Michigan Group Inundated With Aid Requests
The Salvation Army’s Eastern Michigan affiliate is dealing with a 23-percent increase in requests for assistance since last year, forcing the charity to raise more money or begin making $500,000 in staff and operational cuts, according to the Detroit Free Press. The rise in requests has prompted a…
Uzbekistan Court Closes U.S. Charity
A Uzbekistan civil court closed down Counterpart International, an American humanitarian-aid organization that has an office in the country, reports Reuters. Uzbekistan has been increasingly hostile toward foreign-aid groups and the news media since last year, when people in Western countries…
Small Colleges Take New Investment Approach
Several small universities are copying the investing strategies at Harvard and Yale and using approaches that involve more risks than they previously took, reports BusinessWeek magazine. By investing in hedge funds, big universities posted strong returns even during market downswings, and smaller…
Va. Mayor Resigns After Church-Theft Conviction
Va. mayor convicted of stealing from church charity to pay taxes and debts
Lawmaker’s Charity Draws Questions
Colorado Rep. Tom Plant is being criticized for supporting a state grants program that later awarded money to a charity he started, reports the Rocky Mountain News. Mr. Plant played a key role in securing $125,000 in grant money for Colorado’s energy office last year, according to the article. The…
Studio Donates to Flight 93 Memorial
Universal Pictures, the movie studio that released “United 93” in theaters last weekend, announced that it will contribute $1.15-million to a memorial fund for victims of the plane that crashed near Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001, reports the Associated Press. The gift is roughly 10 percent of…
First Lady Awards Grants to Gulf Coast Libraries
First Lady Laura Bush announced that the charity she oversees is awarding grants worth $500,000 each to school libraries whose collections were damaged by last year’s hurricanes, reports the Associated Press. The Laura Bush Foundation’s Gulf Coast Library Recovery Initiative will distribute the…
Get George Lewis started talking about the Catoctin Aqueduct and chances are good that he’ll tell you a lot more than you bargained for, with a lot more enthusiasm than you expected. He’ll talk about George Washington’s dream of taming the Potomac River to use as a route to the interior of the…
By LAWRENCE BIEMILLER
Contributor
The following awards have been presented for work in advocacy, fund raising, nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and other areas. Community service. USA Today (Arlington, Va.) has named Zina Bethune as its inaugural Hollywood Hero for her work with Infinite Dreams, a program of her Bethune…