistance with evaluation from foundations. About 62 percent said they would like help with that work.
And despite many foundations’ public insistence that they want charities to measure performance, how to do so isn’t a big topic of conversation between donors and nonprofits, according to the study.
Foundations “could help provide expertise and help organizations measure, instead of relying on organizations to bear the sole responsibility for these skills,” said one nonprofit official quoted anonymously in the study. “It is rare that a foundation offers this kind of help.”
More than half of those polled said that when foundations do seek…
September 5, 2012, 12:35 pm
Correction: Downturn Causes Drop in Multiyear Foundation Grants
Editor’s note: On Thursday afternoon, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy withdrew the study that was the basis for the following item. It said data from the Foundation Center was flawed.
Many nonprofits pinned their hopes on foundations to help them get through the worst of the downturn with multiyear grants, but now a new study finds that such contributions fell sharply from 2008 to 2010.
The study, by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, examined 900 foundations from 2008 to 2010 and compared their grants to those offered by a similar group of foundations in 2004 to 2006.
The share of grants that were for multiple years dropped by 55 percent in the downturn when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is excluded from the sample. That foundation gives more multiyear grants than any other philanthropy, awarding $2.6-billion in multiyear grants, or 96…
September 5, 2012, 9:00 am
Former Hewlett Foundation Head to Join Stanford Center
Philanthropy studies at the university level just got a very prominent booster as one of the nation’s most prominent foundation leaders moves to academe.
Paul Brest, the former president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, who stepped down from that post last week, has been named faculty co-director of Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, the university announced today.
Mr. Brest, who started out as an expert on constitutional law, and in later years has focused on decision-making and philanthropy, is no stranger to Stanford. He joined Stanford Law School in 1969 and served as dean of the school from 1987 to 1999. He left to lead the Hewlett Foundation in 2000.
He said in an interview with The Chronicle that he is joining the center so he can continue to be actively involved in writing about philanthropy and teaching the practice of it.
Mr….
August 30, 2012, 2:44 pm
Warren Buffett Pledges $3-Billion More to His Kids’ Foundations
Warren Buffett said today he would give each of his three children $1-billion to donate, in addition to the $1-billion gifts he made to each of their philanthropies in 2006.
To celebrate his 82nd birthday, he said in a letter to his children that he is awarding 12,220,852 Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to each of their foundations.
Mr. Buffett made history in 2006 when he pledged stock, then worth more than $30-billion, to the Gates Foundation and about $3-billion to a foundation established by his late first wife, Susan Thompson Buffett.
He also pledged stock valued at roughly $1.2-billion apiece to each one of the three foundations created by his children, Susan, Howard, and Peter.
While the value of the stock has fluctuated over the years, Mr. Buffett has been steadily paying off all of his 2006 pledges every year since.
Mr. Buffett’s daughter, Susan Buffett,…
August 21, 2012, 9:10 am
New Nonprofit Seeks to Improve Giving for Disaster Relief
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy has appointed Bob Ottenhoff as its first chief executive.
In just a few days, the nation will mark the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and a few weeks later, the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Those disasters posed major challenges for the philanthropic world, as donors wanted to help but weren’t always sure how they could. Now a new organization plans to help such donors—and to ensure that more money goes to the projects most in need.
The new Center for Disaster Philanthropy wants to get more information to donors and help them pool their money so their gifts can make a bigger difference.
Today the organization announced that it has tapped Bob Ottenhoff, who for the last 10 years served as the chief…
August 20, 2012, 6:36 pm
New Web Site Informs Philanthropists About Nonprofits
The Laura and John Arnold Foundation has created a new online forum to help philanthropists learn about charities and then connect with the ones that interest them.
The new Web site is called the Giving Library and includes videos from 250 nonprofits hoping to catch the attention of donors who visit the site. The videos detail each organization’s history, mission, challenges, and plans as well as the results they have achieved.
Donors who find them interesting can then anonymously seek out more information.
Foundation officials are evaluating 100 more charities that hope to be added to the site, says Meredith Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Arnold fund.
Charities that are interested in being added to the library can apply online.
To be considered, a nonprofit must show proof of its tax-exempt status, including its Form 990 informational tax forms. The foundation then…
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