Older Workers Bring New Purpose to Volunteer Work

As the recession drives an increase in community service, baby boomers with ideas about how they want to help nonprofit and community organizations are remaking the face of volunteerism. Volunteerism among people older than 45 jumped 4.2 percent during in the 12 months that ended last September, compared with 0.7 percent for younger people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Full text article by the Associated Press is available via The New York Times, 3/4/10.

Getting more back from giving

A new study of Los Angeles County nonprofit groups concludes that spending on advocacy and local organizing can yield significant returns for the people and neighborhoods the organizations aim to serve. Every dollar spent by advocacy groups in the study produced $91 in benefits to local residents, according to the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, in Washington.

Full text article by Alexandra Zavis is available via The Los Angeles Times, 3/2/10.

College Leaders Offer Blunt Advice for Campuses Hit by Hard Times

Speakers at a leadership forum sponsored by the TIAA-CREF Institute called on public colleges to become more creative, efficient, and entrepreneurial. "The bigger issue is that most colleges are too concerned with trying to compete for prestige rather than serve their students and their communities," said Cal State's chancellor, Charles B. Reed.

Full text article by Goldie Blumenstyk is available via The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/5/09.

Penn and Southern Cal Top Ranking of Good-Neighbor Colleges

The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California are the higher-education institutions most engaged with their local communities, according to survey results presented today at a conference in Philadelphia. The survey, called "Saviors of Our Cities: 2009 Survey of College and University Civic Partnerships," ranked 25 colleges and universities in terms of their contributions to the communities surrounding their campuses.

Full-text post by Simmi Aujla is available via The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/12/09.

Acorn Orders Inquiry in the Wake of a Video

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, with offices in 110 cities in 40 states, is the largest neighborhood-based antipoverty group in the country, using old-fashioned methods of door-knocking and noisy protests to push for local and national causes. The group, which has come under fire after employees were caught on camera appearing to encourage tax evasion and prostitution, said Wednesday that it was ordering an independent investigation.

Full-text post by The Associated Press is available via The New York Times, 9/16/09.

10 Ways Colleges Can Work With Their Communities

Does your college have an uneasy relationship with their community? Has a mistrust of academe been born out of a history of broken promises and projects that have never reached completion? Have students volunteered for brief periods, bound to their course schedules and academic terms, often with little regard for the disruption to the organizations they are assisting, harming the underresourced neighborhoods that depend on the services offered? As the Obama administration has ushered in a renewed commitment to service in our country, especially for higher education, The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests 10 opportunities for colleges to assist their communities during their call to service.

Full-text post by Gregor V. Sarkisian and Sylvie Tayloris available via The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/7/09.

'Badge Charity' under Attorney General investigation

The United States Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, who previously settled a state lawsuit over allegations of deceptive and fraudulent business practices, is gaining attention from the Texas Office of Attorney General. Receiving millions in donations each year, the non-profit organization spends only a fraction of that on its charitable cause of helping underfunded sheriff departments.

Full-text article by Jeremy Rogalski is available via KHOU - Houston News, 9/1/09.

Embedded Funders and Community Change

The Chapin Hall Center for Children, a semi-independent policy research center at the University of Chicago, is conducting an ongoing study, titled "Embedded Funders and Community Change," to identify effective philanthropic practices that could benefit national foundations. The study explores foundations that concentrate their resources in one limited geographic area and become deeply involved in those communities.

Susan Price, vice president at the National Center for Family Philanthropy based in Washington, D.C., said embedded foundations are gaining more attention in the philanthropy world.

"One of the things that has become pretty clear is this is the kind of work that takes a lot of patience," Price said. "You're in for the long haul with this kind of philanthropy."

Full-text article by Gail Cetnar is available via the Springfield News-Sun, 2.26.08.