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The economic recession has taken its toll on charitable giving in Florida, according to a new report by Florida Philanthropic Network, Florida’s statewide association of grantmakers. The report confirms that the combined charitable giving of individuals, foundations and corporations in Florida dropped 8.6 percent between 2008 and 2009, which follows a double-digit decline the previous year. However, the state’s charitable giving is e…
… examined 110 charities in 13 states and found that work such as pushing for more aid to schools and housing for the poor resulted in $26.6-billion in benefits to communities over five years. Money for the campaigns came from foundations and other donors. The study comes as the watchdog group is urging foundations to step up their spending on efforts to influence public policy and running a campaign called Philanthropy’s Promise, which asks grant…
…including $30 million from the Annenberg Foundation, $20 million from the Pew Charitable Trusts, $15 million from Marguerite and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, and $10 million each from the Neubauer Family and William Penn foundations. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the foundation also received contributions of between $1.5 million and $9.9 million from eight donors: the Horace W. Goldsmith, Andrew W. Mellon, and Wells Fargo foundatio…
Not long after selling his wealth-management company, Ron Cordes started giving to organizations that make small loans to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries so they can start businesses. He traveled to Uganda and Central America to see his donations in action, meeting with borrowers and visiting the organizations that oversaw the loans. Over time, says Mr. Cordes, he started to realize that what he was seeing was an emerging business mar…
…ver how the money is invested and given away? This is a question many philanthropically inclined people are asking themselves in the aftermath of the financial crisis and increased Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of private foundations. Betsy Brill, president of Strategic Philanthropy, an advisory firm in Chicago, said the number of new private foundations had decreased over the last few years. One obvious reason is the downturn in the economy,…
Foundations don’t base their grants decisions on the diversity of the grantee, said a panel of experts at the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual meeting in Vancouver—but a growing number are seeking to ensure that their own staffing and operations are multicultural and trying to figure out other steps to better serve all parts of society. While diversity is important, grant makers say it is hard to measure what it means when revie…
The Council on Foundations has announced its support for a new bill in the U.S. Senate that would permanently extend the Individual Retirement Account (IRA) charitable rollover — which is set to expire at the end of the year — and introduce measures to encourage increased charitable giving. Introduced by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Richard Burr (R-NC), and John Kerry (D-MA), the Public Good IRA Rollover Act of 2011 would …
… Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at U.C. Berkeley, underscores the growing influence of computer science on the physical and social sciences. An interdisciplinary array of scientists will explore the mathematical foundations of computer science and attack problems in fields as diverse as health care, astrophysics, genetics and economics. Full article text is available via The New York Times, 5/1/12. …
Grass-roots environmental nonprofits are too often ignored by foundations, says a new report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Foundations give half of the dollars they spend on the environment to national organizations with budgets of $5-million or more, but those charities make up only 2 percent of the environmental groups in the United States, according to the watchdog. Only 15 percent of environmental grant making helps …
The philanthropist and hedge fund billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations is moving into a much larger Manhattan headquarters to accommodate its growing operations. The charity signed a 30-year lease to occupy the entire 152,000-square-foot Argonaut Building at 57th Street and Broadway, slightly more than twice the space of its previous offices on two floors of a mostly residential building on 59th Street. Mr. Soros, a native of Hung…
