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, Anne W. Howard, and Candie Jones.

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August 2008

August 29, 2008

Appeals Court Upholds Tax on Illinois Hospital

An appeals court in Springfield, Ill., has ruled that Provena Covenant Medical Center, in Urbana, is required to pay property taxes, reports the Associated Press.

In agreement with the state Department of Revenue and local tax authorities, the court contended that the Urbana hospital does not provide enough charity care to qualify for a tax exemption. Hospital officials declined immediate comment, the newspaper said.

In 2004 Provena was denied renewal of its tax exemption by the Department of Revenue and therefore was obligated to pay more than $1-million a year in property taxes. An administrative judge later sided with the hospital, but the Department of Revenue rejected that recommendation. The appellate court was then asked to weigh in on the matter.

Lawmakers to Hold a Discussion about University Endowment Spending

Two key lawmakers — Sen. Charles E. Grassley and Rep. Peter Welch — announced this week that they will assemble university administrators, education officials, and financial analysts to discuss the relationship between endowments and college costs, reports The Financial Times.

This meeting marks the latest step taken to support measures that would require that colleges spend more of their endowments to help needy students.

To compel institutions to spend more of their money and to give more needy students access to financial aid, Mr. Grassley has suggested that universities distribute at least 5 percent of their endowments annually, the same rule that now governs private foundations.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that Congress has asked the speakers to meet on September 8 to discuss issues such as what an endowment is and whether mandatory payouts make sense.

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

Minn. Pastor Criticizes IRS Investigation of His Church

The Rev. Mac Hammond, the pastor of one of Minnesota’s biggest churches, said an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service into his ministry’s finances is “politically motivated,” reports The Washington Post.

In March, his church, Living Word Christian Center, in Brooklyn Park, refused to comply with an IRS summons, arguing that the law stipulates that such a request must come from a “high-ranking official.” The agency has filed a petition in the U.S. District Court to require the church to provide the requested financial information. A court hearing is scheduled for October.

In a letter to members of his congregation, Mr. Hammond said the agency’s investigation is part of “a very clear effort, on a national scale, to discredit, defame and intimidate” preachers who focus on the “prosperity gospel,” which says that God wants his faithful followers to be rewarded spiritually and financially.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Violence Forces Charity to Close Health Clinic in Somalia

A clinic operated by the charity Doctors Without Border in Mogadishu, Somalia, was forced to close due to increased insecurity in the region, the charity said on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

The clinic has provided health care to hundreds of children and pregnant women daily.

“The closure comes following a further deterioration of the situation in the area where the clinic is located,” the charity said in a statement. “There has been a notable increase in violence, including mortars landing close to the clinic,” it said.

With more than 8,000 civilian casualties in the nation since the start of last year, the capital of Somalia is one of the most dangerous places for aid workers to serve, the news service said.

Opinion: 9/11 Memorial Should Commit to 2011 Opening

Every effort should be made to ensure that the 9/11 Memorial and Museum will be completed in time to mark the tragedy’s 10th anniversary, implores David Beamer in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Beamer, whose son, Todd Beamer, was a passenger on United Flight 93, serves on the Board of Directors of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and is calling for a firm commitment to a 2011 opening for the memorial.

“On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, will people be reminded of the collective will to respond to the attacks in a meaningful way, or will the results of bureaucracy, apathy, and a lack of leadership be on display?” said Mr. Beamer.

From The Chronicle: Obama's Pledge to Help the Needy

Sen. Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president last night with a pledge that the government will help those in need, a philosophy that is likely to please nonprofit groups working for social causes, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Give and Take: Checking Out Job Applicants

Nonprofit groups need to carefully check out the references of people applying for jobs, according a to new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blogs about the nonprofit world.

Plus: Rumors are flying about who will be tapped to take over the top job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Online Discussion Next Week: Seeking Money for Operating Costs

Join us on Tuesday, September 2, at noon Eastern time for a live online discussion about the pros and cons of general operating support — and how nonprofit groups can find donors willing to give them unrestricted dollars to cover their expenses.

The guest will be Paul Shoemaker, executive director of Social Venture Partners Seattle, an organization that provides unrestricted grants and other aid to nonprofit groups.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

Holiday Notice

Because of the Labor Day holiday, we will not be sending you Philanthropy Today on Monday. We will be back in your mailbox on Tuesday.

August 28, 2008

Nonprofit Hospitals Under Fire for High Costs

Nonprofit hospitals are being scrutinized by lawmakers and health-care advocates for their increasing revenues, expanding facilities, and generously paid executives, and for what critics call a decreased emphasis on providing charity care, reports The Wall Street Journal.

As an example of the controversy, The Journal spotlights Carilion Health System, which serves the Roanoke, Va., area. Carilion, which expanded in 1989 when it merged with the city’s only other hospital, now holds $1-billion in assets. The hospital said it receives about $50-million a year in tax exemptions. It dispensed $42-million in charity care in 2007 and $30-million in 2006.

The hospital has come under fire for its pricing, which critics say has helped spike local medical-care costs. For example, reports the newspaper, Carilion charges 4 to 10 times as much for a colonoscopy as does a local endoscopy center. Today, health-insurance rates in Roanoke are the highest in the state, whereas once they were the lowest.

Carilion says it must charge more for some procedures to subsidize its emergency room and care for uninsured patients.

But others say the hospital charges more because it represents a monopoly. “It’s a one-market town here in terms of health care,” says Sam Lionberger, who owns a local construction firm. “Carilion has the leverage.”

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

Bangladesh Charity Wins $1.5-Million Hilton Prize

A Bangladesh charity that has awarded $5-billion in microloans to people in the developing world has won a $1.5-million prize from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Los Angeles grant maker has announced.

The 2008 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize was given to BRAC, a charity, created in 1972 that works to eliminate poverty in developing countries. In addition to its microloan program — in which people receive small loans to enable them to start or expand businesses — the charity says it has graduated more than 6 million students from its 52,000 primary and pre-primary schools, provided health care to 90 million people, and helped create 8.5 million jobs.

“BRAC’s approach to creating self-sufficient and sustainable programs on a massive scale has blazed a trail for development organizations around the world,” said Steven M. Hilton, the Hilton foundation’s chief executive officer.

The Hilton prize, which the foundation awards each year to an organization that works to alleviate human suffering, will be presented on October 20 in Geneva.

Texas Tech Alumnus Gives $15-Million to Petroleum-Engineering Department

An alumnus of Texas Tech University has given his alma mater $15-million to endow its Department of Petroleum Engineering, reports the university.

The donation from Bob L. Herd, a 1957 graduate who majored in petroleum engineering and later founded Herd Producing Company, in Tyler, Tex., will result in the department being named for him.

The donation will help the department recruit and retain faculty members, says Pam Eibeck, dean of the College of Engineering, in a report published by The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

Mr. Herd, who has put no restrictions on his gift, credited the university for his success.

“My family and I are pleased that we are able to help Texas Tech provide the educational foundation for future petroleum engineers, like Texas Tech provided me many years ago,” he said. “It was this education that made this donation possible.”

Lottery Winner Gives $3-Million Ticket to Church

A Long Island resident who won $3-million in the New York state lottery gave the winning ticket to a local church, reports the New York Daily News.

“My first reaction was stunned silence,” said Bertrand Crabbe, pastor of the True North Community Church, in Port Jefferson, who appeared at an announcement ceremony August 27 with state lottery officials. “After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was just overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.” Mr. Crabbe would not reveal the donor’s identity.

The church, whose windfall came courtesy of a $10 Bada-Bling scratchoff ticket, will receive at least $102,225 a year for the next 20 years, an amount that could increase if taxes are refunded because of the church’s nonprofit status.

Mr. Crabbe says he intends to purchase a bigger building for the church, which has grown rapidly in recent years, but will donate the first year’s winnings to other charities. A large portion of those funds, he says, will benefit Love 146, a charity in neighboring Connecticut that fights human trafficking in Southeast Asia.

About his parishioner’s charitable gesture, the pastor added, “I hope it inspires other people to be generous to their churches and to charities everywhere — especially in light of the economy.”

Donor's Billboard Asks Viewers to 'Imagine No Religion'

A man’s decision to pay for a billboard asking Seattle residents to “imagine no religion” has sparked interest in a Wisconsin nonprofit group that promotes the separation of church and state, reports The Seattle Times.

Mike Christensen, a 28-year-old software engineer from Redmond, Wash., who identifies himself as an atheist, joined the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in Madison, Wis., several years ago because he disagreed with the Bush administration’s policies on religious issues. “I like the phrase ‘Imagine No Religion’ because it doesn’t make a judgment,” said Mr. Christensen. “It provokes thought.”

The 14-foot-by-48-foot billboard has helped bring in five new members and about 20 prospective ones, according to the charity. The organization began a campaign to spread its message via billboards in cities around the country 30 years ago; billboards urging viewers to “Keep Religion Out of Politics” were posted in Denver this week and will be posted in St. Paul next week, to coincide with conventions by the two major political parties.

College Vows Better Protection of Its Museum's Art

In the wake of reports that Wellesley College’s Davis Museum may have accidentally thrown out a valuable painting, the college’s president, H. Kim Bottomly, said new protections for the museum’s art will be in place by this fall, reports The Boston Globe.

A 1921 painting by French cubist Fernand Leger, which had been loaned to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for an exhibit that ended in April 2007, was discovered missing after it had been returned to Wellesley. The work sat in a crate for months, and later the museum could not locate it. Museum officials say it may not have been removed from the crate before that crate was discarded.

“This issue remains a high priority for me,” Ms. Bottomly said in a statement. “The loss of this valuable and irreplaceable painting has saddened the entire community, and we still hope it will be found.”

A Wellesley art lecturer and adjunct curator of the Davis, Eleanor P. DeLorme, has asked the museum to return art pieces she donated years ago, claiming that one of the pieces has been damaged. “It’s a bad place to give any art objects to, and I want all of them back,” said Ms. DeLorme.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

From The Chronicle: Recruiting Younger Workers

Values and mission are the selling points charity leaders should focus on when they seek to recruit new employees, says a new report from the Johns Hopkins University, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Government & Politics Watch: Nonprofit Plank in Democratic Platform

The Democratic National Committee is including a provision in the party’s official platform that calls for the creation of a federal fund to support charities that have devised successful ways to meet social needs, reports Government and Politics Watch, a Chronicle online column.

Prospecting: Advice Sought on How to Sway Business Owners

Inspired by a recent exchange in Prospecting — The Chronicle’s column on fund-raising news and tips — a volunteer fund raiser for environmental causes is asking readers for advice on how to “encourage more business owners to donate and to think creatively about the ways they can help.”

Plus: Two Denver businessmen have created an online bingo game for philanthropic watchers of the Democratic convention.

Give and Take: Fund Raising at the Speed of Twitter

Twitter — mini-blogs updated via text message — can raise money fast from the technologically savvy, according to a new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts about the nonprofit world.

Online Discussion Next Week: Seeking Money for Operating Costs

Eighty percent of the money that foundations distribute to charitable causes is earmarked for charity programs and other purposes, so it cannot be used for basic operating costs like utilities, rent, supplies, and clerical help.

