How Sept. 11 changed charity in America (CNN Money): “Americans donated a record-breaking $2.8 billion to help the victims of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy […] Four years later, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the Deep South, Americans pulled out their checkbooks once again. Donations to help the survivors of Katrina outpaced September 11 charity by 90%.” According to Dr. Una Osili, director of research for the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, an incredible 66% of households in the US donated to survivors of Katrina and September 11. Is this a truly new phenomenon? Or have the developments in technology in this decade simply enabled more Americans to act upon their desires to give?
Tag Archives: Nonprofit Sector
In The News …
Tufts U. Soothes the Financial Sting for Graduates Taking Nonprofit Jobs (Chronicle of Higher Education): “Tufts University is offering loan-repayment assistance to alumni of any of its undergraduate or graduate schools, or professional-degree programs, if they take on public-service or nonprofit careers […] Based on their need and income, alumni can receive grants of $500 to $5,000 each year to use toward paying off student-loan balances.” Pretty cool! In addition to financial incentives, what other assistance could universities offer to enable and encourage graduates to try a non-profit career? Continue reading
In The News …
S&P’s Credit Downgrade for the U.S: Its Significance to Nonprofits and Communities (The Nonprofit Quarterly): “… its downgrading of the credit rating of the U.S. is, nevertheless, a powerful, serious and very conscious act, albeit mostly symbolic. But symbols are powerful [… And] if you listen to the television pundits, they seem to be floundering about how important the credit downgrading is, how the markets will react, and whether the solution is raising more revenues, cutting deeper into spending, reworking entitlements, or all of the above.” The NPQ points out that the nonprofit sector has not yet weighed in on the downgrade and what it could portend, and points to several areas of the S&P report that hold particular significance to that sector; but the article also adds that those points are, for the most part, old news. Do you agree or disagree? Let them know! Continue reading
In The News …
This week’s bundle of non-profit news — most of it national this time around!
The Unemployed Cutting Corners in their Diets (DCentric): “Eating healthy can be a matter of having access to stores, but it’s also about having enough money to buy healthy food and having the time to cook it.” And to quote from the Huffington Post’s article, “Since housing costs tend to be fixed, many underemployed and unemployed people save money by eating cheaper and unhealthy foods.” That latter point is especially striking. Housing rarely comes cheap or simple, but food does. And inexpensive, convenient foods tends to be less healthy. Obviously, fixing the price of food benefits no one — so how can we keep the flexibility, but improve the health?
The Giving Pledge: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett Visit Obama (Huffington Post): “President Obama will host the nation’s two wealthiest private citizens, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, at the White House on Monday to receive an update on the Giving Pledge. […] As the White House and congressional Democrats push for a debt ceiling deal that includes taxes on the wealthiest Americans, the event shines a spotlight on the very people who would bear that burden.” So what should be the topic of chief conversation, the former or latter? Continue reading
In The News …
Preview: 2011 Capital Fringe Festival (DCist): “The Capital Fringe Festival starts its sixth year this Thursday with over one hundred productions being performed at venues all over the city. Fringe is an opportunity for actors and production companies to get a moment in the limelight — whether they’re unknowns or big players doing some experimenting — and for arts-goers to see lots of theater for relatively little money.” Not sure where to start with your arts-going? Capital Fringe’s website has a great tool for searching all shows by location, date, time, and genre. (Among others, Catalogue-nonprofits CHAW and Woolly Mammoth are serving as Fringe venues these next few weeks!)
In The News …
A bundle of non-profit and local news coming your way …
Capital Area Food Bank to begin charging members for produce (Washington Post): “For the first time in its history, the Capital Area Food Bank will begin charging its members for fruits and vegetables July 1, adding thousands in unexpected costs for some of the 700 agencies that rely on the organization to feed the region’s hungry.” The new initiative is a result of ever-increasing demands for the services of local food organizations, despite the improving economy. The trend is alarming, and indicates that local non-profits working to combat hunger will certainly require additional support in the coming year.
Gentrification a matter of economics, not ethnicity (Greater Greater Washington): At the NPR Building last week, a panel of young black professionals debated the question of DC’s gentrification … and “although the assembled group, almost entirely African-American with a majority female, acknowledged it is ‘dangerous to say that gentrification is not a race issue,’ the consensus held strongly that gentrification more closely correlates with economics.” Do you agree? Continue reading
Forging A Bond
Talk about an intense matching grant. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Massachusetts (my place of residence from age 0 to 18) has begun consideration of “a financing approach for social-service projects that would require charities and philanthropists to obtain private financing and show results before getting state money.” In other words, public support would be contingent on a match from private donors and a “match” (in the form of results) from the non-profit itself.
Reuters reports that “President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget plan includes $100 million for these ‘social impact bonds,’ which more closely resemble private loans than debt.” For example? In the UK, the Rockefeller Foundation invested half a million dollars in an 8 million dollar project to reduce recidivism; were the project to succeed the Foundation “could reap the equivalent of up to a 13 percent annual interest rate payment.”
In The News …
Good morning, folks. Here comes Wednesday’s bundle of news items …
Finalists for the Washington Post Award for Excellence in Non-profit Management — Many congratulations to Horton’s Kids, Prince George’s Child Resource Center, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, all of whom were announced as finalists by the Center for Non-Profit Advancement this past Monday. According to their press release, “The Award Selection Committee judges applicant organizations in the areas of fiscal management, information and communication, organizational development, people development, planning, resource development, risk management, and use of technology.” The winning non-profit will “receive a $10,000 grant and a scholarship for one person to attend the Georgetown University Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership?s Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program.”
Question for the Day
From “Finding a New Tune: How Arts Organizations Balance Creativity and Operations” by Corbett Barklie in the latest issue of The Nonprofit Quarterly:
By its nature, infrastructure is a barrier that splits the focus of an artistic group and demands attention. At its most positive, it protects the artistic product over the long term and ensures continuation. But to achieve long-term stability, the present must also be considered and planned. This planning often leads to self-conscious creative behavior, which can divide the artist from his art and the art from its community. Without equally considering the potential loss of spontaneity and engagement, recommending the development of infrastructure as the source of long-term security seems irresponsible.
What No One Else Does …
Writes Mark W. Johnson of Business Week:
Creativity, by itself, is not enough. As I’ve previously written in this space, inventions that aren’t commercialized — no matter how creative — remain inventions, not innovations. To be commercial, an invention needs to matter enough to a customer to be worth paying for. And what matters to most customers is not the invention itself but what job it enables them to do that they couldn’t do, or do well enough, before. The microwave, for example, when it was first introduced, was a terrible oven, but it was fantastic defroster.