Philanthropy Today - Philanthropy.com

These are items on other Web sites that are of interest to the nonprofit world. The Chronicle has no control over their content or availability. To reach the Philanthropy Today staff, send an e-mail message to daily.news@philanthropy.com

Compiled by Noelle Barton, Caroline Bermudez, Maria Di Mento, Audrey Hill, and Anne W. Howard.

RSS / Atom

February 2008

February 29, 2008

Bush Presidential Library Hasn't Decided Whether to Disclose Donor Names

President Bush said on Thursday that the nonprofit group raising money for his presidential library accepts money from foreign sources, but he has not decided whether to disclose the names of donors, reports The Dallas Morning News.

The library, to be housed at Southern Methodist University, is expected to cost about $250-million to build.

The issue of who supports presidential libraries, and whether their identities should be made public, has been controversial and is the subject of a debate pending in Congress.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who sponsored a bill passed by the House to require disclosure of donations to presidential library foundations, said he did so because “when you have foreign governments and foreign business people and corporations giving huge amounts of money when the president is sitting there able to do favors for them, we ought to have it disclosed.

The Senate has not yet passed a measure similar to Mr. Waxman’s.

Opinion: Oprah Winfrey's "Big Give" Promotes Troubling View of Philanthropy

Despite the charitable intentions of Oprah Winfrey’s much-anticipated reality show Oprah’s Big Give, several columnists across the country are skeptical about Ms. Winfrey’s latest venture.

Big Give, which premieres this Sunday on ABC features eight episodes in which 10 contestants compete to “change the lives of complete strangers in the most creative and dramatic ways” in different locations across the country.

Competitors are given a picture and a name of a stranger in need and then must decide, in teams of two, how to “make a real difference” for that person. At the end of each week, a panel of celebrity judges eliminates one group. A $1-million prize awaits the show’s winner.

Robert Bianco of USA Today says contestants would “be better served by advice from people with hands-on experience in raising money without the benefit of celebrity. “

Mr. Bianco says that the show’s reality format clearly “turns charity into a competitive sport” and lends little attention to the underlying issues that may be affecting those in need. “Give is a throwback to a time when the poor were expected to be grateful for whatever they were given,” he writes. “Seldom has the drive to do good works been as alarmingly, offensively presumptuous.”

A critic for the Mercury News, in San Jose, was more positive about the show. “You’ll find plenty of heartwarming stories and feel-good moments in Oprah’s Big Give, writes Chuck Barney.

Read The Chronicle’s article about the rise of reality television and see Oprah Winfrey’s ranking in the Philanthropy 50, our annual list of the donors who give the most to charity each year.)

Opinion: IRS Scrutiny of Sen. Obama's Church Is Problem for All Charities

The Internal Revenue Service’s investigation of Sen. Barack Obama’s appearance at the United Church of Christ raises concerns about freedom of speech for all nonprofit organizations, writes John K. Wilson on The Huffington Post.

“The danger is that when nonprofit groups are silenced, corporate America will be able to dominate even more thoroughly the public debate,” says Mr. Wilson, author of several books on politics and founder of the Institute for College Freedom.

If IRS rules were to be taken literally, Mr. Wilson says, a church or nonprofit group would be required to “give the same speaking opportunity to every single candidate for president.”

At the onset of this primary season, that would have meant nearly 50 speakers. Since “These groups cannot afford to provide an outlet for every nutcase candidate to speak, and they cannot risk the legal liability of failing to invite every possible speaker,” the rules effectively prohibit nonprofit groups from hosting politicians.

He fears that threats by the IRS to revoke tax-exempt status under such conditions will silence political speech, particularly at colleges and other nonprofit groups. The IRS must realize, Mr. Wilson says, that “fraudulent groups can be stopped without suppressing the political speech of legitimate churches and activist organizations.”

(Free registration is required to view the AP article on the Los Angeles Times site.)

Nonprofit Group Opens Global Seed Vault in Artic

The Global Seed Vault, a project run by the nonprofit group, Global Crop Diversity Trust, has begun to collect and store seeds from all over the world in a massive, high-security vault on a Norwegian Island near the North Pole, The New York Times reports.

The vault, built by Norway, and financed by government and private donations including $20-million from Britain, $12-million from Australia, $11-million from Germany and $6.5-million from the United States, will attempt to store and protect every type of seed from every seed collection in the world.

Although networks of seed banks exist across the world, this project is regarded as the first broad effort to gather and systematize information about plants and their genes. Many scientists and governments consider this increasingly valuable as climate change may potentially affect the world’s food supply.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

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:

How metaphors can help call attention to a charity’s cause

New research on the ways the foreclosure crisis is hurting the poor

William Buckley’s legacy to fund raising

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.

From The Chronicle: Donations to Sports Events

Giving to 30 of the biggest walkathons, marathons, and other such events grew 12 percent last year, according to a study whose highlights are reported by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

From The Chronicle: What Makes Fund Raisers Succeed

To gauge fund raisers’ success, charities are adopting ever-more sophisticated approaches to evaluating performance, but some veterans question whether they are measuring the right things, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

(A paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view this article.)

February 28, 2008

Foundations Turn Their Attention Toward the Foreclosure Crisis

Some of the country’s wealthiest foundations are developing plans to combat the growing foreclosure crisis, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Ford Foundation, in New York, plans to support programs focused on reducing the number of homes that end up in foreclosure, and Living Cities, a New York consortium of major foundations and financial institutions that work to revive inner cities, is also considering how to support programs that will enable borrowers to keep their homes and get abandoned properties back into use.