Many grant makers say they earmark most of their grants out of concern that otherwise the nonprofit groups will become too dependent. And they say it is too hard to measure the specific results of an unrestricted grant.

But in recent years, a handful of grant makers have become more willing to provide money for operating costs. Advocates of operating support say nonprofit groups can be more innovative and manage their operations better if they don’t have to worry about following a grant maker’s instructions for how every dollar should be used.

The guest will be Paul Shoemaker, executive director of Social Venture Partners Seattle, an organization that provides unrestricted grants and other aid to nonprofit groups.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

August 27, 2008

Anonymous Donor Gives Spelman College $17-Million

An anonymous donor has given $17-million to Spelman College, in Atlanta, reports MarketWatch.com.

The money will be used to establish the Gordon-Zeto Endowed Fund for International Initiatives. The fund is named for Nora A. Gordon, an 1888 graduate of the college who was its first former student to teach in the Congo, and Flora E. Zeto, a 1915 graduate of Spelman who was one of the first Congolese to study and graduate from college.

Salary for Leader of Police Charity Causes Uproar

The Atlanta Police Union and some charity experts are questioning what they say is the unusually high salary of the Atlanta Police Foundation’s president, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Dave Wilkinson, a 48-year-old former Secret Service agent was hired for the job in 2005 and is paid $211,000 annually by the nonprofit group. The organization’s revenue last year was about $801,000, which has dropped from $1.45-million in 2006 and $1.6-million in 2005. Mr. Wilkinson’s salary accounted for 26 percent of the group’s 2007 revenue.

“We were shocked” to find out Mr. Wilkinson’s salary, Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of an Atlanta police union, told the newspaper. “The foundation is a fairly new project in Atlanta, so we feel like it is a little exorbitant.”

Gary Snyder, a nonprofit consultant from West Bloomfield, Mich., and board member for the nonprofit watchdog National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, said that when compared with the foundation’s revenues, Mr. Wilkinson’s salary is “certainly significant,” adding that “donors don’t want to contribute to salaries — they want to contribute to the fulfillment of the [nonprofit group’s] mission.”

Officials of the Atlanta Police Foundation say that Mr. Wilkinson’s salary is not out of line given his experience and expertise.

Leader of Komen Affiliate Is Investigated for Embezzlement

The executive director of the Boise, Idaho, branch of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity was arrested on Monday on charges of grand theft and forgery, reports the Idaho Statesman.

Mary Guinard, the executive director, was fired on Sunday for breach of policy, said charity officials. She is accused of embezzling approximately $74,000 from the nonprofit organization.

Linda McGraw, a Komen board member, said the money in question would not affect the nonprofit group’s operations. Charity officials say they plan to have auditors examine the group’s financial records for the two-year period that Ms. Guinard served as director.

Ms. Guinard did not comment in the article.

Government & Politics Watch: IRS Review of Churches and Politics

As the race for the White House heats up, the Internal Revenue Service is stepping up efforts to keep church groups from running afoul of campaign laws, reports Government and Politics Watch, a Chronicle online column.

Prospecting: Planning for a Fund Raiser's Departure

Just as nonprofit groups have increasingly recognized the need for succession plans for replacing the chief executive, they should also start making plans for how they would replace people in other key jobs such as the chief fund raiser, notes a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column on fund-raising news and tips.

Plus: Fund raising at 400 feet.

From The Chronicle: New Orleans's Youth Movement

Young people flocked to New Orleans to help out after the disastrous 2005 hurricanes, and to some extent the pace of the city’s recovery depends on how many of them stay, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

August 26, 2008

Nonprofit Hospitals Face Financial Struggles

Nonprofit hospitals are suffering financial problems because of the turbulent economy, reports Reuters news service.

Reports released yesterday by Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services showed that many nonprofit hospitals suffered financial setbacks after their debt from capital projects was restructured (and often increased) when the auction rate market, which many nonprofit hospitals used, collapsed earlier this year.

A spokesman for Moody’s said further pressure will be put on nonprofit hospitals as the economy weakens and more patients seek health care they can’t pay for, reports the news service.

Kentucky Rules University Must Disclose Donors' Names

The Supreme Court of Kentucky has settled a seven-year legal battle by ruling that the University of Louisville must disclose the names of 47,000 donors to the University of Louisville Foundation because the fund-raising unit is a government entity, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In 2001 The Courier-Journal, a Louisville newspaper, sued to obtain the names under the state’s open-records law. The foundation had denied the newspaper’s request for information on donors to the McConnell Center for Political Leadership. Kentucky’s senior U.S. senator, Mitch McConnell, a Republican, helped found the center.

A. Keith Inman, the University of Louisville’s vice president for advancement, said the institution would abide by the ruling but that he believes donors have a right to privacy. Mr. Inman also said he worried that as a result of the ruling, some potential donors who wish to remain anonymous may direct their gifts to other foundations where confidentiality is guaranteed.

“I really think it creates an unlevel playing field for public universities in Kentucky,” Mr. Inman said.

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

Substance-Abuse Charities Face Trouble Raising Money

Fund raising at nonprofit groups that help treat those addicted to drugs and alcohol suffers from the stigma that these substances can bring, reports the Financial Times.

Development directors at recovery-related groups say that society often blames the drug abuser for his or her problems and does not see addiction as a disease, resulting in less donated money.

Fund raisers also say that most of the graduates of recovery programs have little money and that they are unable to build endowments because they cannot keep up with immediate demands for services.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

War Widow Creates Nonprofit Group to Help Her Peers

Taryn Davis, whose husband was a soldier who died in Iraq last year, has created a documentary film and a nonprofit group with resources for other war widows, reports The New York Times.

Her organization, the American Widow Project, provides widows with support groups and practical information, such as how to plan a funeral.

Ms. Davis documented the experiences of other war widows across the country last year in a movie and plans to distribute the documentary to new war widows and widowers within the first two weeks of receiving the news of their spouse’s death.

To read more about how charities are helping troops and family members of those serving in Iraq, see The Battle on the Homefront, a special report from The Chronicle’s archive.

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

Scientists Discover Altruistic Impulse in Monkeys

Capuchin monkeys show concern for others’ welfare and enjoy giving to their peers — much in the way that humans do — according to a study by the Yerkes Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta, reports Reuters news service.

Researchers tested eight female brown capuchin monkeys in pairs and gave them the option of choosing food for just themselves or food for themselves and their partner. They found that when the monkey’s partner was “familiar, visible, and receiving rewards of equal value,” the monkeys were more likely to give food to their partner.

“The fact the capuchins predominantly selected the prosocial option must mean seeing another monkey receive food is satisfying or rewarding for them,” said Frans de Waal, who directed the research.

Give and Take: What Irks Donors

Donors list what irritates them most in a new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts about the nonprofit world.

From The Chronicle: Charities and Celebrities

Read the transcript of The Chronicle’s online discussion today about charities and celebrities.

August 25, 2008

Charities Started After Katrina Contemplate a New Role

Some of the charities created in the Gulf Coast to provide recovery aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina will cease operations or merge with others in coming months and years because competition for money has grown more intense, reports New Orleans City Business.

In Louisiana alone, the number of charities doubled from 1996 to 2006, according to data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Gary Ostroske, president of the United Way for Greater New Orleans, tells City Business that he has seen an increase in the number of groups that want to strike partnerships with his organization.

But even the local United Way has had to find new donors, as it lost about 6,000 donors after Katrina, says Mr. Ostroske.

Laura Crochet, an official at the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, says the situation has provided a reason to work together.

“I think we’ve kind of reached a bit of a plateau where people are taking a little bit of a step back to look at some of the organizations that are here and where they could maybe fit into other organizations,” Ms. Crochet says.

In another article, The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports on progress and work still to be done by nonprofit groups and other institutions three years after Katrina.

See The Chronicle’s new article on how an influx of young nonprofit workers has helped keep New Orleans charities running.

(A paid subscription or one-day pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)

Mass. Horticultural Society Freezes Accounts

In an attempt to avoid bankruptcy, the nonprofit Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in Wellesley, has frozen its accounts and plans not to pay creditors until a review of its finances is complete, reports The Boston Globe.

The organization laid off some employees in June, and now questions are being raised over whether it should hold its annual New England Spring Flower Show, which typically costs about $2-million, the paper reports.

Betsy Ridge Madsen, president of the society’s board, said trustees were misinformed at times regarding the organization’s financial problems.

“There has been a lot of mismanagement on a lot of levels,” Ms. Madsen tells the Globe. “The fact is, what we saw on paper was not the actual state of affairs.”

The organization recently started a new fund-raising campaign and is considering whether to sell some of its $8-million in stocks, bonds, or other assets, the newspaper reports.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

University to Release Obama Nonprofit Records

The University of Illinois is expected to release records of Sen. Barack Obama’s work with a nonprofit organization tomorrow, in a decision that reversed its earlier stance, reports the Associated Press.

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created in the 1990s, chaired by Senator Obama, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and co-founded by William Ayers. Mr. Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was part of a radical group known as the Weathermen that took credit for nonfatal bombings at the Pentagon and U.S. Capital during the 1960s, the news agency reports.

Senator Obama has denounced Mr. Ayers’s Weatherman activities. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was given nearly $50-million by the Annenberg Foundation, as part of an ambitious school-improvement effort conducted nationwide.

Small Nonprofit Health Insurers May Merge or Become Businesses

Small health-care organizations, such as nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations, are facing increased pressure to merge or convert to for-profit status as they try to compete with larger organizations and prepare for changes in policy, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Robert Field, health-policy professor at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, says that while many independent Blue Cross organizations had merged into larger organizations this decade and last, “pressure continues on those that didn’t merge.”

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

Prospecting: When Is It Time to Give Up on Donors?

Should fund raisers stop soliciting donors who don’t give for a few years? That is a topic on which charity officials disagree, notes a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column on fund-raising news and tips.

Online Discussion Tomorrow: Celebrities and Charity

Join us on Tuesday, August 26, for a live online discussion about the most effective ways to involve celebrities in philanthropy.

Every Labor Day weekend, the Muscular Dystrophy Association holds it star-studded telethon. But how do charities form partnerships with famous actors, singers, and athletes? What logistical challenges are involved? And how much value do such partnerships truly bring?

Our guests will be:

Marc Pollick, founder of the Giving Back Fund, a nonprofit organization that helps celebrities and athletes with their philanthropy.

Marshall Stowell, deputy director of Population Service International’s YouthAIDS program, which enlisted the actress Ashley Judd to advocate on its behalf.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

From The Chronicle: Playing Hooky for a Good Cause

Churches in one Texas town shortened or canceled services on a recent Sunday to allow the faithful to take part in a community effort to spruce up local schools, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. The response from volunteers was far larger than expected.

August 22, 2008

Peace Corps to Accept Fewer Volunteers

In an effort to trim costs, the Peace Corps is planning to reduce the number of its new volunteers and consolidate its recruiting offices, reports The Washington Post.

Officials of the program, which has a $330.8-million budget, say they anticipate losses of about $18-million this fiscal year and next and attribute the shortfall to the declining value of the dollar overseas and the rising cost of energy and other commodities. The pinch has resulted in inflated expenses for overseas leases, volunteer-related costs, and salaries for staff members working abroad.

