How Offering an Innovation Prize Energized Our Grant Making
Today’s prizes of up to $175,000 apiece helped us learn about cutting-edge approaches and why we need to give nonprofit groups room to fail.
By Amy Freitag
Contributor
Grants Roundup: Sleep-Health Company Awards $5 Million to UC-San Diego
Other awards include $3 million from the Colorado Trust for an endowed chair in American Indian and Alaska Native Health at the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
By Eden Stiffman
Senior Editor
Walton Foundation Grants $50 Million to Teach for America
The gift will go toward sustaining the work of the teacher-training nonprofit in Southern California and expand nationwide, the Los Angeles Times reports. The funds will support 4,000 instructors over the next three years, 20 percent of whom will work in the foundation’s home state of Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta region.
Gifts Roundup: President Obama’s Prep School Gets $10 Million
Other gifts include a $125 million bequest to Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired and $50 million to Brown University.
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
Citi Foundation Will Provide $20 Million to Boost Economic Opportunity
The fund will provide general operating support to charities in six cities that agree to work closely with other groups.
By Ben Gose
Senior Editor
Ford Foundation Spells Out Cuts to Make Way for Its Shift in Focus to Inequality
President Darren Walker says LGBT rights in the United States, direct cash transfers in Latin America, and microfinance will be among the areas where the foundation will pull back.
By Alex Daniels
Contributor
Helmsley Charitable Trust Gets New CEO With Business Experience
Stephanie Cuskley previously served as chief executive of NPower, which provides technology assistance to charities. She also has worked for investment banks including Drexel Burnham Lambert and JPMorgan Chase.
By Alex Daniels
Senior Editor, Foundations
$20 Million Gift Boosts Mental-Health Studies at University of Calif.
The University of California, San Francisco announced a $20 million donation Wednesday from the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund for research on the neural and genetic underpinnings of mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disease, reports the San Francisco Business Times.
Grants Roundup: USA Funds Awards $4.6 Million to University of Hawaii for Work-Force Development
Other awards include $2.5 million from the Cleveland Foundation for organizations supporting youth development.
By Eden Stiffman
Senior Editor
Of Billionaires and Hunger: Lambasting Rich Donors’ Approach to Feeding the World
Philanthropists like Bill Gates ignore the political and economic roots of the problem, says author David Rieff.
By Michael Anft
Contributor
Report: Kochs Step Up Campus Giving With Politics in Mind
Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch have ratcheted up their higher-education giving in recent years to evangelize their free-market political agenda, according to a detailed review of their donations by the Center for Public Integrity.
$50-Million Donation Boosts Brown U. Public-Affairs Program
The gift from a consortium of donors will go toward expanding the university’s Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International and Public Affairs, the Providence Journal reports.
Interview: Howard Buffett on Hands-on Philanthropy
The billionaire donor talks about getting personally involved in his foundation’s work, lessons he’s learned from his father, and the difference between charity and philanthropy in a conversation with Bloomberg.
Gates Foundation Backs Giving Tuesday Storytelling Competition
Participants will write short essays describing their support for nonprofits in ways that were memorable and meaningful; featured groups will win grants up to $5,000.
By Megan O’Neil
Contributor
Biggest Foundations Turn Attention to Achieving Big Change
Major U.S. philanthropies are increasingly thinking big when it comes to significant social and environmental challenges, focusing their giving on tackling root causes and achieving lasting, structural change, The New York Times writes.
New Family Foundations Are Less Focused on Regional Giving, Study Finds
Almost 70 percent of family funds were created within the past 25 years, and founders of the newer funds plan to keep giving, says study.
By Alex Daniels
Senior Editor, Foundations