“Every big funder is out there trying to figure out how to participate in systemic responses,” said George McCarthy, a senior program officer at the Ford Foundation. Mr. McCarthy noted that “no one can figure out where the opportunity lies” and how a foundation’s money can be spent most effectively.

See The Chronicle’s article on how foundations and charities are devising ways to deal with the loan crisis.

(A paid subscription is required to view the Wall Street Journal article.)

Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Asks District Attorney to Investigate Loss of Funds

New York’s district attorney is investigating the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International over the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars, says The New York Times.

The organization asked the district attorney’s office to investigate after it conducted an internal audit and discovered the money was missing.

Gail Pressberg, the secretary of the foundation’s board, said the probe is centered on the misappropriation of funds through phony receipts that had been produced on computers.

Ms. Pressberg said her organization had fired two employees after its audit determined that a substantial sum was missing.

“It’s a foolish person who tries this” Ms. Pressberg said. “We catch people.”

“We had enough evidence to terminate the employees,” she added. “There’s no nonsense in this organization.”

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Controversial Museum Director Steps Down

The board of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in New York, announced on Wednesday that Thomas Krens, its controversial director, is stepping down, The New York Times reports.

The move comes three years after Mr. Krens won a battle with the foundation’s biggest benefactor, Peter B. Lewis, who resigned after arguing that Mr. Krens was spending too much money and should focus more of his time and attention on the foundation’s New York flagship museum rather than on funneling resources into developing Guggenheim satellites overseas.

In a statement yesterday, the foundation said that Mr. Krens would remain at the foundation as a senior adviser for international affairs, overseeing the creation of a 452,000-square-foot museum in Abu Dhabi, and would stay on as director until a successor was hired.

Over his nearly 20-year tenure, Mr. Krens has sometimes been accused of arrogance.

His supporters told the newspaper that Mr. Krens has lately been disappointed with the foundation’s board, especially its lack of big donors.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Two New York Medical Institutions Share $50-Million Gift

Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, the majority shareholder of Revlon cosmetics, announced today that he is donating $50-million to support heart care and reproductive-medicine research at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College, reports the Associated Press.

The money will be used to establish the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Care Institute and will support research and clinical care at the newly named Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine.

Mr. Perelman serves on the hospital’s Board of Trustees and on the medical college’s Board of Overseers.

Ms. Cohen, a newspaper gossip columnist and television entertainment correspondent, was Mr. Perelman’s ex-wife. She died from ovarian cancer last year.

(Free registration is required to view this article on the Boston Globe site.)

From The Chronicle: Foundation Giving

The nation’s largest foundations increased their giving to $19.1-billion in 2006, rising 16.4 percent over the previous year, according to a Foundation Center study whose findings are highlighted in a Chronicle of Philanthropy report.

From The Chronicle: Endowment Gifts

A growing number of states are passing laws to make it easier for nonprofit groups to spend their endowment assets during difficult economic times. A report recommending ways to account for such endowment spending, however, could create special problems for colleges and other wealthy institutions, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

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:

Is there too much hype about social entrepreneurs?

A donor’s defense of his gifts to the Clinton Foundation

How colleges are trying to avoid new regulations on endowment spending

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.

Online Discussion: Is Direct Mail Dead?

Join our online discussion next week about the future of direct mail.

Taking your questions will be two experts on direct marketing — Roger Craver and Madeline Stanionis.

The discussion will be held Tuesday, March 4, at noon Eastern time and is open to everyone, not just Chronicle subscribers.

People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of receiving answers during the online discussion.

February 27, 2008

IRS Investigates Church Group for Obama Speech

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating the United Church of Christ for possibly violating federal restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt groups after the denomination hosted Sen. Barack Obama as a speaker at its national meeting last year, says the Associated Press.

Senator Obama, who gave a speech to the denomination about faith and public life in Hartford, Conn., after he became a candidate for president, belongs to the 1.2 million-member Protestant group through his Chicago congregation.

The IRS cited articles posted on the church’s Web site stating that volunteers for Senator Obama’s campaign gave out information at tables outside the center. Nonprofit groups are prohibited from endorsing candidates or providing support for campaigns, although groups are allowed to invite candidates to address them.

The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, a spokesman for the denomination, said the group had taken careful steps to avoid any wrongdoing. Church leaders consulted with lawyers before the event. He said a church official announced at the event that the senator’s talk was not a campaign-related event, that Senator Obama’s volunteers were told they could not enter the meeting, and that the denomination had invited Senator Obama to speak a year before he announced his candidacy.

Rev. John H. Thomas, president of the denomination, expressed dismay and disappointment over the investigation. “When the invitation to an elected public official to speak to the national meeting of his own church family is called into question, it has a chilling effect on every religious community,” he said in a statement.

(Free registration is required to view this article on the Los Angeles Times site.)

Catholic Dioceses Ask Members Not to Support a Breast-Cancer Charity

Several Catholic dioceses are joining together to discourage their members from supporting the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, a charity that fights breast cancer, the Associated Press reports.

The groups, which include dioceses in Charleston, Little Rock, and Phoenix, have taken issue with the foundation’s support for the organization Planned Parenthood. The Komen charity provides Planned Parenthood with money to finance breast exams and to offer education to women in its clinics.

A diocese statement, however, says that donors “cannot control how an organization designates its funds” and that such support “directly frees up funds to support other areas of an organization’s agenda.” Marianne Linane, director of the diocese’s “respect life” office, said those other agendas include abortions and contraceptive services, which the church opposes.

Rebecca Gibson, a spokeswoman for the Komen foundation, said that Planned Parenthood received less than 1 percent of the $69.6-million the foundation awarded for education and screening programs during 2007.