Such factors “have materially reduced our available resources and spending power,” wrote Peace Corps director Ronald A. Tschetter in a letter to Rep. Betty McCollum. “Tough budgetary decisions must be made now in order to ensure a financially healthy agency next fiscal year,” he added.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Political Group to Run Ad Questioning Obama's Nonprofit Ties

A conservative political charity with past connections to John McCain’s presidential campaign plans to spend $2.8-million on an ad that questions Barack Obama’s relationship with University of Illinois at Chicago professor, William Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground, reports the Associated Press.

The American Issues Project, whose board member, Ed Failor Jr., was a paid consultant for Mr. McCain’s campaign in Iowa last year, is sponsoring the ad. It calls attention to nonprofit ties that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers have had over the years, both by serving on a charitable foundation and by working on a school-improvement effort sponsored by a philanthropy.

Mr. Obama’s campaign accused Mr. McCain of dispatching “his paid consultant to launch this despicable ad from a so-called ‘independent’ committee,” said the newspaper.

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

McCain and Obama to Discuss Public Service on September 11

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have accepted an invitation to speak at a forum on public service to be held in New York City on September 11, the organizers announced Thursday, reports Reuters.

A group called MyGoodDeed.org, which seeks to transform September 11 into a national day of charitable service, requested participation by the senators, who will speak separately at the ServiceNation Summit, in New York, to “discuss their respective visions for the role of service in America’s future,” said organizers of the event.

The public has been invited to submit questions to the presidential candidates.

To learn more about the views of the candidates on volunteerism and other issues of importance to the nonprofit world, see our special Campaign 2008 section.

IBM Helps Workers Who Want to Retire and Take Nonprofit Jobs

IBM is offering its employees a way to learn about the challenges and opportunities of working in the nonprofit world in hopes of helping its workers who are about to retire make a smooth transition to a new role, reports The Financial Times.

Through its internal Web site, the company provides information about the nonprofit world as well as tools such as training videos.

“We know a lot of employees find their way to the voluntary sector anyways,” said Stanley Litow, president of the IBM International Foundation. “But knowing generally about the opportunities is not the same as having a clear path from your first career to your second career.”

The program, which IBM intends to make available to other companies, also seeks to help employees identify positions that are suited to their skills.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Opinion: Aid Workers Across the World Facing Greater Risks

The long-held assumption that as long as humanitarian groups remain neutral their security won’t be threatened no longer holds true in many regions consumed with conflict, as evidenced by the increase in attacks against aid workers across the world, said Michael Kleinman in an opinion article in the Los Angeles Times.

The recent killings of three aid workers and their driver in Logar province in Afghanistan was followed by a Taliban statement saying, “We don’t value their aid projects, and we don’t think they are working for the progress of the country,” highlighting the increasing lack of tolerance for and intentional violence against such groups.

Since January, 23 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan, 20 in Somalia, and 10 in Darfur. Attacks against aid workers almost doubled from 1997 to 2005.

Related reading: The threats against humanitarian workers pose a recruiting challenge for charities, notes an article from the Chronicle archive.

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

Are You Attending the Political Conventions?

If you’re attending the Democratic or Republican presidential nominating conventions, we’d love to hear about how your experiences affect others in the nonprofit world. Send a message to editor@philanthropy.com.

Give and Take: Getting Government Help

A former Congressional aide offers advice on how charities can get help from the federal government in a new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts in the nonprofit world.

Online Discussion Next Week: Celebrities and Philanthropy

Join us on Tuesday, August 26, for a live online discussion about the most effective ways to involve celebrities in philanthropy.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

From The Chronicle: Engaging the Millennial Generation

In an opinion article from the latest issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Allison Fine urges charities to take advantage of all that the millennial generation has to offer.

Need Help Finding Potential Donors?

If you’re attending this week’s annual meeting of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement, in Denver, we hope you’ll make sure to join The Chronicle for a special preview of the key findings of a new survey on screening prospective donors.

You’ll get an early look at a survey of fund raisers The Chronicle asked the research firm Campbell Rinker to conduct in a session tomorrow at 8:30 a.m.

The session in Denver will feature Peter Panepento, The Chronicle’s Web editor, and Dirk Rinker, chief executive of Campbell Rinker. It will be held in the Hyatt Regency Denver — Mineral Hall A.

For more details about the study, send a message to display@philanthropy.com.

August 21, 2008

American Red Cross Faces Deficit, Fund-Raising Woes

The American Red Cross is facing a $200-million deficit, a nearly empty disaster-relief fund, stagnant fund raising, and large loans it took out to help victims of recent disasters, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The paper criticizes the charity’s fund raising as outdated, saying “its fund-raising model of living from disaster to disaster no longer works well in a world where other charities constantly are competing for donor dollars.” The paper also points out that fund raising between many of the Red Cross’s local chapters and the national headquarters is out of sync, with some affiliates refusing to share donors with the national office.

The American Red Cross has been plagued by program, management, and money problems in the past few years, including the resignation of top executives and criticisms that it did not respond quickly enough to victims of Hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attacks.

“For the last year in particular, we’ve been living hand to mouth,” says Joseph Becker, the Red Cross’s senior vice president for preparedness and response.

Gail McGovern, the current chief executive of the Red Cross, believes that stronger communications will help the organization improve. She also said, “We just need to do steady fund raising. I believe we’re just now getting traction with programs that get us off episodic fund raising.”

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Philanthropic Adviser Accused of Stealing From San Francisco Fund

A philanthropic adviser who worked for the Tides Foundation has been indicted on charges that he stole more than $132,000 from the organization, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jason Ramon Sanders faces one count of theft for allegedly taking money from February 2005 to March 2008. An auditor for the San Francisco organization found that money was diverted from one fund and was repaid through the group’s operating reserves.

Mr. Sanders told the newspaper, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” before hanging up. His lawyer, Robert Shepard, confirmed that Mr. Sanders was fired from Tides but offered no comment.

University Hits Roadblock in Release of Records on Obama's Nonprofit Ties

The University of Illinois says it cannot release records related to the presidential candidate Barack Obama’s service with a nonprofit organization affiliated with a former 1960s radical activist, reports the Associated Press.

Mr. Obama was board chairman from 1995 to 1998 of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity that was given $49.2-million to help overhaul Chicago schools. The charity received considerable assistance from William Ayers, a co-founder of the Weather Underground organization, a radical group that promoted violence as conducive to political change, the newspaper says. My. Ayers is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The university previously had said it would release the records but then said it could not because it does not own them. The donor of the records notified the school about the lack of an ownership agreement.

Bill Burton, a university spokesman, said, “The donor’s only concerns regarding the collection are due to personnel information that could include names, confidential salary information, and even Social Security numbers.”

The Obama campaign says of the documents, “We are pleased the university is pursuing an agreement that would make these records publicly available.”

Anonymous Donor Expresses Interest in Freeing SeaWorld Animals

The animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says it has an anonymous donor who is interested in buying one or more SeaWorld parks to free the animals, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

PETA says the donor wants to replace the live animals with virtual-reality or animatronic displays.

Says Lisa Wathne, a PETA spokeswoman: “We don’t know how high this donor will go, but he is serious. Whales, dolphins, and other marine life are very important to him.”

The donor should be prepared to pay a very high price, according to Jack Russo, a stock analyst. He says the Orlando SeaWorld could be worth $5- to $6-billion.

Battle Over Bequest Continues

The dispute over Newcomb College, the women’s college shut down by Tulane University two years ago, is continuing after another niece of the college’s benefactor filed a lawsuit yesterday to reopen the school, reports The Times-Picayune.

Susan Henderson Montgomery, of Franklin, Mass. — a great-great-great niece of Josephine Louise Newcomb — is the third niece to contend that Tulane violated the terms of Ms. Newcomb’s gifts. No court date has been set.

Two other nieces filed a petition in May 2006, which went to the Louisiana Supreme Court but has been returned to the Civil District Court. The nieces must establish that they are legitimate heirs of Ms. Newcomb. A group of students and alumni filed a federal suit in March 2006, but it was later thrown out.

Mike Strecker, a Tulane spokesman, said of the latest suit, “Tulane University’s position in this matter has prevailed. We remain confident in our position in this matter.”

Government and Politics Watch: Co-Chair of Congressional Philanthropy Caucus Dies

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Democrat of Ohio who co-chaired the Congressional Philanthropy Caucus, died Wednesday of a brain hemorrhage, reports Government and Politics Watch, a Chronicle online column.

From The Chronicle: United Way's New Approach

As United Ways revise their approach to grant making, charities around the country are scrambling to replace money they no longer receive because their work doesn’t fit the organizations’ aims, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Give and Take: What's Most Charitable?

Can a new lawyer do more charitable work by providing legal help through a job at a nonprofit group or by getting a high-paying job with a law firm and making big donations? That’s the question Stephen J. Dubner explores in his “Freakonomics” blog, as noted in a new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts in the nonprofit world.

Prospecting: Tips for Raising Money Online

Simple steps — such as cutting the lag time between when people sign up to receive online newsletters and when they start getting useful updates — can produce fund-raising benefits, according to a free background paper highlighted in a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column with news and tips on seeking donations.

August 20, 2008

Top Official Resigns at White House 'Faith-Based' Office

Jay Hein, the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has resigned effective August 29, according to the Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare Policy.

The roundtable — which reports news related to government money for social services by religious organizations — says Mr. Hein plans to return to Indiana to take care of his father, who has cancer.

Aid Groups Press Russian Authorities for Access to South Ossetia

Aid organizations met with Russian authorities yesterday to ask to be allowed to enter South Ossetia, a Georgian province controlled by Russian troops. The groups say tens of thousands of people are in need of food and medical care, Reuters reports.

Aid workers have been kept out of the province since the start of the conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi, which has lasted 11 days.

Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, spoke with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow yesterday; Antonio Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, is set to meet Mr. Lavrov today.

Red Cross officials who reached the western Georgian town of Gori several days ago were approached by residents asking for food and medicine, said Anna Nelson, a spokeswoman for the international Red Cross. Ms. Nelson said the organization has flown 430 tons of food and medical supplies into Georgia in the past week.

Officials at the United Nations estimated that 158,700 people have been uprooted by the conflict, including 30,000 people from South Ossetia who have been allowed by Russian authorities to remain in North Ossetia, a part of the Russian Federation.

The United Nations appealed on Monday for $58.6-million to help survivors of the crisis with food and other essential aid for the next six months.

College of Southern Nevada Receives $8.2-Million Grant

The Engelstad Family Foundation, in Las Vegas, has given $8.2-million to the College of Southern Nevada for the institution’s cardiorespiratory-sciences program, reports the Associated Press.

College officials say the money will pay for a 10,000-square-foot expansion of the health-sciences building, which is to be re-named the Ralph and Betty Engelstad School of Health Sciences.

Ralph Engelstad, who died in 2002, was a hotel and casino owner.

