From The Chronicle: President Obama Seeks 'Promising Nonprofits'

July 01, 2009

From The Chronicle: President Obama Seeks 'Promising Nonprofits'

President Obama announced today that White House officials will travel across the country to find “the most promising nonprofits in America” as the administration decides how to spend a new $50-million fund to help charities expand innovative social projects, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

Comments

Bill,

Your man at Manchester Bidwell has probably seen this, but might be an opportunity to reopen a conversation.

Mike

— wschmiedicke@internac.com Jul 1, 02:19 PM #
$50 million is a modest sum but every bit helps. A couple of thoughts in terms of implementation of the fund: 1) look for what works and what can be sustained—-there should be evidence of working toward sustainability (e.g., involvement of people with influence and resources, exploring long-term funding options)from the onset; and 2) use the $50m to leverage other investors, project by project—-not matching dollars the grantee has to come up with but the White House bringing other investors to the table in partnership with each grantee.

— Irv Katz Jul 1, 02:26 PM #
Faith Health Promotional Ministries NFP organization is devoted to promoting wholistic health and well being. Our mission is to serve the whole person, mind, body, and spirit. We are a charitable educational faith- based out-reach ministry. We promote mentoring programs, especially with underserved children, choldren with incarcerated parents, and the elderly populations, higher education, trades, and entrepreneuships. We are designed to meet the needs of the communities that we serve.

— Queen E. O'Neal Jul 1, 04:02 PM #
I would love to see this money given to non-profits who can actually measure the impact they are making with real data, not anedotal evidence. I’d like to see much more use of the Outcome based logic model by non-profits so we can see how well they are performing to real indicators of success.

— Jeff Schreifels Jul 1, 04:42 PM #
I know the entire country is hurting; however there are some states that have been hurting since reconstruction after the Civil War. I mean states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina. Look at any social index and you will find these state at the bottom of the barrel for the basic necessities of life that many of you, like myself, enjoy. I think that more than half of the $50mil should go to states where the impact could be felt immediately and over a sustained period of time. Send the money to the southern states where slavery and cotton were kings, sharecropping was prince, and Jim Crow, though now emotional and psychological, still persists.

— Charles L. Perry Jul 1, 05:40 PM #
Give back the tax breaks taken away for the charitable gifts from wealthy donors, and I know you would find it worth a whole lot more than $50 million to nonprofits.

— Kevin Feldman Jul 1, 06:59 PM #
Obama please just stay out of the non-profit sector. Save the taxpayer’s money on the staff, travel and the $50 million. The non-profit community is just fine. Thank you.

— Sheryl Kaufmann Jul 1, 09:09 PM #
Things are so different here. With only 1% of that amount we could help so many kids. check out our web page www.panamaunited.org

— Miguel Bernard Jul 2, 12:51 AM #
Sheryl Kaufmann obviously does not live in the same non-profit community the rest of us do. How else could she say we are “just fine”? We had to cut our current budget – including staff- to bare bones and have to do more with less. My concern is that the money is needed to bring most of us back to our previous underfunded levels and won’t begin to make a significant bump in the expansion of services arena.

— Shawn Olson Jul 2, 09:49 AM #
I send a team of my college students every year to volunteer at a local, small (capacity: 40), low cost, senior day care center that does wonderful work particularly with alzheimer sufferers. So small an agency is likely not to be noticed. My suggestion is that the Obama team create a way that we in the field can bring similar gems from around the country to their attention. The cost for a team to vet these nominations will be more than offset by the savings in time and travel costs and by the increased efficiency and effectiveness in locating these nonprofits.

— Ron McMullen Jul 2, 11:21 AM #
I cannot believe people are complaining about the amount. The essence here is we finally have a President, again, who is interested in nonprofit successes and failures. I have not seen this since attending the White House Conference on Aging in 1995. I have been in nonprofit management for over 30 years and I know you bad apples are out there spoiling things for those of us who do our work and do the right thing.

— Robin Kaercher Jul 2, 11:32 AM #

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