“I think it’s just really unfortunate undue attention is being shed on organizations that are providing vital services in those communities,” Ms. Gibson said.

Federal Officials Criticize Humane Society Role in Beef Recall

The Humane Society was criticized by federal officials at a Congressional hearing for delaying the release of an undercover video that touched off the biggest beef recall in history, reports The New York Times.

The group was responsible for the release of a video of what appears to be sick or lame cattle being forced to their feet with forklifts, hoses, and electric prods at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in Chino, Calif., in October and November, a method that poses a slight risk of introducing disease into the food supply.

The video was not released publicly by the Humane Society until late January, however. “Why wait until February to release the video?” Rep. Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas, pressed a Humane Society representative.

Ed Schafer, the secretary of agriculture, voiced similar disappointment last week when he stated that “for four months, theoretically, animals were not being properly treated, and the Humane Society stood by and allowed it to happen.”

Humane Society representatives defended their position on Tuesday, explaining that they had immediately taken the tape to local prosecutors in California and released it publicly after becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the prosecutor’s investigation.

Paul Shapiro, who oversees issues involving farm-animal abuse for the Humane Society, said the criticism of the Humane Society was misdirected. “First and foremost, the USDA should not be relying on a private animal-welfare charity to do its job for them,” he said.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Hedge-Fund Manager Donates $60-Million to a University in N.Y.

James H. Simons, a hedge-fund manager, is giving Stony Brook University, in New York, a $60-million gift to be used for a center on geometry and physics, The New York Times reports.

Mr. Simons, a former math professor, served as chairman of the university’s mathematics department from 1968 to 1976 before he founded an investment-management firm, Renaissance Technologies.

Mr. Simons, and his wife, Marilyn, had previously donated nearly $40-million to the university.

See The Chronicle’s report on giving by hedge-fund managers.

(Free registration is required to view the Times article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

Mass. Nonprofit Groups Lose $8-Million Estate Battle

After a legal battle lasting more than five years, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has rejected a final effort by four charities to overturn the will of a potential benefactor, The Boston Globe reports.

Leonard R. Brener, a former Boston police lieutenant and later a wealthy stockbroker, had intended to bequeath his $8-million estate to four local charities until five weeks before his death from cancer at age 85.

Mr. Brener, who had no heirs, suddenly changed his will to give the full amount to his niece and her husband, Lois and Herbert Rosen, who had cared for him in his final days.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, the Maimonides School in Brookline, and the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown — the previously stated beneficiaries — tried to have the will overturned and told the court that Mr. Brener had not been mentally competent when he decided to leave his estate to the Rosens.

The nonprofit groups have not yet said whether they will request further appellate review by the Supreme Judicial Court.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Attack on Charity in Pakistan Spreads Fear of Further Violence

The offices of a British aid agency, Plan International, in Pakistan were stormed Monday by unidentified gunmen who killed three employees and injured several more, The Guardian reports.

While the motives for the attack are unclear, other foreign organizations operating in and around Mansehra, which is 45 miles north of Islamabad, fear that the event may spark increased violence against other nonprofit groups. The town has been a center for foreign-aid activity since a 2005 earthquake killed at least 73,000 in the area.

“Nobody knows whether it’s the start of a campaign targeting international NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] or just sheer bad luck,” said Dorothy Blane, country director of Pakistan for Concern. “Until now Mansehra has been seen as a safe haven. Movement was restricted during things like the cartoon protests, but nobody saw it as a dangerous spot. This has changed everything.”

Tom Miller, Plan’s chief executive, said he was closing operations across Pakistan.

Kidnapped Aid Worker May Be Dead, Groups Say

Several foreign groups say they believe that the American woman aid worker and her local driver who were abducted by unidentified gunmen in Afghanistan last month may have been killed.

Reuters reports that no group, including Taliban insurgents, has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Cyd Mizell, 49, an employee of the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, and her driver, who were headed for work in a car in the southern city of Kandahar at the time.

“Although we have no confirmation of their deaths, we have received information over the past few days indicating that our two aid workers have been killed,” the charity said on its Web site.

An official working for a Western security group spoke anonymously to Reuters on Wednesday and confirmed, “Yes, we have this fear that they may have been killed” but said there were still no further details.

Online Discussion: Is Direct Mail Dead?

Join our online discussion next week about the future of direct mail.

Taking your questions will be two experts on direct marketing — Roger Craver and Madeline Stanionis.

The discussion will be held Tuesday, March 4, at noon, Eastern time, and is open to everyone, not just Chronicle subscribers.

People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of receiving answers during the online discussion.

From The Chronicle: New Orleans Rebuilding

Leonard Riggio, chairman of the Barnes & Noble bookselling company, and his wife, Louise, have made a $20-million gift to build homes for low-income homeowners in New Orleans who have been unable to repair or rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. The donation is one of the largest to date for rebuilding on the Gulf Coast, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Get Ahead: Deadlines for Grants and Awards

You can now get an early look at the deadlines for grants and awards compiled by The Chronicle. We have posted on our Web site all the application deadlines that will appear in our March 6 issue.

You will also find an updated list of conferences and workshops designed for nonprofit executives.

February 26, 2008

California Creates Cabinet Post to Promote Volunteerism

California is creating a cabinet-level post to oversee programs for volunteers, reports The New York Times.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to expand and elevate the role of the executive director of California Volunteers, the state’s commission for volunteerism. As a cabinet secretary, the volunteerism leader will be involved in planning the state’s response to natural disasters and coordinating volunteer efforts to provide relief.