Two Nonprofit Film Organizations Merge

The 51-year-old San Francisco Film Society has agreed to take over the Film Arts Foundation, a struggling San Francisco nonprofit organization that has been well known in that city for its teaching and support of local Bay Area filmmakers, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Officials at the Film Society say they plan to expand on some of the Film Arts Foundation’s work, including film-production classes, financial support of films, and help with distribution and marketing, while eliminating the group’s equipment and facility rentals. The Film Arts Foundation broke even in 2007 but faced hard times this year.

“As with a lot of nonprofits, we didn’t have much of a safety net,” said the Film Arts Foundation president, Steve Ramirez.

From The Chronicle: Final IRS Instructions for New Form 990

Completing the first major overhaul in a generation of the informational return that most charities must file with the federal government, the Internal Revenue Service released on Tuesday final instructions for the redesigned Form 990, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Government and Politics Watch: Nonprofit Representatives' Denver Plans

Nonprofit and foundation representatives will mingle with political activists during the Democratic National Convention, which takes place next week in Denver, reports Government and Politics Watch, a Chronicle online column.

Plus: Two U.S. senators have created a Senate Philanthropy Caucus to look at ways to help foundations and charities.

Give and Take: Why Special Olympics' Movie Boycott Was a Mistake

A nonprofit communications specialist says the decision by Special Olympics to boycott the new movie “Tropic Thunder” because it uses the word “retard” was a “big tactical communications mistake,” according to a new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts in the nonprofit world.

Plus: How much does it really matter whether donors use the term ‘giving’ vs. ‘investing?’

Need Help Finding Potential Donors?

You’ll get an early look at a survey of fund raisers The Chronicle asked the research firm Campbell Rinker to conduct in a session on Saturday, August 23, at 8:30 a.m.

August 19, 2008

Nonprofit Groups Seek Attention in 2008 Campaign

As the campaign for the White House kicks into high gear, a growing number of charity leaders are pushing for the federal government to create an agency that matches nonprofit programs to government priorities, bolster national-service programs, and provide money to help charities grow, reports The Washington Post.

Problems such as poverty, climate change, and lack of access to high-quality health care and education for the needy are so great that they “cannot be solved by the public sector alone,” says Jane Wales, founder of the Global Philanthropy Forum, in San Francisco.

Both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama have been receptive to working with nonprofit groups on these issues.

Some caution, however, that increased government involvement may complicate a nonprofit group’s mission.

“We don’t want an agency that is going to over-regulate us,” says Alan J. Abramson, a professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University and a senior fellow in the nonprofit sector and philanthropy program at the Aspen Institute.

To learn more about the issues affecting nonprofit groups in the 2008 campaign, see this special section of our Web site.

(Free registration is required to view the Post article.)

Giving by Wealthy Donors to Stay Flat

Giving by wealthy donors in the United States is likely to remain strong but flat through the rest of the year, reports the Financial Times.

Giving by high-net-worth individuals dipped slightly in the first quarter but rebounded in the second quarter, according to a study by Crown Philanthropic Services, a New York company that helps donors create donor-advised funds. Officials at Crown expect giving in 2008 to keep pace with 2007.

“The ultra-high net worth is a group that doesn’t worry about market volatility day to day,” says William Hewitt, national marketing director at Crown.

However, giving by average, middle-class Americans is more likely to drop, reports the newspaper.

For more on the giving outlook, see this article from The Chronicle’s archive.

Google's Philanthropy Supports Geothermal-Energy Research

Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the search-engine company, has announced a $10-million investment in two companies and one university to research and expand the use of geothermal energy as an alternative to coal, according to a press release from the organization’s Web site.

Geothermal energy “has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind,” said Dan Reicher, director of Climate and Energy Initiatives at Google.org.

AltaRock Energy and Potter Drilling will get most of the money. The Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab, in Dallas, will receive a $500,000 grant “to improve understanding of the size and distribution of geothermal-energy resources and to update geothermal mapping of North America.”

Detroit Group Wants Scholarships for All Public-School Graduates

The Detroit College Promise, a nonprofit group, wants to provide full college scholarships to every Detroit public-school graduate, reports the Associated Press.

The group will start a pilot program at one Detroit public school in 2009. The organization will support the scholarships with money raised from corporations and individuals and says it needs $500,000 to kick off the pilot program.

(Free registration is required to view the AP article on the Chicago Tribune Web site.)

Government and Politics Watch: IRS to Issue Instructions on Charity Tax Forms Today

The Internal Revenue Service plans to release instructions on filling out the revamped informational tax return for charities, reports Government and Politics Watch, a Chronicle online column.

Plus:

Donors who want to provide aid in areas of the world threatened by terrorism should consider forming partnerships with the U.S. government to distribute their money, a top federal official said last week.

Democrats have been urged to endorse several proposals to benefit nonprofit groups at their convention in Denver next week.

Prospecting: Debating Donor Privacy

A just-released fund-raising product is provoking debate over donor-privacy issues, says a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column with news and tips on seeking donations.

Give and Take: Disclosing Charity Information

Nonprofit groups can take many simple steps to ensure their Web sites offer information that will inspire confidence among donors and others, says a new post in Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts in the nonprofit world.

Plus: How a blogger is covering the relief efforts in the country of Georgia.

From The Chronicle: Seeking Corporate Gifts

Read a transcript from the online discussion The Chronicle hosted today on seeking money from corporations in tough economic times.

August 18, 2008

9/11 Charitable Efforts Face Declining Donations

Charities that were founded to help victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are facing a lack of donations that threatens to force some to close or change their way of operating, reports the Associated Press.

Such charities have been the beneficiaries of money from the American Red Cross, which distributed more than $1-billion to more than 100 organizations after the attacks. The last $40-million of that contribution was distributed in June, the news agency reports.

One organization, New York Disaster Interfaith Services, is ending its September 11 program this fall, even though more than 50 new clients a month call for services. The program’s director, Scottie Hill, says most private foundations say they are not supporting programs to help victims of the 2001 attacks, the news agency reports.

“The public at large really does think … why haven’t people moved on,” Ms. Hill said. “There’s also a population of people who have been very active in 9/11 recovery that know that this is very real.”

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

Foundation Leader Covers Charity's Debt

The founder and chief executive of the Tides Foundation provided the money needed to repay what had been stolen from the nonprofit organization Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, The New York Times reports.

Drummond Pike did not confirm or deny to the Times that he had bailed out the family of his friend, Wade Rathke, the Acorn founder whose brother, Dale, had stolen nearly $1-million from the organization.

But e-mail messages between executives at Acorn, obtained by the Times, show that Mr. Pike was the anonymous donor who had volunteered to repay the organization on behalf of the Rathke family, the newspaper reports.

Wade Rathke is a member of the board of the Tides Foundation but has taken a leave of absence, the article says.

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Philanthropist Steps Up to Prevent Scholarships From Lapsing

Dozens of students who may have lost out on scholarship money promised to them by a nonprofit organization that went into receivership recently will instead get aid from a philanthropist who has stepped up to provide money to them, reports The Providence Journal.

The philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein has offered to pay the $2,000 scholarships so that the students will be able to attend college, because a group known as the Education Partnership can no longer provide the money, the newspaper reports.

Mr. Feinstein asked the Education Partnership to oversee the Louis Feinstein Memorial Fund, which he had established in 1993 to provide scholarships in honor of his late father, Louis. He tells the Journal that he is concerned about what happened to nearly $1-million left in the scholarship fund when the Education Partnership took it over.

The Education Partnership had $357,000 left when it went into receivership, the newspaper reports.

Pa. Health-Care Merger May Yield Pay Increases for Top Executives

If two Pennsylvania nonprofit health-care companies merge, the top executives at both organizations stand to receive large pay increases, reports the Associated Press.

If approved by state regulators, the merger of Independence Blue Cross and Highmark would create a $22.5-billion insurance company, the news agency reports.

Kenneth Melani, slated to become the chief executive of the merged entity, would see his salary increase by 31 percent, to $3.9-million, including incentives. Mr. Melani is currently chief executive of Highmark.

Two of Highmark’s other executives, its chief financial officer, Nanette DeTurk, and its executive vice president for government services, David M. O’Brien, also stand to receive significant raises. Ms. DeTurk could get a $635,098 increase, while Mr. O’Brien could get a $556,184 increase, the news agency reports.

The state is expected to make a decision on the merger by year’s end.

Pitch to Charities from Television Company Raises Questions

A television production company that says it plans to produce programs hosted by the retired news broadcaster Hugh Downs on public-television stations has been getting tough questions as it pitches its product to community foundations and universities this summer, reports The New York Times.

Vision Media Television, in Boca Raton, Fla., wants such organizations to pay $20,000 or more to be a part of the television production, the newspaper reports.

The Public Broadcasting Service has had a warning on its Web site for the past three years that it “is not associated with and does not endorse, distribute programming for, review underwriting for or otherwise have any business relationship” with a list of productions companies that includes Vision Media Television.

Mark Miller, an executive producer at Vision Media, wrote in an e-mail message to the Times that the company distributed the series it produced to public-television affiliates, which have the right to show them “at their discretion.”

“The average person commonly makes the mistake of assuming that PBS and public television are one and the same, because they view PBS programs on public television stations,” Mr. Miller wrote.

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Obituary: George Boone, a Philanthropist in Southern California

George Boone, an orthodontist, real-estate developer, and philanthropist who supported many institutions in Southern California, died of Parkinson’s disease in San Marino, Calif., last week, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Dr. Boone, who was 85, was a longtime supporter of his alma mater, the University of Southern California, as well as the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where he supported the interactive Boone Children’s Gallery.

Dr. Boone and his wife, MaryLou, established the Boone Family Foundation in 1983. The newspaper said he told people, “Writing checks is very boring. If I get interested in something, I want to be involved.”

The foundation is now run by the couple’s son, Nick Boone, the newspaper reports.

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Prospecting: Recruiting Board Members

Ideas on how to recruit good board members are included in the latest post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

Online Discussion Tomorrow: Corporate Giving in Turbulent Times

Join us on Tuesday, August 19, for a live online discussion about the best ways to raise money from corporations in these turbulent economic times.

The conversation will draw on data The Chronicle released today as part of its annual survey of giving trends at the nation’s biggest companies.

Our guests will be:

Mark W. Shamley, chief executive of the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals, in Orlando, Fla. The organization helps executives who oversee giving efforts at their companies.

Nancy Williams, national program director at the Verizon Foundation, in Basking Ridge, N.J.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

See What's in the New Issue of The Chronicle

This morning we posted the entire contents of the new issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Take a look at a guide to see the table of contents.

August 15, 2008

American Express Provides Leadership Help to Charity Executives

American Express recently held its first Nonprofit Leadership Academy, a weeklong event in which 24 nonprofit employees got managerial advice from company executives, reports BusinessWeek.

“You can learn a great deal about leadership if you take it as seriously as other disciplines,” Kenneth I. Chenault, chief executive at American Express, told participants. “Most people don’t.”

American Express is one of several companies offering nonprofit professionals this kind of training. Others include IBM, which has announced a venture with the Bridgespan Group to help its employees who are facing retirement make the transition to nonprofit work. Bank of America also has a training program for nonprofit executives, and the Gap Foundation has plans to start one, according to the newspaper.

