Go to content Go to navigation Go to search

December 10, 2008

Mapping Foundation Help

A new interactive map tracks grants that foundations have made to help charities deal with fallout from the economic crisis.

So far, the map –- created by the Foundation Center, in New York –- provides information on 256 grants and program-related investments totaling more than $79-million.

The map displays the data by state, county, city, ZIP code, or Congressional district. Users can also search for information by type of recipient organization, such as arts and culture, employment, or housing.

Among the grants detailed on the map: a $2-million grant by the Ford Foundation to the Detroit Economic Growth foundation to prevent foreclosures and provide emergency assistance to poor people in the city.

The map appears on a new section of the Foundation Center Web site that provides information about grant makers’ response to the financial downturn. The page highlights interviews with foundation officials and newspaper articles on how the difficult economic climate is affecting the nonprofit world.

— Nicole Wallace

Wednesday December 10, 2008 | Permalink

Comments

1. I clicked on Pennsylvania, expecting to find some information on grants to organizations providing health and human services to people affected by the downturn. But there have only been two grants in PA defined as a response to the crisis — the bulk of the money is to the Wharton School at Penn to do better economic education of the general public. That strikes me as a “closing the barn door after the horses have escaped” kind of approach and only loosely related to the real problems affecting people right now….how many of the people whose arcane financial engineering got us into this mess were educated at Wharton School?

   — John Federico    Dec 11, 01:49 PM    #

2. I’m back — and look what I found in the Thursday, 12/18/08 edition of the NY Times….A story in their series “The Reckoning” referencing:
   Dow Kim stepped into this milieu in the mid-1980s, fresh from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Seoul and raised there and in Singapore, Mr. Kim moved to the United States at 16 to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. A quiet workaholic in an industry of workaholics, he seemed to rise through the ranks by sheer will. After a stint trading bonds in Tokyo, he moved to New York to oversee Merrill’s fixed-income business in 2001. Two years later, he became co-president.

   Even as tremors began to reverberate through the housing market and his own company, Mr. Kim exuded optimism.

   The bets his division made caused bigger losses than Merrill made profits over the previous 20 years and he still made $14 million in cash plus stock options (which are now, fittingly, relatively worthless).

   So good luck Wharton School teaching regular folks about economics…..

   — John Federico    Dec 17, 10:49 PM    #

Commenting is closed for this article.

Previous: Jonas Brothers Top List of Celebrity Fund Raisers
Next: Florida Fund Raising

---

Copyright © 2009 The Chronicle of Philanthropy