State leaders also hope that giving a higher profile to volunteer roles will lead corporations and individuals to increase their support for programs that rely on volunteers. They said that is especially important given the state’s tight economy.

See The Chronicle’s article on the state budget woes affecting charities in California and beyond.

(Free registration is required to view the Times article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

Wal-Mart's Giving in America Grows by 8%

Wal-Mart Stores increased its charitable giving in the United States by 8 percent last year, reports the Associated Press.

The company said it donated $296.2-million last year. That followed a year in which Wal-Mart increased donations by 10 percent.

Wal-Mart said donations overseas grew sharply — rising by 50 percent, to $41-million.

The company has said that its profits rose last year by 12 percent.

Wal-Mart gave more cash donations in 2005 and 2006 than any other large company that provided data in The Chronicle’s annual survey of corporate donations.

(Free registration is required to view the AP article on the Forbes site, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

Bay Area Group Prods Architects to Donate Services

Public Architecture, a San Francisco nonprofit organization, seeks to create an industrywide standard of pro-bono work in architecture, much like in the legal profession, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.

Founded five years ago by John Peterson, an architect, one of the group’s major programs is the 1% Solution, which encourages architecture firms to donate 1 percent of their billable hours to public service. Thus far, 290 firms in 35 states have pledged to take part in this program.

For the 1% Solution program, Public Architecture has created a database of nonprofit organizations with specific design needs.

And the organization lets architecture firms know that doing pro-bono work can also be good for their bottom lines, by creating new design markets, for instance. “We need to make the case to nonprofits that good design thinking can advance their cause, and to architects that creative, aggressive pro-bono work can be healthy for their business,” says Mr. Peterson.

Read The Chronicle’s special report on charities and design.

Health-Care Costs Stress Churches

Churches are caught in a major financial bind as health-care costs escalate, reports Religion News Service.

Church memberships are declining — making finances tight — and the proportion of older clergy members is growing, so the cost of insurance for them is rising fast, the article says. What’s more, research shows that Protestant ministers tend to be more overweight, stressed, and depressed than the general population, adding to the overall increase in health costs borne by churches.

In response, some churches have made changes to their health-care plans and are encouraging pastors to get health-risk assessments and are offering incentives for taking steps to improve their health.

See The Chronicle’s article on the efforts under way by grant makers and others to help clergy members deal with physical and emotional stress.

(Free registration is required to view the Religion News Service article on the Washington Post site.)

Rural Hospitals See Shortage of Surgeons

A crisis looms, say experts, as a national shortage of surgeons and doctors — particularly in rural areas — threatens patients’ access to health care, reports USA Today.

The lack of new physicians, coupled with the aging baby-boomer population — and the impending retirement of many doctors in that generation — has created the current shortage, says Josef Fischer, chairman of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston.

Read The Chronicle’s article on grant makers’ response to America’s shortage of nurses.

From The Chronicle: Job Hunting in Tough Times

Read a transcript from The Chronicle’s online discussion today about seeking nonprofit jobs in a tight economy.

February 25, 2008

Charity Sues Hospital for Failing to Honor Donor's Request

Children’s Friend & Service, an antipoverty group in Providence, R.I., is suing Rhode Island Hospital to force it to honor the bequest of a woman who donated $4,000 to the hospital in her will two months before she died in 1912, reports The Boston Globe.

Louisa G. Lippitt said in her will that she wanted the money to be used to create a permanent bed for a poor person in need of health care.

An administrative assistant at the poverty group found documents about the gift while searching through archives for the charity’s forthcoming 175th anniversary.

Charity officials say they believe that the hospital received the donation but never provided a free bed as requested by Ms. Lippitt, who said in her will that she wanted to give Children’s Friend Society of Providence, the current charity’s predecessor, the right to refer patients to the hospital.

After finding the certificate, Children’s Friend talked to the hospital about setting aside a bed for its needy clients. When the two sides could not come to an agreement, Children’s Friend sued the hospital.

Lawyers for the hospital have asked that the lawsuit be dismissed on the grounds that the gift was originally made to Children’s Friend Society and that the current organization was not established until 1949.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Increased Scrutiny of Islamic Charities Draws Criticism

As counterterrorism officials in the United States and the Middle East investigate Islamic charities, critics have charged that the government is overextending its reach, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Government officials say Islamic fund raisers have stayed a step ahead of the authorities by taking donor files and moving among different groups. But over the past six years there has been little evidence to directly connect charities to individual acts of terrorism, the newspaper notes. Questions about the government’s approach grew in response to high-profile trials in which prosecutors failed to prove the connection between charities and terrorists or terrorist groups.

Government officials acknowledge that action against the organizations has incited anger and opposition among many American Muslims and some civil-liberties advocates, creating what counterterrorism officials consider a public-relations problem. Among the charges leveled at federal officials: that they have kept evidence of terrorist connections secret and used nonterrorism charges, such as tax and money-laundering violations, to put some charities out of business.

(A paid subscription is required to view this article.)

Nonprofit Groups Embrace For-Profit Enterprise

Some nonprofit groups are transforming themselves into businesses to be able to expand their reach, reports The New York Times.

The newspaper focuses on the effort started by Miles Gilburne, a former America Online executive, and his wife, Nina Zolt, a former lawyer, who put $10-million into the charity In2Books, an Internet program that was founded to help students use books and online tools to enhance their education.

To support and expand its original mission, in 2006 it acquired ePals, a for-profit company in Herndon, Va., that started as a Web-based electronic pen-pal service, transforming the once-struggling venture into a promising for-profit enterprise that has attracted generous support from investors and partners including National Geographic and Intel, which plans to begin shipping its Classmate laptops, designed for students in developing countries, with the ePals icon on the screens.