Nonprofit Healthcare Group Increases Executives' Salaries

According to statements filed with Massachusetts yesterday, Partners HealthCare System reported a third-quarter profit from its hospitals of $54-million, reports The Boston Globe. The health system also reported significant raises for several of its key executives, according to the newspaper.

Partners Healthcare officials said the raises were intended to retain the “physician leaders” and keep them from being recruited to other parts of the country.

Gary Gottlieb, president of Brigham and Women’s, earned $1.19-million, an increase of almost 16 percent. Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General, earned $1.17-million, an 11.6 percent raise from the previous year.

The system’s top earner was Lawrence H. Cohn, a cardiac surgeon at Brigham and Women’s, who earned $3.1-million in 2007 and whose annual compensation went up almost fourfold from the previous year.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Facebook Forms Partnership With National-Service Charity

Facebook, the social-networking site, has offered advertising, technical help, and other support to ServiceNation, a new charity that hopes to engage more Americans in volunteer and service work, reports CNET News.

ServiceNation was started earlier this year by City Year, Be the Change, Civic Enterprises, and Points of Light. The effort will use Facebook as its main tool for online organizing and communication.

“Facebook is already a place where people are acting on their interests and ideals, connecting with each other, and sharing information that can lead to meaningful change,” Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of global communications and public policy, said. “Through this partnership with ServiceNation, we can be part of an historic effort to inspire Americans to act together to get more directly involved in and connected to their real-life communities.”

From The Chronicle: Donations for Asian Disasters

American nonprofit groups have raised more than $110-million for victims of the natural disasters that hit Myanmar and China in May, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

From The Chronicle: $17.6-Million in Emergency Food Grants

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation promised to donate $17.6-million to help people who have been affected by rising food prices worldwide, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Prospecting: First-Time Fund Raiser Seeks Advice

A first-time fund raiser in Charlotte, N.C., has posted a draft letter to donors — and is asking for recommendations from Chronicle readers — in a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

Give and Take: Foundations and Social-Networking Sites

Foundations are “natural hosts” for online forums that would bring charity leaders together around specific topics, but few have taken on such roles, writes a blogger featured in Give and Take, a roundup of the best blog posts in the nonprofit world.

Mark Your Calendar: Online Discussion on Corporate Giving Next Week

Join us on Tuesday, August 19, for a live online discussion about the best ways to raise money from corporations in these turbulent economic times.

The conversation will draw on data The Chronicle plans to release on Monday morning based on its annual survey of giving trends at the nation’s biggest companies.

More details will be posted soon at http://philanthropy.com/live.

August 14, 2008

Mayo Clinic Campaign Raises $1-Billion

The Mayo Clinic has raised $1-billion via its current capital campaign and is on track to hit its target of $1.25-billion when the drive wraps up at the end of next year, according to the Post-Bulletin, in Rochester, Minn.

The last $250-million will be tough to win, however, says Jay Vogelsang, a fund raiser for the Rochester, Minn., charity. “Considering the economy, considering what’s going on in the world right now, it will be a challenge for us.”

Most of the 195,000 individuals who have given to the campaign so far have been Mayo patients, he says. The five-year drive began in 2005 with a “leadership gift” of $25-million from Bill Marriott, chief executive officer of Marriott International, a Mayo emeritus trustee who chaired the campaign. Mayo surgeons performed successful heart surgery on his daughter in 1962.

Arts Education Benefits From $12-Million Gift

A new $12-million gift to the University of Utah, from the Sorenson Legacy Foundation, in Salt Lake City, will help give local schoolchildren greater access to arts education, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The gift, announced on August 11, will help defray the costs of constructing the $30-million Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex, slated to open in late 2011. It will also support a new interdisciplinary program at the university that will give Utah schoolchildren opportunities to learn about music, dance, and visual arts. The state’s public schools have seen cutbacks in arts education in recent years.

“I feel overwhelmed,” Beverly Sorenson, a former schoolteacher and the widow of the entrepreneur James Sorenson, said at the ceremony announcing her family’s gift, the university’s largest ever gift supporting the arts. “Art education is essential to the success of children as individuals and as citizens. But no single group can bring quality art teaching programs to Utah schools. We all have to work together.”

The Utah program, a partnership between the colleges of Fine Arts and Education, will train teachers across academic and artistic disciplines to teach kids how to draw, sing, dance, act, and sculpt. In June, Ms. Sorenson gave $4.5 million to Brigham Young University to support a similar program.

Said Michael Young, president of the University of Utah, “Integrating arts into the education of our young students early in their development will have a profound effect on their future learning, not only in the arts but in all areas, including math, sciences, and language.”

Utah Donor's $3.4-Million Pledge Proved Spurious

A donor in Salt Lake City who made a multimillion-dollar pledge to a local college last year is now facing felony charges of fraud and passing bad checks — leaving the academic institution without the money it was promised, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Salt Lake Tribune.

Warren Kyle Foote, a 28-year-old real-estate developer, pledged $3.4-million to Westminster College in the spring of 2007 to endow an institute at the business school that was to be named for him. In a press release at the time, Westminster described Mr. Foote as a “successful entrepreneur” who “owns and operates a number of successful enterprises.” Prosecutors now say those businesses were fraudulent and that he was at the time two years out of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Laura Murphy, a spokeswoman for the college, who wrote the release, said the institution does not routinely perform background checks on donors. “We don’t grill people [by asking], ‘Where did you get your money and how are you going to pay us?’” she said.

When Mr. Foote failed to make a promised $1-million payment on the pledge last September, Westminster quietly severed the pledge agreement. It is currently seeking a new donor to support its Institute for New Enterprise, which opened last year.

Mr. Foote told the Tribune that his intention was always to pay on his pledge to the college.

Rock Hall to Open New York Annex

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cleveland, will open an annex in New York in November, reports The New York Times.

The Big Apple is “where Ed Sullivan met the Beatles, where Lou Reed took a walk on the wild side,” said New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who announced the news at a press conference yesterday along with museum officials and the singer Billy Joel, a Rock Hall inductee and a Long Island native.

The Cleveland museum, which was founded in 1983, opened its main building in 1995. The 25,000-square-foot New York annex will focus on the region’s contributions to rock history and will include traveling exhibitions from Cleveland. Among the artifacts featured: a guitar owned by Johnny Ramone of the Ramones, a phone booth from the venerable punk-rock club CBGB, and the New Jersey troubadour Bruce Springsteen’s first car, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible.

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TV Veteran Aims to Register 2 Million Voters

Norman Lear, the creator of some of the 1970s most popular television sitcoms, has begun a serious quest: to register 2 million young voters through his nonprofit organization, Declare Yourself, reports The New York Times.

The producer of such shows as All in the Family, Mr. Lear is also a Democrat who started People for the American Way in 1981 to battle the religious right. He founded Declare Yourself in 2003. The group registered about a million voters before the 2004 election, according to Aviva Rosenthal, the organization’s director of partnerships.

This year the group has registered about 750,000 people, Ms. Rosenthal said. About 41 percent of 18-year-olds are registered to vote, according to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, compared with 83 percent of 44- to 62-year-olds.

Voter-registration efforts like Declare Yourself are gaining attention because young voters played a key role in deciding primary contests during the presidential race and have been a key factor in the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

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Prospecting: Big Raises for College Fund Raisers

Experienced fund raisers who work for colleges and universities have benefited from generous annual salary increases in recent years that far outpace inflation, notes a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

From The Chronicle: Accreditation for Muslim Charities

A watchdog group and a nonprofit legal organization have announced a voluntary accreditation program aimed at restoring donor confidence in Muslim charities and protecting them from unfair government scrutiny, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

August 13, 2008

Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan

Three women and their Afghan driver, all of whom worked for the International Rescue Committee, in New York, were killed during an ambush of the aid organization’s vehicle south of Kabul, Afghanistan, this week, reports the Associated Press. The women were riding in a white SUV with stickers on the side that said IRC, the news agency reports.

Militant attacks have killed 19 aid workers in Afghanistan in 2008, up from 15 in all of 2007, according to ANSO, a security group.

In a statement on its Web site today, the International Rescue Committee says the women — whose names have not yet been released — were British-Canadian, Canadian, and Trinidadian-American. The organization says it has suspended its operations in Afghanistan indefinitely.

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

New Donations Pour In for King Memorial

The planned Martin Luther King Jr. national memorial, to be built in Washington, D.C., has received a flurry of new donations that bring the total raised to nearly $99-million, reports Cox News Service.

Among the recent contributions are a $3-million gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a $1-million gift from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in Miami. Meanwhile, the project’s budget has increased from $100-million to $120-million due to rising expenses, the news agency reports.

The memorial, which will take 18 to 20 months to construct, will be located on the National Mall’s Tidal Basin between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.

Former Nonprofit Employee Faces Embezzlement Charges

The former chief financial officer of a San Francisco nonprofit organization pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing $3.9-million from the group, reports the Associated Press.

Gregory Colley could get up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of the charges against him. The Music Community Concourse Partnership accuses Mr. Colley of taking the money while on staff there, the news agency reports.

The organization fired Mr. Colley in March after he admitted he had borrowed the money to invest in the stock market and was then unable to pay it back, the news service reported.

Charity Flight Ends in Tragedy

A cancer patient, his wife, and the pilot who had volunteered to fly them to Boston for cancer treatment, died this week when the small plane they were in crashed into a parking lot in Easton, Mass., reports The Boston Globe.

The deaths were the first injuries or fatalities experienced by the nonprofit organization Angel Flight New England in the 12 years it has flown, the Globe reports. The charity is a network of volunteer pilots who help get patients to medical care.

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Prospecting: Philanthropic Wedding Tradition Lives On

A couple marked their first wedding anniversary with a trip to Malawi to see for themselves how a charitable project paid for with wedding-present donations was progressing, notes a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

From The Chronicle: YMCA's New Leader Discusses His Plans

A business executive who has helped large corporations become more diverse and inclusive, David Thomas will now put his energy into the same efforts at the YMCA of the USA, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Get Ahead: Deadlines for Grants and Awards

You can 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 August 21 issue.

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

August 12, 2008

D.C. United Way Leader Steps Down

Charles W. Anderson, the head of the United Way in Washington, has announced that he is stepping down, reports The Washington Post.

Mr. Anderson took over five years ago, after the local United Way faced a financial and management scandal that involved its board and chief executive.

Mr. Anderson will take a job at United Way of America, but the newspaper said it was unclear what kind of job that would be.

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Football League Doesn't Want to Disclose Salary Information

The National Football League is resisting new Internal Revenue Service rules that require nonprofit groups to disclose the salaries of top employees, reports The New York Times.

The league, which is classified as a trade association, does not want to disclose the salaries of employees who make more than $150,000.

NFL officials argue that because the league doesn’t receive donations from the public, its salary information shouldn’t have to be disclosed. The organization is asking Congress to make an exception for trade associations but has not yet found a Congressional sponsor for the proposal.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said in a written statement that all groups benefiting from nonprofit status should disclose salary information so they can be accountable to the public.

