How Creating a Market Helped Food-Bank Charity Grow
A book excerpt in Slate examines how a national antihunger group employed a market-based, economist-devised solution to increase efficiency in delivering big food donations from producers and grocery stores to its network of food banks.
Tapping Into Silicon Valley Philanthropy
Delve into how tech donors give and what they want with this collection of Chronicle resources.
Andrew Watt Abruptly Leaves Fundraisers’ Group
The Association of Fundraising Professionals announced that its general counsel, Jason Lee, would take over immediately for Mr. Watt, who served as CEO for five years.
By Timothy Sandoval
Contributor
John Oliver and Charity Team to Undo Millions in Medical Debt
In connection with a segment on his satire show Last Week Tonight that skewered debt-acquisition companies, the comedian partnered with nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt to buy and forgive nearly $15 million owed by patients for hospital treatment, The Guardian and the Associated Press write.
N.Y. Contests Company’s Plan to Buy Nonprofit Nursing Homes
The state attorney general’s office is seeking to block the purchase by a commercial firm that is already under investigation over a transaction that led to another nonprofit health-care facility being turned into luxury apartments, reports The Wall Street Journal.
How Fundraisers Can Deal With Donors Who Have a Different Worldview
What to do when a donor wants to talk politics — or uses old-fashioned terms that make you cringe.
By Rebecca Koenig
Contributor
Amid Board Turmoil, Hershey Trust Puts Top Lawyer on Leave
The $12 billion organization, which is under pressure from Pennsylvania officials to unseat three long-serving board members, is weighing the employment status of its leading in-house lawyer, who authored memos detailing rancor and dysfunction among trustees, The Philadelphia Inquirer and PennLive report.
Financial Woes Beset ‘Panama Papers’ Journalism Nonprofit
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which dramatically raised its profile this year by shepherding the release of documents showing how the world’s wealthy and powerful conceal their assets, is cutting back in the face of a financial pinch that is escalating tensions with its nonprofit parent, the Center for Public Integrity, writes The New York Times.
Abuse Claimants Seek Access to Minn. Diocese’s Charity Assets
The federal judge overseeing the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’s bankruptcy is weighing a call by victims of clergy sexual abuse to include hundreds of millions of dollars from church-affiliated charities among its assets, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Financier Named Carnegie Hall’s First Black Board Chair
Robert Smith, a private-equity billionaire who joined the Carnegie board in 2013, has recently begun raising his philanthropic profile, writes The New York Times.
Scandal Wracks Fla. Private School Funded by Koch Brother
Mining and energy magnate William Koch has fired the top official at the Florida academy he launched in 2011 amid allegations of sexual harassment, kickbacks, excessive spending, and grade-changing, The New York Times writes.
Sen. Hatch Calls for Closer IRS Watch on Private Museums
Senator Orrin Hatch is asking the Internal Revenue Service to detail its stance on art collectors’ private museums and outline steps it could take to ensure they have “sufficient guidance” to operate within the bounds of tax law, arts newsletter Hyperallergic reports.
More Emails Reach Supporters in 2015
On average, only 7 percent of nonprofit emails were delivered to spam folders in 2015, down from 12 percent the year before, a study finds.
By Eden Stiffman
Senior Editor
The Lemelson-MIT Program and the Urban Land Institute Get New Leaders
Plus, a former Secret Service agent will head the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.
By anais.strickland
Contributor
Traditional Charities Dip Into Digital to Draw Millennials
Venerable nonprofits like the United Way and the American Red Cross are pivoting to online appeals to win over millennials who are “rewriting the rules of fundraising,” Adweek magazine writes as part of a special report on trends in cause marketing.
Opinion: MacArthur Head Rebuts Criticism of Minority Support
MacArthur Foundation President Julia Stasch defended the Chicago-based philanthropy’s work with its hometown’s African-American and Latino communities in a column for Crain’s Chicago Business, written in response to a previous Crain’s piece that accused the grant maker of underfunding black-led nonprofits.