As social entrepreneurs continue to influence the landscape of traditional philanthropy, many nonprofit groups are seeking ways to generate revenue and become more self-sustaining. “This needs to be a large business to have a really significant social impact,” Mr. Gilburne said. “We couldn’t do what we’re doing as a nonprofit.”

See The Chronicle’s special report on creative approaches successful groups are taking to spread their reach.

(Free registration is required to view the New York Times article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

Newspaper Official Urges More Coverage of Charity Issues

The controversy over spending by veterans charities demonstrates that newspapers need to look deeper at the issues of how nonprofit groups raise and distribute money, as well as how nonprofit watchdog groups evaluate organizations, says a column by Deborah Howell, the ombudsman of The Washington Post.

What’s more, they need to pay attention to the “huge role” that nonprofit groups play “in helping (and sometimes not) people and influencing public policy,” she wrote. Ms. Howell plays an independent role at the newspaper; she comments on the newspaper’s reporting, accuracy, and fairness.

Ms. Howell offered that view after looking into complaints from Paralyzed Veterans of America, which received a grade of F in a chart published in the Post to accompany an article about a report by the American Institute of Philanthropy.

The newspaper acknowledged that it was unfair to name the veterans organization in the chart without sufficient detail on how the grades were arrived at and without any comments from the group in the accompanying article.

Read The Chronicle’s most recent article on Congress’s inquiry into the fund-raising controversy.

(Free registration is required to view the Washington Post article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

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: the lessons that Sen. John McCain’s fund raising offers to nonprofit groups dealing with controversy.

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.

Online Discussion Next Week: Nonprofit Careers

Join our online discussion tomorrow on how to search for nonprofit jobs at a time when many organizations are facing or anticipating shrinking revenue.

Nurys Harrigan, president of Careers in Nonprofits, a Chicago executive-search company, will be available to answer your career-related questions.

The discussion will be held Tuesday, February 26, at noon, Eastern time, and is open to everyone, not just Chronicle subscribers.

People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of receiving answers during the online discussion.

From The Chronicle: Big Gift for Gay-Rights Groups

Richard Weiland, one of Microsoft’s earliest employees, has bequeathed most of his $158-million fortune to charity, including making one of the biggest gifts ever received by a gay-rights group, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

February 22, 2008

Heir to Italian Fortune Sponsors Landmark Concert in North Korea

Spurred by the belief in the power of music to unite people of different backgrounds, the Japanese-born countess, Lady Yoko Nagae Ceschina, is sponsoring the New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance next week in North Korea, reports The Wall Street Journal.

When North Korea extended an invitation to the Philharmonic orchestra last year, Mrs. Ceschina was the first person to offer to provide financial support, according to Zarin Mehta, the Philharmonic’s president.

Mrs. Ceschina, 75, inherited her title and her $190-million fortune from her late husband, Count Renzo Ceschina, and will provide money to house, feed, and move the 280 musicians, staff members, and others, though she declined to disclose the cost.

Although the orchestra has a three-year sponsorship deal with Credit Suisse, which is sponsoring the group’s five-city tour of Asia, which began February 11, the company declined to pay for the trip to North Korea.

Some human-rights advocates say the Philharmonic’s concert will be used as propaganda by the North Korean government, but Mrs. Ceschina said that she was unconcerned about possible political controversy surrounding the event. “I always support them without thinking about political issues,” she said of the orchestra.

Texas University Officials Accused of Misusing Donations

Two University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center administrators have spent tens of thousands of dollars of donated money on seemingly extravagant items, reports CBS 11 News, in Dallas.

Kern Wildenthal, president of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas, and Cynthia Bassel, the university’s executive vice president for external relations, who are paid $1,166,582 and $344,600 respectively, made questionable purchases, the television station said, which it discovered by combing through the institution’s financial records. The station received the records through the state’s Public Information Act.

Mr. Wildenthal declined to discuss the expenses with the television station, but a spokesman for the university said the spending by both officials was “totally legal, ethical, and appropriate.”

The television station points to several credit-card expenses billed by Dr. Wildenthal and Ms. Bassel to the Southwestern Medical Foundation, the university’s fund-raising arm. Those include $160,000 worth of luxury wines, $30,000 for mail-order gifts to donors from the Velvet Crème Popcorn Company, in Kansas, as well as trips to England, France, Italy, and Switzerland made by Dr. Wildenthal to conduct business for the Wendy and Emery Reves Foundation.

Corporate Foundation Will Encourage People to Train for Science Careers

A corporate foundation in California is starting a new effort to improve understanding of the life sciences and to encourage young people to train for careers in the sciences, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Invitrogen company, which makes tools used by biotechnology companies and drug researchers, is pledging $1-million to its philanthropic arm, the Invitrogen Foundation.

Google and Nonprofit Hospital Seek New Approach to Online Health Records

Google has formed a pilot program with the nonprofit academic medical center Cleveland Clinic to help patients gain more control over their online medical data, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Under the pilot program, Google officials say that patients in the Cleveland Clinic system will be able to gain access to their medical records at any time through a Google online health profile and can securely share medical information as needed.

(A paid subscription is required to view this article.)

Bill Gates Urges Young People to Aid the World's Poor

In a recent speech at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Bill Gates urged students to explore careers in math and science and to be mindful of what they can do with their expertise to help the world’s poor, reports The Montreal Gazette.

Mr. Gates told the crowd that he did not have a real understanding of poverty as a young man and hoped that the students developing technological skills would be mindful of the role they can play in alleviating global suffering.