To learn more about the overhaul of the informational tax return for nonprofit groups, see this article from The Chronicle’s archive.

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Charity Fund to Assist Immigrants Arrested in Raids

The financier Robert Hildreth on Monday announced that he has given money to start the National Immigrant Bond Fund, which will bail out illegal immigrants who are arrested while on the job, reports National Public Radio.

Mr. Hildreth, a Boston resident, got the idea for the fund last year when 400 undocumented immigrants were arrested at a leather factory in New Bedford, Mass. About half of them were quickly deported.

“Bond is important because it starts the whole process of realizing the rights you are guaranteed by the constitution of the United States,” Mr. Hildreth said. Organizers said they had $200,000 in hand and would like to raise $500,000 for the fund.

Update: New Orleans Home-Rehabilitation Group Investigated

Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday raided the offices of a New Orleans group accused of funneling money to politically connected contractors who did little or no work on homes damaged from Hurricane Katrina, reports The New York Times. Federal agents departed carrying boxes of files.

Journalists in New Orleans began to investigate the nonprofit New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corporation this summer and found that work that the group claimed to have done on some homes was actually completed by other groups, like the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana’s Office of Disaster Response.

Stacy S. Head, a New Orleans councilwoman who investigated the issue, said the city gave money to the group “without much oversight.”

Mayor C. Ray Nagin, whose brother-in-law was one of the contractors hired by the nonprofit group, at first denied there were any problems but last week acknowledged “discrepancies” in the agency’s records.

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Give and Take: Marketing a Charity in Tough Economic Times

Charities should take a page from the approach used by several businesses — appealing to tradition as a way to comfort people shaken by the tumult of the economy, according to a new post in Give and Take, a roundup of the best blog posts in the nonprofit world.

Plus: Advertising by companies promoting philanthropy services appears to be on the rise.

Prospecting: Reaching Young Donors

A big college capital campaign that just wrapped up offers tips on ways to reach young donors, notes a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

From The Chronicle: A Charity's Business Plan

Seed America, a Georgia charity, has been taking an unusual approach to raising money for a business school it hopes to build. It has been asking companies to donate vacant factories and other properties that it plans eventually to sell. But the group has run out of money to pay its 50 employees and faces questions about its operations, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

From The Chronicle: Becoming a Consultant

Read the transcript of our online discussion today about the pros and cons of becoming a nonprofit consultant.

August 11, 2008

Union-Related Charity Paid Thousands to Entities Owned by Union Leader’s Relatives

A California labor union and a related charity have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to businesses owned by relatives of the organization’s president, The Los Angeles Times reports.

The newspaper found that United Long-Term Care Workers, a union in Los Angeles that represents health-care employees, and the Homecare Workers Training Center, a related charity, have paid $405,700 since January 2006 on video production and day-care companies that are operated out of the homes of the wife and mother-in-law of union president Tyrone Freeman.

The two groups also spent about $300,000 in 2007 on a golf tournament, a posh cigar club, and other expenses that critics have questioned.

Mr. Freeman said he and his union have done nothing wrong. “Every expenditure has been in the context of fighting poverty,” he said.

Experts think otherwise. “It’s very important for unions not to do this kind of thing,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy. “Union leadership is a public trust, all the more so when the people being represented are among the lowest-paid in America.”

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Disabilities Groups Rail Against a New Ben Stiller Movie

More than a dozen disabilities groups are planning public protests against the film “Tropic Thunder” because of what the groups say is the film’s overt ridicule of people with mental disabilities, reports The New York Times.

The groups involved in the protest include Arc of the United States, American Association of People With Disabilities, the National Down Syndrome Congress, and Special Olympics.

Timothy P. Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, said he and other Special Olympics officials plan to picket in front of the movie’s Los Angeles premiere today. The film spoofs the movie industry and is directed by the comedian Ben Stiller. It is scheduled for release on Wednesday.

The groups object to the film’s repeated use of the term “retard” in referring to a character in the film. But they are holding off on asking for a boycott until their representatives see the film today.

After viewing one such screening last week, however, representatives of the National Down Syndrome Congress promptly advised other advocate groups to expect a film that is offensive enough to justify mass boycotts.

Mr. Stiller and Stacey Snider, chief executive of the DreamWorks unit that is releasing the film, said the movie’s humor was not aimed at disabled people but at the silliness of actors willing to go to any length in advancing their careers. DreamWorks has altered some television advertising but decided not to edit scenes from the movie.

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President of CARE Could Get a Top Job in an Obama White House

Helene Gayle, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who heads the international-relief group CARE, could end up becoming the next secretary of health and human services or surgeon general if Sen. Barack Obama is elected president, ” reports The Washington Post.

For now, Ms. Gayle, who has fought global poverty and AIDS for most of her career, says her work with the charity is a “dream job.”

However, if a big government post were offered to her, she says, she’d “have to weigh that seriously,” said Ms. Gayle, who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation before she joined CARE.

For now, her concerns are squarely focused on fighting AIDS. The HIV virus continues to spread and the therapies scientists and AIDS workers once thought could protect against the disease haven’t turned out as hoped.

“Some of our hopes we’d placed in prevention technologies have had some setbacks,” said Ms. Gayle. “There’s not going to be a vaccine tomorrow.”

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Charity Leader Outlines Challenges of Helping Poor Children Around the World

Caryl M. Stern, president of the United States Fund for Unicef, discusses with The New York Times the challenges her organization faces.

The international organization, which raised $442-million in its last fiscal year, supports the United Nations Children’s Fund, an international relief organization that provides protection to children as well as education, emergency response, health care, nutrition, vaccines, and water in more than 150 countries.

Ms. Stern says she is worried that political leaders have not been willing to do all they need to help the world’s poorest children and notes that the organization is changing its fund-raising and volunteer approach.

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Prospecting: Are Charities Irrelevant?

As new groups work to connect donors and charity recipients, traditional structures for nonprofit organizations may be collapsing, says a commentator quoted in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column on fund raising.

Online Discussion Tomorrow: Becoming a Consultant

Join us on August 12 at noon Eastern time for an online discussion exploring the pros and cons of becoming a consultant to nonprofit organizations.

What do you need to consider in deciding whether to attempt a career switch and become a consultant? What are the hidden expenses and the personal and professional costs?

Join us for a discussion with people who have made the leap into the consulting world after years of working on the staff of a nonprofit organization.

Our guests will be:

Deborah Elizabeth Finn, who became a technology consultant to charities in 2002 after serving as the national nonprofit liaison officer at the TechFoundation, a Cambridge, Mass., organization that provides technology training to nonprofit groups nationwide.

Jonathan Howard, vice president of Cause & Effect, a Providence, R.I., consulting company that provides advice to nonprofit groups on organizational planning, communications, and other topics. Until 1994, Mr. Howard was a communications coordinator at Plan International.

Karla A. Williams, a Charlotte, N.C., fund-raising consultant who has advised nonprofit clients for more than 15 years. She previously served as executive director of the Minnesota Zoological Society and chief fund raiser of the Children’s-St. Paul hospital.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

From The Chronicle: Fighting Jargon

A growing group of charity officials are taking steps to stomp out the use of jargon among nonprofit employees, writes The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

August 08, 2008

Church Sues Over Restrictions Imposed by Landmark Status

A Christian Science church near the White House sued the District of Columbia on Thursday for declaring the church a historic landmark and refusing to allow church leaders to tear it down, alleging that the restriction violates religious freedom reports The New York Times.

Those supporting the preservation of the church, the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, which was declared a landmark in December, revere the building as an example of a style of architecture called brutalism. However, J. Darrow Kirkpatrick, a former lay leader at the church, said that the building was expensive to heat, costs up to $8,000 a year to change the light bulbs, and smells of mildew.

“We believe this brutalist, unwelcoming, bunkerlike building is not a proper representation of our practice or our theology and that without a compelling government interest, our members, not the Historic Preservation Review Board, are in the best position to determine that representation,” Mr. Kirkpatrick said Thursday in announcing the lawsuit at a news conference.

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Economic Hardships Hit Las Vegas Charities

The Nevada Cancer Institute laid off 50 workers Thursday and said its donations have suffered due to the worsening economy, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Today is an unfortunate reflection of a difficult economic backdrop,” said Heather Murren, the charity’s co-founder. “We’re not unique in feeling a slowdown in the economy.” In 2007, the institute raised a little more than $50 million in contributions, including gifts, grants, and government support, down from $66 million in 2006. Ms. Murren said the institute met its fundraising goals in the first quarter of 2008, but the second quarter was weaker.

Dan Goulet, president and CEO of the United Way of Southern Nevada, highlights the cancer institute’s experience as an indication of widespread challenges among charities in Las Vegas. “These are challenging times for many of us in Southern Nevada, and nonprofit organizations aren’t immune to economic downturns,” he said.

Arts Center Suffers $13-Million Loss From Bond-Market Crisis

Due to the crisis in the bond market, the Orange County Performing Arts Center lost $13-million during its most recent fiscal year, reports The Orange County Register.

The center relies on its significant investment in bonds to finance its $240-million expansion, which was completed in September 2006. However, an unexpected spike in interest rates for its auction-rate bonds from about 3 or 4 percent to 10 percent and the decline suffered by its bond insurance policy has resulted in drastic losses for the charity.

“The turmoil in the nation’s financial markets and auction-rate bond market failure has had a significant effect on the center’s overall financial situation, as it has on many major not-for-profit institutions across the country,” said the center’s president, Terrence W. Dwyer, in a statement.

Hospital's Leaders Accused of Anti-Union Tactics

The Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers-West is trying to unionize more than 8,000 employees at five St. Joseph Health System hospitals, a chain of healthcare providers in California operated by nuns, says The Los Angeles Times.

But union leaders say the nuns have violated the order’s commitment to worker advocacy by holding mandatory meetings to discourage workers from unionizing, preventing union officials from distributing materials, intimidating labor organizers, and hiring anti-union consultants.

Over the past two years, the unions have reported the hospitals’ tactics to federal labor officials and published newspaper ads calling into question whether the sisters have adhered to Catholic teachings.

The nuns deny any wrongdoing.

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Ukrainian Billionaire Leads Country's Philanthropy

The Ukrainian oligarch and billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, has emerged as one of the country’s biggest philanthropists, reports The New York Times.

Mr. Pinchuk, 47, has given money to support an AIDS-awareness campaign in Ukraine and has established himself as one of the more prominent non-American donors to the foundation created by former President Bill Clinton.

Although Mr. Pinchuk’s lavish spending has drawn some criticism in Ukraine, where inflation and AIDS are rampant, he has gained the endorsement of leaders such as Kofi Annan and George Soros, whose foundations he aids. “He is behaving like an enlightened capitalist, and there are not many in that part of the world,” said Mr. Soros.

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New Group Starts Campaign Against Republican Donors

A newly created advocacy group, Accountable America, is devising to campaign against donors to conservative organizations in hopes of stemming their contributions, reports The New York Times.

The group plans to send a warning letter to about 10,000 of the biggest donors to Republican candidates to alert them of potential risks involved in giving money to right-wing groups, including legal repercussions, public exposure, and investigation by watchdog groups.

