Interim executive directors can help solve problems and revitalize a charity, nonprofit experts say Losing two executive directors within a year was a crushing blow to the board of Paul’s Place, a homeless shelter and community center in Owings Mills, Md. “We’d lost a really loved executive…
By Marilyn Dickey
Senior Editor, Copy
With a small staff and a $1.7-billion goal, a conservation charity looks to volunteers to help snare big gifts from donors Ducks Unlimited, a wetlands-conservation organization, is engaged in a daring endeavor: running a campaign to raise $1.7-billion with a staff of 25 fund raisers. Most other…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Cancer institute sets its sights on a $1-billion fund-raising goal, with the help of a few thousand cyclists By Elizabeth SchwinnThe Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s drive to raise $1-billion by 2010 isn’t depending solely on a small group of wealthy donors to provide the largest donations. Instead,…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
As pressure mounts for nonprofit groups to hold billion-dollar campaigns, so do fund-raising challenges By Holly HallTwenty years after fund raisers at Stanford University announced the first fund-raising campaign to raise $1.1-billion in 1987, colleges and universities still dominate the…
By Holly Hall
Contributor
Lung Group’s Stair Climb Has a Leg Up on Other Charity Races
By Brennen Jensen In the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago’s largest annual fund-raising event, people are asked to propel themselves a sum total of 1,030 feet. Kind of a wimpy walkathon — not even a fifth of a mile. That is, until you consider that the distance is measured straight…
By BRENNEN JENSEN
Contributor
The following awards have been presented for work in advocacy, fund raising, nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and other areas: Humanitarianism. The Charles Bronfman Prize (New York) has presented its 2007 humanitarian award to Amitai Ziv, founder and director of the Israel Center for Medical…
A Social-Service Leader Uses Her Expertise to Tackle Global Problems
One April morning in 1993, Nan Dale was getting ready for work when she paused to watch the dedication of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on television. Under a gloomy sky, Elie Wiesel, the author and Holocaust survivor, took the podium and delivered a disturbing message. He warned that…
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
Goodwill Spreads Word About Used-Clothing Gifts
TAX WATCH Goodwill Industries is encouraging potential donors of used clothing and household items not to be scared off by a part of the Pension Protection Act that more carefully regulates the tax benefits of such gifts. The charity has offered guidelines for such donors, saying that taxpayers…
By PETER PANEPENTO
Contributor
Fake Charities on IRS’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ List
The IRS’s annual list of the “dirty dozen” tax schemes includes the use of tax-exempt organizations to improperly shield income or assets from taxation. But two leaders of the Senate Finance Committee say the IRS needs to do more to crack down on nonprofit tax cheats. The IRS’s list, which is made…
By PETER PANEPENTO
Contributor
Legislation Would Extend IRA Giving Provision
Members of the House and Senate are considering measures that would extend tax incentives to older donors who contribute money to charities through their individual retirement accounts. The incentives are part of the Pension Protection Act, which was passed in August and allows donors older than…
By PETER PANEPENTO
Contributor
NEW BOOKS Listen, Learn, Lead: Grantmaker Practices That Support Nonprofit Results, reports on the Change Agent Project of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. The project is an effort to collect information from nonprofit leaders and grant makers about how foundations can help charities become…
By Anne W. Howard
Contributor
Smoothing the Way for a New Nonprofit Leader
NEW BOOKS Executive Transitions: Grant Makers and Nonprofit Leadership Change, by Angela Bonavoglia and Anne Mackinnon, outlines how foundations can help nonprofit organizations as they recruit, train, and support a new leader. The publication describes a grant maker’s role in leadership…
By Anne W. Howard
Contributor
‘Outside’: A Charity Plans for Big Growth
Here’s a fund-raising strategy many charities have probably never tried: asking donors to give money if staff members eat nothing but grapefruit for two weeks. Grist.org, a nonprofit environmental-news Web site in Seattle, helped pay part of a staff member’s $35,000 salary with money raised from…
By Nicole Lewis
Contributor
‘Fortune’: Battles Over Donors’ Intentions
More and more donors and charities are embroiled in disputes over ALSO SEE:ARTICLE: Princeton University Returns Small Part of Donation Ensnared in Court Battle how contributions are supposed to be used, reports Fortune magazine (March 19). But donors should take note: A law passed in August, the…
By Nicole Lewis
Contributor
The Head of a New York Charity Crusades for Children, State by State
It is 8:30 on a winter morning, and Marcia Robinson Lowry has just arrived ALSO SEE: TEXT BOX: About Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director, Children’s Rights at her office in midtown Manhattan. It’s about an hour earlier than she normally gets in, but today promises to be extremely busy, with…
By Rebecca Gardyn
Contributor
Congressman Agrees to Lead a Group to Focus on Philanthropy
Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from North Carolina, has agreed to co-chair a Congressional philanthropy caucus to try to raise awareness among his colleagues about issues affecting nonprofit groups and foundations. Said his spokeswoman, Carolyn Hern: “Nonprofits have a huge role to play in the…
By SUZANNE PERRY
Contributor