Gates Fund Pays for Data Projects
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, has awarded $22-million for projects to help schools, districts, and states gather and use data to improve high-school students’ academic achievement. The goal is to gather data “that will inform decision making at all levels in the system,” Vicki L.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Google Helps Charity Test Its Web Design
As the winner of a contest sponsored by Google, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society received assistance from an outside consulting company to help it use Google’s free Website Optimizer to test the effectiveness of a page on its site. The page — the home page for the charity’s Team in Training…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
New Jewish Charities Have Attracted Diverse Clients, Study Finds
Jewish charities created in the past 10 years are serving a diverse clientele, with more than a quarter of participants in the organizations having no other meaningful connection to Jewish causes, according to a survey of new Jewish organizations. The survey, conducted in December, also suggests…
By Ben Gose
Senior Editor
When Michelle Finholdt applied for a property-tax exemption for the nonprofit child-care center that she built in Red Wing, Minn., in 2003, she had no idea she would create a huge stir. She believed her operation, Under the Rainbow Child Care Center, qualified for the exemption, and she dreamed of…
By SUZANNE PERRY
Contributor
Nonprofit Leaders Promote Charity’s Role in Recovery
In an effort to rally nonprofit groups and highlight the role charities can play as the nation seeks to recover from the recession, more than 100 nonprofit leaders have signed an online “action agenda” outlining steps that should be taken to improve charity performance, financing, and relations…
By BRENNEN JENSEN
Contributor
Charities Delay $166-Billion in Construction Projects
Nonprofit organizations in the United States have put on hold an estimated $166-billion worth of construction and renovation projects because of the economic downturn, according to a new report. That figure doesn’t include projects by colleges or hospitals, which are probably worth many millions…
By BRENNEN JENSEN
Contributor
Charities across the country are beginning to calculate how they, and the people they help, will benefit from the economic-stimulus bill that President Obama signed into law last week — and many are optimistic about what they see. While the legislation does not give nonprofit leaders everything…
By SUZANNE PERRY
Contributor
Adaptive Sports Center (Crested Butte, Colo.): Appointed Ella Fahrlander, development coordinator, to be development director. Bryn Mawr College (Pa.): Appointed Donna Hooven Frithsen, vice president for development and alumni relations at Drew U. (Madison, N.J.), to be chief development officer.…
Layoffs and Other Cutbacks at Charities
American Civil Liberties Union (New York) The charity’s national office has eliminated 36 positions, or 10 percent of its staff. It has also frozen salaries. American Cancer Society (Atlanta) Roughly three dozen jobs were eliminated last summer in the national office, although the charity hired for…
American Near East Refugee Aid (Washington): Appointed Bill Hopkins, former treasurer and director of internal audit at Christian Children’s Fund (Richmond, Va.), to be chief financial officer. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas (Austin): Appointed Angie Adams, chief financial officer at…
Throughout his career, John McGee has learned of several job opportunities through contacts with friends and colleagues in the nonprofit world. He suspects his current job hunt will take a similar path — but that pivotal job lead might just come from someone he has never met. Mr. McGee, a resident…
By Scott Westcott
Contributor
The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation seeks to prevent the disease from ravaging the next generation of children in poor countries by financing HIV tests and treatment for women and children in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. For most of the charity’s history, information about the thousands…
By EMAN QUOTAH
Contributor
Grant Makers Spur Creation of Statewide Nonprofit Database
As a busy nonprofit leader, Bruce Katsiff didn’t want to spend hours pouring his group’s financial data into a Web site, but he is happy he did. Mr. Katsiff says his organization, the James A. Michener Art Museum, in Doylestown, Pa., now has $40,000 more toward its capital campaign because he made…
By Darlene M. Siska
Contributor
After years of investing in new technology and online communications, many arts and cultural groups are finally seeing a payoff, just in time to help them weather the worst economic climate most charities have ever seen — and one that disproportionally threatens arts groups. For several years,…
By Sue Hoye
Contributor
The following awards have been presented for work in advocacy, fund raising, nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and other areas: Community development. Enterprise Community Partners (Columbia, Md.) has presented its 2008 Jim and Patty Rouse Award to Lawrence Community Works (Mass.). The award,…
A Bucket of Air Helps a Nonprofit Leader Battle Polluters
I grew up in Lafayette, La., which is a town where much of the community has prospered from the oil industry, so I was exposed to a lot of wealth growing up. My father was a pediatrician, and my mother was a teacher. However, my mother taught in a special-ed school, so I was also exposed to a…