Tom Matzzie, the leader of the group, said the organization has raised $200,000 so far but hopes to raise $2-million. The organization is set up as an advocacy group and is not allowed to offer charitable tax deductions to its donors.

Ed Patru, a spokesman for Freedom’s Watch, a conservative group, said he doubted that the campaign would succeed.

“This idea sounds even more sloppily thought out than his last venture, which, of course, went belly-up for lack of financial support,” Mr. Patru said.

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Prospecting: How to Conduct Low-Cost Research on Donors

Nonprofit groups don’t need to spend a lot to find out what their donors are thinking, says a new post in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s fund-raising column.

Online Discussion Next Week: Becoming a Consultant

Join us on August 12 at noon Eastern time for an online discussion exploring the pros and cons of becoming a consultant to nonprofit organizations.

What do you need to consider in deciding whether to attempt a career switch and become a consultant? What are the hidden expenses and the personal and professional costs?

Join us for a discussion with people who have made the leap into the consulting world after years of working on the staff of a nonprofit organization.

Our guests will be:

Deborah Elizabeth Finn, who became a technology consultant to charities in 2002 after serving as the national nonprofit liaison officer at the TechFoundation, a Cambridge, Mass., organization that provides technology training to nonprofit groups nationwide.

Jonathan Howard, vice president of Cause & Effect, a Providence, R.I., consulting company that provides advice to nonprofit groups on organizational planning, communications, and other topics. Until 1994, Mr. Howard was a communications coordinator at Plan International.

Karla A. Williams, a Charlotte, N.C., fund-raising consultant who has advised nonprofit clients for more than 15 years. She previously served as executive director of the Minnesota Zoological Society and chief fund raiser of the Children’s-St. Paul hospital.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

From The Chronicle: Summer Camps

Nonprofit groups run many of the nation’s summer camps, and a growing number of organizations are running summer programs to advance their charitable missions and get young people interested in their causes. See The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s slide show to learn about the diverse activities pursued by children in nonprofit camps.

August 07, 2008

Australia's Richest Man Says He'll Give It All Away

Andrew Forrest, Australia’s richest man, says he’ll give away nearly all of his fortune before he dies, reports PerthNow.

Mr. Forrest, who owns the Fortescue Metals Group, is worth an estimated $8-billion. Speaking at a business conference, he said, “I have a philosophy [about wealth] and that is that it doesn’t do much for you.”

He did not say who would be the recipients of his billions of dollars, but he has supported the Australian Children’s Trust in the past and has been active on issues surrounding Aborigines.

Harvard's Endowment Grows in Tough Year

As the subprime mortgage crisis and falling stock prices caused many investors to lose money this year, Harvard University’s endowment came out ahead, gaining a 9-percent increase at the close of its fiscal year in June, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The university’s investment managers increased the endowment to $35-billion using a mix of Treasury debt, commodities, and hedge funds. The endowment’s average return over the past decade is 15 percent.

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New Orleans Home-Rehabilitation Group Closes Amid Controversy

The nonprofit New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corporation is under investigation for allegedly billing taxpayers and taking credit for home-rehabilitation work performed by volunteers from other organizations, reports The Times-Picayune.

The group has billed the city more than $25,000 for gutting homes at seven addresses that appear in the records of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana’s Office of Disaster Response. The diocese says it mobilized “hundreds” of volunteers to gut houses, including those seven, for free.

The home-rehabilitation group’s board of directors suspended the organization’s operations last week and said that its remaining four employees will be terminated by the end of the week. The group’s former executive director, Stacey Jackson, resigned in June.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the inspector general of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development are investigating the organization.

Freddie Mac Foundation Chairman Fires Back

Ralph F. Boyd Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of the Freddie Mac Foundation, has responded to an opinion piece published last week in The Wall Street Journal that implied that the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Foundations have used charitable donations to influence politics and policy.

Mr. Boyd writes, “While it is true that the Freddie Mac Foundation’s philanthropic investments in 2007 totaled approximately $25-million, recipients of foundation grants were neither ‘political groups,’ ‘think tanks,’ left or right-wing ‘activists,’ or ‘Beltway outfits,’ as the editorial wrongly alleged.”

New Trial Date Set for Jewish Federation Shooter

A new trial date of March 9, 2009, has been set for Naveed Haq, who is accused of fatally shooting one woman and wounding five others at the offices of the Jewish Federation of Seattle in July 2006, reports The Seattle Times.

A mistrial was declared in June after the jury was deadlocked.

Mr. Haq pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but prosecutors say they have new evidence from phone calls Mr. Haq made while in prison to prove that he intentionally planned and carried out the shooting, reports the newspaper.

Government and Politics Watch: Senate Charity Specialist Joins Obama Campaign

The Senate Finance Committee has temporarily lost a key philanthropy specialist, Kristin Bailey, to Sen. Barack Obama’s Democratic presidential campaign, reports Government and Politics Watch, The Chronicle’s online column. Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the committee, hired Ms. Bailey last year as a policy analyst specializing in tax-exempt organizations including charities and foundations.

Plus: The Internal Revenue Service has published proposed rules aimed at making sure donors keep proper records to substantiate gifts of cash and property they make to charities.

Give and Take: Overcoming Small-Town Hurdles to Fund Raising

Holly Lillis talks about how to overcome the challenges of raising money in a small town like Sarasota, Fla., in a posting on the Future Leaders in Philanthropy blog, highlighted in Give and Take, a roundup of the best blog posts about the nonprofit world.

Prospecting: The Value of Getting Out of the Office

Holly Hall, a features editor at The Chronicle of Philanthropy spent three weeks studying at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota as part of her plan to obtain a master’s degree in philanthropy and development. During her stay, Ms. Hall kept a journal with useful ideas for fund raisers, as well as other observations to share with readers of The Chronicle’s Prospecting column.

Read the first installment; we’ll publish more over the next few days.

Online Discussion Next Week: Becoming a Consultant

Join us on August 12 at noon Eastern time for an online discussion exploring the pros and cons of becoming a consultant to nonprofit organizations.

What do you need to consider in deciding whether to attempt a career switch and become a consultant? What are the hidden expenses and the personal and professional costs?

Join us for a discussion with people who have made the leap into the consulting world after years of working on the staff of a nonprofit organization.

Our guests will be:

Deborah Elizabeth Finn, who became a technology consultant to charities in 2002 after serving as the national nonprofit liaison officer at the TechFoundation, a Cambridge, Mass., organization that provides technology training to nonprofit groups nationwide.

Jonathan Howard, vice president of Cause & Effect, a Providence, R.I., consulting company that provides advice to nonprofit groups on organizational planning, communications, and other topics. Until 1994, Mr. Howard was a communications coordinator at Plan International.

Karla A. Williams, a Charlotte, N.C., fund-raising consultant who has advised nonprofit clients for more than 15 years. She previously served as executive director of the Minnesota Zoological Society and chief fund raiser of the Children’s-St. Paul hospital.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

From The Chronicle: Habitat Raises Money With New Investment Tool

Habitat for Humanity, working with the Calvert Social Investment Foundation, has begun offering low-interest notes to investors, the money from which will go into the construction of more low-income housing, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

August 06, 2008

Charities Ask Congress to Raise Tax Deduction for Charitable Mileage

Charities are feeling the pinch at the gas pump and have now asked Congress to intervene, reports The New York Times.

The high cost of gas has placed pressure on volunteers who use their cars to help with nonprofit activities. More than 100 groups, including the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities, have signed a letter asking Congress to increase the tax deduction for people who use a personal car while volunteering.

The current rate is 14 cents per mile. Corporate employees receive 58.5 cents per mile for business use. A bill expected to be introduced in Congress today would raise the charity rate to 70 percent of the corporate rate, the newspaper says.

It has been 10 years since the Internal Revenue Service last raised the tax deduction for charitable mileage, apart from adjustments for inflation. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, of New York, a co-sponsor of the bill to raise the rate, said of the lack of change, “It’s really absurd.”

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Large Maker of Software for Nonprofit Groups Opts Out of Going Public

A major provider of computer software and Web services for nonprofit groups has scrapped plans to become publicly traded, reports the Austin Business Journal.

Convio, based in Austin, Tex., has cited poor market conditions as the reason behind its change of plans. It had hoped to raise $86-million through the public offering but asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to withdraw its bid on Monday.

Convio’s chief executive, Gene Austin, said the company still plans to undergo a public offering when market conditions improve.

Government and Politics Watch: IRS Offers Preview of 990 Instructions

The Internal Revenue Service has offered a glimpse of some of the changes being made to the draft instructions for the new Form 990, reports Government and Politics Watch, The Chronicle’s online column.

Opinion: Chinese Government Is Undermining Olympic Spirit

An opinion article in The Washington Post condemns China’s decision to revoke the visa of a former Olympic speed skater, apparently because of the charity he founded and for speaking out on behalf of people in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek had his visa revoked the day before he was to fly to Beijing, the newspaper says. Mr. Cheek is a co-founder of Team Darfur, a group of athletes that helps victims of war in Darfur.

He was given no reason for why his visa was revoked, the newspaper says, adding that other athletes who belong to Team Darfur have been denied visas to China or have been pressured by their Olympic committees to stop associating themselves with the group.

Sally Jenkins, author of the opinion piece, says that China is undermining the purpose of the Olympics by revoking the visas.

“The Chinese government has continually called for the world to suspend its judgments of its international policies — from its support for the Sudanese regime to its crackdown on Tibetan monks — during the Games,” she writes. “And yet it’s the Chinese state that continually throws us all into a political cauldron with actions like this one. All we have to go on in forming impressions of China is the behavior of its government.”

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Memphis Politician Resigns to Lead Family Foundation

Memphis City Council chairman Scott McCormick is resigning to become the executive director of the Plough Foundation, one of the largest family funds in the city, with $165-million in assets, reports the Associated Press.

Mr. McCormick is leaving at the end of the month.

Prospecting: Looking at the Charity Next Door

Charities with similar missions in the same city or town should stop competing and start spelling out for donors why each organization exists, a grant-proposal writer says on her blog, as noted in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column with news and tips on fund raising.

From The Chronicle: Linking Donors With People in Need

Peer-to-peer giving seems to be flourishing on the popular Web sites that help small donors contribute directly to charitable projects, though most such sites have yet to become self-sustaining, reports The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

August 05, 2008

Clinton Promises Foundation Will Focus on U.S. AIDS Cases

During a speech Monday in Mexico City, former President Bill Clinton promised to direct his charitable foundation’s resources toward AIDS in the United States, with a focus on black Americans, reports The Washington Post.

Mr. Clinton cited new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which suggest that AIDS cases in the United States have been underestimated by 40 percent — as one of the reasons for his foundation’s new focus. He did not provide specifics about how his organization plans to tackle the issue.

Read more of The Chronicle’s coverage of Mr. Clinton’s tour this summer of AIDS programs around the world.

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Oxford's Top Fund Raiser May Have Been Ousted in Controversy

Rumors are flying that Jon Dellandrea, Oxford University’s top fund raiser, has been dismissed from his post at the British university after complaints about him from an American donor, the Telegraph reports.