Mr. Gates’s lecture, part of a five-campus tour of North American universities, follows an announcement by Microsoft this week that the company will give away versions of its commercial development and design software to more than 35 million students. Microsoft hopes the project, called the DreamSpark program, will help fill a growing global demand for developers, scientists, and mathematicians.

Opinion: California Bill on Foundation Diversity Misses the Point

A bill passed by the California Assembly to require foundations with assets of more than $250-million to publish information on the race, ethnicity, and gender of their officials and grant recipients is misguided, write the editors of the San Jose Mercury News.

They say the real issue up for debate ought to be, “Are foundation grants effective?”

While the editors acknowledge that “there is a belief among many in the nonprofit community that large foundations in California don’t give out enough money to organizations that serve, or are managed by, minorities,” they say the bill, AB 624, is a “crude yardstick” for dealing with issues of diversity and foundation work.

The main problem with the bill is that “what constitutes ‘serving minorities’ defies facile formulas.”

Although “foundations must be transparent about who gets their dollars,” they write, “they shouldn’t be required to spend their money and their recipients’ time collecting demographic and personal information, based on dubious assumptions.”

(Read an opinion piece in The Chronicle about this measure.)

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:

Are nonprofit groups prolonging the suffering in Uganda and elsewhere?

How the Humane Society of the United States uses its Web site to capitalize on its victory in shutting down a beef slaughterhouse.

The Chronicle now offers a way for you to use Twitter to stay up-to-date on Give and Take and other features.

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.

Online Discussion: Job Seeking in a Tight Market

Join our online discussion next week on how to search for nonprofit jobs at a time when many organizations are facing or anticipating shrinking revenue.

Nurys Harrigan, president of Careers in Nonprofits, a Chicago executive-search company, will be available to answer your career-related questions.

The discussion will be held Tuesday, February 26, at noon, Eastern time, and is open to everyone, not just Chronicle subscribers.

People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of receiving answers during the online discussion.

From The Chronicle: Government Budget Cuts

Shrinking state revenue could mean losses for many nonprofit groups, reports The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

February 21, 2008

Nonprofit Groups Find Insurers Unwilling to Refinance Bonds

Nonprofit groups trying to refinance bonds to avoid extra costs have run into unexpected obstacles from insurance agencies, reports The Boston Globe.

Normally, bonds issued by universities, hospitals, and other large charities are safe bets for investors, and the groups were actually paying insurance companies to make the bonds more attractive to investors, including putting those bonds up for auction. But the recent meltdown in the real-estate market hurt many insurance agencies that held subprime-mortgage investments in their portfolios. As a result, investors have avoided their bonds, including those being auctioned for nonprofit groups.

When no one buys the bonds, the groups are under contractual obligations to pay interest rates of up to 20 percent, far higher than any payout they would have received. In addition, when the groups have tried to refinance to save costs, the insurance companies have refused to let them convert to bonds with more manageable interest rates.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Israeli Museum Opens Exhibit of Art Looted by Nazis

The Israel Museum, in Jerusalem, is exhibiting art that Nazis in Germany, including Adolph Hitler himself, stole from French Jews during World War II, reports The New York Times.

France possesses 2,000 pieces of art that Germany returned after the war but that were never claimed by their original owners, probably because they were murdered in the Holocaust. Among them are important works by Cezanne, Degas, and Manet. Fifty-three of the works are now on display in Jerusalem, along with a smaller number of works held by Israel that also have no owners.

To stage the exhibit, which is a joint effort between Israel and France, the Israel parliament first had to pass a law that revoked the rights of Israelis to claim stolen artwork while the work was temporarily displayed in the country. The 2007 law allows Israelis to make such claims of ownership only in the exhibit’s country of origin.

The article also includes a slideshow of the works.

(Free registration is required to view the article and the slideshow.)

Business Partnerships Can Be Perilous for Charities

Nonprofit groups and businesses have different goals and cultures, so it’s crucial for charities to carefully think through any partnerships with businesses and clearly establish ownership rights before taking any action, reports The Financial Times.

The article gives a few examples of partnerships turned ugly, including the One Laptop Per Child program, which aimed to supply cheap computers to children in poor countries. Intel, the company helping to produce the laptops, pulled out and started its own venture, which angered the founder of the One Laptop effort.

Other partnerships have been mutually beneficial, though, including a program to spread cellphones in Africa that turned out to be quite profitable for the corporation involved, Vodafone. The article suggests that such partnerships succeeded because both sides clearly laid out their goals and because they sorted through intellectual-property issues beforehand to avoid entanglements later.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Online Discussion: Job Searching in a Tight Market

Join our online discussion next week on how to search for nonprofit jobs at a time when many organizations are facing or anticipating shrinking revenue.

Nurys Harrigan, president of Careers in Nonprofits, a Chicago executive-search company, will be available to answer your career-related questions.

The discussion will be held Tuesday, February 26, at noon, Eastern time, and is open to everyone, not just Chronicle subscribers.

People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of receiving answers during the online discussion.

From The Chronicle: Online-Contest Winners

An Oklahoma charity that aids orphaned Chinese children, a small animal-rescue group in New Jersey, and an organization that fights epilepsy are among the top winners of a pair of online fund-raising contests designed to demonstrate the power of large numbers of small donations, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

From The Chronicle: Giving and Volunteering

A growing number of Americans say they are volunteering, according to a study by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. Seventy-four percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed said they participated in some form of volunteer service in 2007, a 10-percent increase over the previous year.

