Urban Foundations Slow to Respond to Rural Needs

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, Candie Jones, Heather Joslyn, and Cassie Moore.

RSS / Atom

April 20, 2007

Urban Foundations Slow to Respond to Rural Needs

Although a few foundations and charities spread their money to causes outside of urban centers, most nonprofit groups continue to misunderstand the needs of rural areas, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Poverty, high medical costs, and other problems affect rural states as much as densely populated states, but grant makers often neglect less-populous states because they believe those states prefer to be self-sufficient. Moreover, rural states have few of their own foundations, and their isolation prevents people there from making personal connections to charity officials elsewhere.

As a result, the article notes, Montana received just $23 per capita in charitable help in 2005, a quarter of the national average; and while New York and California received billions of dollars in aid, North Dakota and South Dakota each barely topped $3-million. Overall donations to rural causes were $360-million.

Still, the article notes that some foundations — the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation especially — do support rural causes, and a U.S. senator from Montana, Max Baucus, a Democrat, is taking a lead in organizing a symposium later this year on rural giving.

Read The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s coverage of increased aid to rural areas.

(A paid subscription is required to view the Journal article; a paid subscription or temporary pass is required to view the Chronicle story.)

Comments

You can get free access to Wall STreet Journal and those other subscription sites with a netpass from www.congoo.com

This was on CNBC last week.

— Wes Apr 22, 11:37 AM #

Commenting is closed for this article.

Previous: Biofuels Deal Comes Under Fire at California University
Next: Conflicting Wills Confuse Chinese Charity Case