The donor, Michael Moritz, a California venture capitalist and Oxford alumnus who heads the university’s North American fund-raising campaign, gave $48.8-million to Christ Church College last month.

The British newspaper reported that people close to the situation say Mr. Moritz is reluctant to work with Mr. Dellandrea. They also say that Mr. Moritz called Mr. Dellandrea “obtuse” and “uncooperative” in a recent telephone conversation between the two men.

After he announced his donation, Mr. Moritz said he would make the gift only if the university promised to put the money into a special asset-management fund.

“I made it clear to Christ Church that despite all its best efforts, noble intentions, and hard work, its money needed to be managed in a much-improved fashion,” said Mr. Moritz last month.

Asked about the rumors that Mr. Dellandrea had been fired, an Oxford spokesman said: “It’s the first I’ve heard of it. He is still in post but is on holiday at the moment.”

Five Men Indicted in Mass. Charity Fraud Case

Five Massachusetts men have been indicted on charges that they posed as fund raisers for charity, defrauding more than 1,000 donors and misappropriating approximately $100,000 in donations, The Boston Globe reports.

The men, George Borden, Frank Cariello, William Lewis, Ronald Seeley, and his son Brandon, presented themselves as fund raisers for police and veterans organizations. But rather than directing the money to the nonprofit groups they said they represented, the men used the donations for car and house payments, jewelry, and other personal expenses, according to the state attorney general.

An investigation of the five men started two years ago, after several donors became suspicious of the men and alerted the state attorney general’s office.

The five men have been charged with larceny, attempted larceny, conspiracy to commit larceny, deceptive professional solicitation practices, and gross fraud.

The newspaper did not include any comment on whether the men said they were involved in the solicitations.

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Charity Leader Charged With Attempted Murder

The head of a Richmond, Va., advocacy group for parents in child-custody battles has been arrested and charged with attempted murder for allegedly arranging the killing of her former boyfriend and the man’s wife in a custody dispute of her own, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Members of the Virginia state police arrested Caren T. Brown, executive director of Children Without a Voice, on Friday. The police say Ms. Brown gave $2,000 to an undercover police officer to kill her former boyfriend and his wife.

Officials said Ms. Brown told the undercover officer that she was upset with the custody arrangement for her 11-year-old son. The newspaper article contained no direct comment from her about whether she had a role in the murder.

Ms. Brown faces two attempted capital-murder charges for allegedly arranging the killings. She is being held without bond pending an August 19 court appearance.

Government and Politics Watch: Student Loans and Volunteer Aid

The federal government is seeking comments from the public on how to carry out a new law that will help pay off student loans for some people who work in the nonprofit world, reports Government and Politics Watch, The Chronicle’s online column.

Plus: A new measure has been proposed in Congress to aid volunteers who deliver meals to the needy.

Give and Take: Why Are Humanitarian-Aid Blogs a Bore?

Blogs maintained by international-aid charities have the potential to be fascinating, but too often they are dull, says a new post in Give and Take, a roundup of the best blog posts about the nonprofit world.

From The Chronicle: Handling a Windfall Gift

Read a transcript from today’s live online discussion about windfall gifts hosted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

August 04, 2008

Chronic Homeless Population Drops by 30 Percent, Study Finds

A federal effort known as “housing first,” which seeks to find permanent shelter for the chronically homeless, is being cited as a reason the number of chronically homeless people living in the streets and in shelters dropped by about 30 percent, reports The New York Times. The data, which cover 2005 to 2007, are part of a new Bush administration study.

The decline may also be a result of better data collection and reporting by cities and towns, the paper reports. But at least one researcher, Martha R. Burt, calls the drop in homelessness “nothing short of phenomenal,” adding that with the right support and housing, the homeless population will not end up back on the street.

Still, the acting director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, Michael Stoops, cautions against putting too much focus on the chronically homeless, who account to about 18 percent of the homeless population overall.

Read coverage in The Chronicle of Philanthropy of the housing-first movement and efforts to end homelessness by 2014.

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

Boy Scouts Team Up With NAACP in Baltimore

The Maryland NAACP and the Baltimore branch of Boy Scouts of America have formed a partnership to make scouting more accessible to children from poverty-stricken, inner-city environments, reports The Sun, in Baltimore.

The First Class Camp program will pair boys and girls from poor Baltimore neighborhoods with mentors and will be paid for with $10,000 the organizations plan to raise with the help of a local congressman. NAACP leaders say they hope the program will be copied nationally.

“Today we are faced with an awesome task to make sure our youth escape crime and violence,” Gerald G. Stansbury, president of the NAACP’s Maryland state conference, says. “We need to draw our young men away from gangs and the street.”

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Gates Foundation's Size Makes Oversight Tricky

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is in need of constructive criticism and feedback, which can be hard to come by as the foundation doles out significant sums of money to those who might be best equipped to criticize the organization, reports The Seattle Times.

And while many online commentators critique Bill Gates’s Microsoft Corporation, just one commentator is a watchdog over the foundation — the Gates Keepers. Even that column’s moderators are anonymous, the Times reports.

The foundation’s outgoing chief executive, Patty Stonesifer, says the grant maker seeks out honest reviews of its work, especially thoughts for how it could be improved.

“We don’t need to agree with all of it,” she says. “We have to hear it.”

Photos of Jolie-Pitt Twins Net $14-Million for Charity

The $14-million paid by People magazine and the British magazine Hello! for exclusive photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s newborn twins will be donated to the couple’s charitable foundation, reports the Associated Press.

The actors started the Jolie-Pitt Foundation in 2006 and have given money to support children affected by the war in Iraq and a relief program for refugees from the crisis in the Darfur region of the Sudan, among other donations.

Their son and daughter, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, were born July 12. Photos of the twins were sold for what the Associated Press reports was the highest price ever paid for celebrity pictures.

From The Chronicle: Clinton Concludes African Philanthropy Tour

Former President Bill Clinton concluded his whirlwind goodwill tour of Africa with a stop to promote his foundation’s efforts to reduce by 35 percent the price of artemisinin, a malaria treatment, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports from Monrovia, Liberia.

From The Chronicle: Read the New Issue Online

The Chronicle of Philanthropy today posted the contents from the August 7 issue, including news articles, opinion pieces, and much more.

Government and Politics Watch: Giving Incentive for Hedge-Fund Managers

Tax bills proposed in both the House and Senate would give hedge-fund managers a generous new tax deduction for charitable donations as a way to promote philanthropy, reports The Chronicle’s Government and Politics Watch column.

Online Discussion Tomorrow: Dealing With Unexpected Gifts

Join us for an online discussion Tuesday, August 5, at noon U.S. Eastern time about the ways nonprofit groups handle unexpected windfalls.

For small to midsize organizations that struggle to raise enough money to reach their annual goals, the prospect of receiving an unexpected bequest of $100-million or more seems like hitting the lottery.

But as is often the case with lottery winners, failing to plan for how to use a massive payout can cause an array of new problems.

What should your organization be doing to be ready for such a gift? How have other groups handled such windfalls?

Join two nonprofit leaders who are managing major gifts to discuss these and other questions regarding windfall donations.

Mike Batchelor is president of the Erie Community Foundation in Pennsylvania and is managing a surprise $100-million gift from an anonymous donor. The donor asked that $85-million be used to make unrestricted gifts for local nonprofit groups and that $15-million go to charities around the country.

Joe Evans serves on the board of directors at the George School, a Quaker school in Newtown, Pa. Mr. Evans has played a key role in helping the school solicit and manage a $128.5-million pledge from Barbara Dodd Anderson, a 1950 alumna who will provide the school with $5-million a year.

The Chronicle’s online discussions are free and open to everyone. People who ask questions in advance have a better chance of getting answers.

Transcript: Gates Foundation Discussion Continued

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation continued to respond to your questions after the conclusion of last week’s hourlong online Chronicle discussion with Patty Stonesifer. Ms. Stonesifer, who is stepping down as the foundation’s chief executive, has been a key figure in the foundation’s explosive growth.

Read the full Gates Foundation transcript, which now includes about 30 new questions and answers.

Give and Take: Jargon Bingo Game

A new game pokes fun at nonprofit jargon, reports a post on Give and Take, The Chronicle’s roundup of the best blog posts in the philanthropic world. Join the fun and share your favorite jargon buzzwords with us.

August 01, 2008

Rockefeller Foundation Commits $70-Million to Helping American Workers

The Rockefeller Foundation has announced plans to dedicate $70-million to help American workers in need attain health insurance and retirement security, reports The New York Times.

With more companies reducing employee benefits and sending jobs abroad, Judith Rodin, president of the foundation said, “we started thinking this is going to affect us, too, that it’s not just everyone else in the world wearing Levi’s and listening to American music.”

A poll the foundation sponsored with Time magazine found that 72 percent of Americans say the country’s residents are less financially secure than they were a decade ago.

The foundation is also supporting a project to measure how insecure Americans feel about their finances and another project to draw more people to purchase annuities after they retire.

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

A "Giving Circle" Becomes a Major Philanthropic Force

A group of about two dozen black women is becoming a significant philanthropic force in Washington, reports The Washington Post.

The African American Women’s Giving Circle was started two years ago and is administered by the Washington Area Women’s Foundation. The group is made up mostly of professional women who each give from $1,000 to $10,000 a year. They mainly support health-care efforts.

The circle’s biggest grant thus far has been a $50,000 donation to Satira S. Streeter, a licensed psychologist who operates Ascensions Community Services, which provides therapy to needy residents. The grant helped Ms. Streeter add two therapists and open a clinic near the Anacostia Metro Station.

Claudia Thorne, co-chair of the giving circle, said of the group, “We just tap into the souls of each and every woman present as sisters. To have 25 African-American women — strong, professional, independent, opinionated — come together and move as one has been a wonderful process.”

Read The Chronicle’s article on the giving circle.

(Free registration is required to view the Post article.)

Harry Potter Author to Publish Book for Charity

The children’s author J.K. Rowling, writer of the Harry Potter series, has announced that she will publish a book of wizarding fairy tales in December and donate the proceeds to her charity for disadvantaged children, reports Reuters.

The book will sell for $12.99, according to Bloomsbury Publishing and Scholastic, and Amazon.com will produce up to 100,000 collector’s edition copies that will sell for $100 each.

Proceeds from the sales of the books are anticipated to reach $8-million.

Online Petition Urges Rock Singer to End His Philanthropy

An online petition has been created to ask U2 singer Bono to stop his philanthropic efforts, reports British music magazine NME.

The petition, available at Thepoint.com, has raised $390 to “get Bono to retire from public life (so he’ll stop leading misguided counterproductive philanthropy efforts).”

If Bono heeds the petition, the money will be donated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

From the Chronicle: Clinton Foundation Promotes Solar Energy in Africa

Former president Bill Clinton visited a solar-energy project in a small town in Ethiopia on Thursday and said that spreading such efforts would be a goal of his philanthropic efforts, reports The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Prospecting: Election Year Fund Raising

Charities shouldn’t worry about the effects of the election year on direct-mail appeals, according a new study cited in Prospecting, The Chronicle’s column with news and tips on fund raising.