February 20, 2008

Salvation Army Campaign Results Show Signs of Nonprofit Stress

The Salvation Army announced Tuesday that its Red Kettle campaign during the 2007 Christmas season achieved only a 0.7 percent annual gain — the smallest since 2002 — a sign that even well-established charities may be in a financial pinch this year.

The organization has increased Red Kettle donations in the range of 4.6 percent to 9.1 percent during the past four holiday seasons, which traditionally start the day after Thanksgiving and end on Christmas Eve.

Reuters reports that a decrease in charitable donations to causes such as the Salvation Army may be due not only to tight economic conditions but also to the proliferation of “trendy causes.”

Sandra Miniutti, a spokeswoman for Charity Navigator, explained that although consumer spending does respond to economic conditions, groups like the Salvation Army are also locked in a tight competition for donations from many other nonprofit groups. For example, she said, “Right now, giving to environmental groups is really hot and trendy, and it is really at the forefront of folks’ minds,” rather than causes centered on food or the homeless.

Union Accuses Hospital of Overstating Charity Care

The Service Employees International union — which has 1.9 million members — thinks that nonprofit groups such as hospitals should comply with the standards of the federal 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act that govern private companies, reports The New York Times.

The union stated its position in a letter to directors of a Boston hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who also sit on the boards of for-profit companies. Although the union acknowledged in the letter that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act does not apply to nonprofit groups, it said that under Massachusetts law, directors of nonprofit institutions who also work for corporations must “use the specialized knowledge they have from their position in the for-profit world” in governing the nonprofit group.

In particular, the union argued that the hospital violated those governing standards by including its losses from bad debts in its tally of the charity care it provides. It suggested that the hospital restate the value it placed on the charitable care it provided in 2005 and 2006, which the union estimated would drop the value of the hospital’s charity care by 16 percent in 2005 alone.

While the Internal Revenue Service made clear in December that it did not consider bad debt a part of charity care, the agency’s new treatment of bad debt is not retroactive.

Judy Glasser, a spokeswoman for Beth Israel Deaconess, said the hospital had not violated any laws. “We follow all the reporting requirements of the uncompensated-care rules,” Ms. Glasser said, “and we’ve never been given any indication by any of the regulatory agencies we report to that anything is not according to the regulations.”

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Soros, Omidyar, and Google Collaborate to Finance Enterprises in India

The Soros Economic Development Fund, the Omidyar Network, and Google.org have announced that they are teaming up in a $17-million venture to finance small and medium-size enterprises in India, reports Reuters.

Said Neal DeLaurentis, vice president of the Soros Economic Development Fund: “Long ignored by commercial capital markets, small and medium businesses are an attractive investment opportunity, as well as an engine for economic growth.”

The Associated Press reports that the venture, Small to Medium Enterprise Investment Company, would fill the gap between loans offered by microfinance institutions and those of large commercial banks and private-equity funds.

The company’s investment adviser will be located at the Indian School of Business in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

(Free registration is required to view the AP article on the Washington Post site.)

Orchestra to Lure Listeners Through Personalized Packages

The Philadelphia Orchestra is luring audiences through an innovative new tactic for its 2008-9 season — it is tailoring concerts and events to the needs and experiences of different audiences. Peter Dobrin, a music critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that while many challenges remain for the orchestra in the coming year, it is a fundamentally sound strategy.

The Philadelphia Orchestra has already made adjustments to the changing market realities through the use of live video screens, guest speakers and discussions, social events for singles, and even talks and postlude concerts to reward audiences for their loyalty. But for the forthcoming season, Mr. Dobrin writes, “for the first time these experiments have been organized into packages with a lot of forethought about who the customer is and what her level of musical education might be.”

After hiring nonprofit consultants WolfBrown, the orchestra committed to crafting “collections,” or series of concerts and events aimed at constituencies with distinct tastes and levels of expertise. The orchestra hopes that not only will the strategy hook long-term listeners through packages, which include concert projection screens, parties, or on-stage discussions, but also that young and first-time listeners will be persuaded to become regular customers.

While it may be “easy to criticize the glacial pace of change,” Mr. Dobrin writes, the most crucial aspect of the new strategy may simply be that “the orchestra is now saying that you can experience it any way you want.”

Government and Politics Watch

Among the highlights from The Chronicle’s Government and Politics Watch:

Christian charities resist changes to President Bush’s AIDS program.

A headline-grabbing tax scandal in Germany is raising questions about how European countries regulate foundations.

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:

Creative architectural designs for the homeless.

A defense of products marketed for charity.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his next role: U.S. president or full-time philanthropist?

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.

From The Chronicle: College Donations Set New High in 2007

Backed by a strong economy and a growing stock market, American colleges and universities raised an estimated $29.8-billion in the 2007 fiscal year, the highest total ever recorded, according to a report released today by the Council for Aid to Education, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. But the country’s recent economic troubles have some fund-raising experts concerned that the high times might be coming to an end.

February 19, 2008

United Nations Health Official Criticizes Gates Foundation

An official at the World Health Organization says he fears the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taken on undue influence on malaria research, reports The New York Times.

In a memo to the World Health Organization’s director general, Arata Kochi, chief of malaria for the group, expressed his concerns that the foundation’s domination over malaria research could eliminate the World Health Organization’s role in policy making and decrease the quality of scientific peer reviews. The World Health Organization is an arm of the United Nations.

Dr. Kochi wrote that the foundation’s money caused a number of the world’s leading malaria scientists to be “locked up in a ‘cartel’ with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group.” He also expressed his worry that the Gates foundation tries to guide World Health recommendations by pushing its favored research.

Amir Attaran, a health-policy expert at the University of Ottawa, agreed with Dr. Kochi’s assessment of the foundation and said it caused scientists to engage in “stomach-churning group think.” Dr. Attaran said he believed that scientists were intimidated by the foundation’s malaria chief, Regina Rabinovich, whom he described as “autocratic.”

Tadataka Yamada, executive director of global health at the Gates foundation, defended the grant makers, saying, “We encourage a lot of external review.”

Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, said Dr. Kochi’s memo was “the view of one department, not the WHO’s view.” She said that the agency had good relations with the Gates foundation.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

N.C. Lawmaker Accused of Using Charity for Political Campaign

State auditors charge that Mary McAllister, a North Carolina legislator, used her nonprofit organization, Operation Sickle Cell, in Fayetteville, to campaign for her re-election, reports The Fayetteville Observer.

A state audit found that the charity’s computers were used for political activity, citing letters Ms. McAllister sent to voters and scripts for campaign television advertisements. Ms. McAllister, who represents North Carolina’s Cumberland County in its legislature, is executive director of the nonprofit organization.

State auditors said they recommended to the Internal Revenue Service that it investigate whether the organization was illegally involved in political activity.

The charity denies that it did anything wrong, as does Ms. McAllister. In a statement she called the audit a “prolonged political witch hunt.” She added: “The state auditor abused its discretion in the manner in which it handled the review of grants made to Operation Sickle Cell.”

Princeton Offers Incoming Students Chance to Do a Year of Community Service Overseas

Princeton University has announced plans to create a program that sends at least 10 percent of its incoming freshmen to complete a year of social-service work in a foreign country, reports The New York Times.

The university will not charge tuition for the year and will offer financial assistance to needy students.

In a press release, the university said students could work with existing nonprofit groups during their year abroad.

(Free registration is required to view the New York Times article.)

Opinion: Public Television No Longer Relevant

The Public Television Service has failed to keep up with the times, making it hard to get upset about the Bush administration’s efforts to make cutbacks in federal subsidies for the television system, writes Charles McGrath in a front-page article in the Sunday “Arts and Leisure” section of The New York Times.

Public television, he says, “more and more resembles everything else on TV.” He adds: “Since corporate sponsors were allowed to extend their “credit” announcements to 30 seconds, commercials in all but name have been a regular feature on public television, and that’s not to mention pledge programs, the fund-raising equivalent of waterboarding.”

Public radio, by contrast, he says, has done much better in making changes to keep relevant. “By not trolling after ratings, it has managed to stay distinctive,” he says.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

From The Chronicle: Dealing With Tough Economic Times

Read a transcript of today’s conversation with two experts on how charities can best deal with challenging times.

February 15, 2008

Charity Art Auction For AIDS Raises More Than $42-Million

A Valentine’s Day charity art auction held at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday raised $42.6-million toward the fight against AIDS in Africa, Reuters reports.

The auction, which sold 82 contemporary works in total, was led by the rock star Bono’s Product (Red) campaign in collaboration with the British artist Damien Hirst.

Sotheby’s officials believe the event was one of the top charity events in history.

Proceeds from the auction were earmarked for the United Nations Global Fund’s fight against AIDS in Africa, which Product (Red) supports.

(Free registration is required to view this article on The Washington Post site.)

Securities Market Crunch Hits Nonprofit Groups

Some prominent nonprofit groups are facing higher interest rates on loans because of Wall Street’s credit crisis, reports The New York Times.

At issue are so-called auction-rate securities, which usually have low interest rates. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now paying 15 percent on auction securities, the newspaper says. Universities such as Georgetown and cultural institutions such as the de Young Museum in San Francisco have also taken major financial hits in the past few days.

G. David MacEwen, chief investment officer for fixed income at American Century Investment, explained, “What is going on here is a credit crunch. And the cost of the credit and the availability of credit even for good borrowers has clearly taken a big hit.”

While it is unclear how long such high interest rates will persist, some experts say they expect things to settle down soon. Cathryn P. Steeves, portfolio manager at Nuveen Investments, says, “At the end of the day, people will still be willing to buy paper from the Metropolitan Museum of Art at very favorable tax-exempt rates.”

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Broker Couple Accused of Stealing From Elderly Client and Her Foundation

A couple who worked as brokers for Morgan Stanley in New Jersey have been barred from working in the state’s securities industry and must pay civil fines after they were accused of stealing $393,595 from a client and her charitable foundation, reports The Wall Street Journal.

John and Kathleen Mullins, who worked for Morgan Stanley from June 2002 to August 2006 before being terminated, were charged by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority with defrauding the philanthropist Esther C. Weil, a 97-year-old nursing-home patient, and her foundation for their personal use. Vincent J. Oliva, the securities bureau chief, signed an order stating that the couple misappropriated client money from Morgan Stanley accounts that they oversaw to pay for their personal expenses without their client’s knowledge.

Susan Merrill, Finra’s enforcement chief, said, “Seniors are among the most vulnerable to financial wrongdoing. In this instance, an unprincipled broker took advantage of a trusting, elderly customer and her charitable foundation at a time when she was hospitalized and her health was failing. We will seek the strongest possible sanctions for this reprehensible, deceitful conduct.”

The amounts of the fines will be determined at a hearing.

Kathleen Mullins, reached at the couple’s home, said they had no immediate comment.

(A paid subscription is required to view this article.)

Company Plans to Donate Settlement Money to Charity

Hewlett-Packard, the information-technology corporation, settled cases this week with The New York Times Company and three BusinessWeek journalists after being caught spying on reporters in 2006 in an attempt to find the source of press leaks, reports PC World.

Terry Gross, the lawyer representing The T