Foundations Delay Technology Updates
The rate at which foundations are adopting new technology has slowed in recent years, according to a survey of 336 grant makers conducted by the Technology Affinity Group and the Council on Foundations. The survey’s author attributes the change to the “sluggish” economy, which caused the endowments…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
CompuMentor Offers Free Web Advice
CompuMentor, a technology organization in San Francisco, has started a project to help nonprofit organizations take advantage of a new generation of low-cost Web tools. The centerpiece of the project — TechSoup NetSquared — is a Web site that features profiles of charities using Web 2.0…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
How Online Service Helps Young and Old
Elder Wisdom Circle, in Walnut Creek, Calif., uses the Internet to bring together young people in need of guidance ALSO SEE:Volunteering Goes Virtual and older people who can pass on the knowledge they have acquired throughout their lives. More than 250 older people around the world agree to answer…
A growing number of nonprofit groups are recruiting people to perform charitable service onlineFive years ago, Ruth Volk, a stay-at-home mother in Eagan, Minn., was eager to find a way to use her free time to ALSO SEE:How Online Service Helps Young and Old help others. But with four young children,…
By Rebecca Gardyn
Contributor
New York organization aims to provide low-cost computer support and train new technical workersNew York As he sits at his desk in midtown Manhattan, William Mejia is providing much-needed help with computer hardware and software to a handful of charities miles away. Mr. Mejia is basically a geek on…
By Michael Anft
Contributor
Using the Internet for Social Good
In the past year, nonprofit groups have focused a lot of their attention on the growth of Internet fund raising. But technology is driving other big changes in the way charities carry out their social missions. In this guide, The Chronicle examines how innovative uses of technology heighten groups’…
Foundation’s New Web-Site Director Aims for Global Reach
The Skoll Foundation was looking for an almost impossible combination of skills when it began seeking an executive director to oversee Social Edge — its Web site for social entrepreneurs. The position required someone with Internet savvy, to be sure. But the foundation also needed someone with…
By PETER PANEPENTO
Contributor
Two Churches in Ohio Accused of Playing Politics
A group of Christian and Jewish religious leaders have asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate two large evangelical churches in Ohio, charging that they are breaking federal law by engaging in political activities. The ministers, rabbis, and other leaders from 31 Ohio churches and…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Credit-Counseling Groups May Lose Tax Exemptions
The Internal Revenue Service plans to revoke the tax-exempt status of a total of 30 nonprofit credit-counseling organizations. The IRS says the groups are not providing adequate financial education to their clients in some cases and in other cases funnel too much money to their chief executives and…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Charities Need More Help From IRS, Official Says
More than a third of the charities and other tax-exempt groups that call the IRS seeking help don’t get it, according to a new report by a key revenue-service official. The toll-free help line of the IRS’s tax-exempt division replies to only 60 percent of the requests it receives, according to Nina…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
‘Smart Money’: Big Man on Harvard’s Campus
In an interview with Smart Money magazine (February), the man who is about to take over as manager of the largest university endowment in the United States concedes that the job entails “many challenges.” In mid-February Mohamed A. El-Erian is scheduled to become chief executive officer of the…
By Marty Michaels
Contributor
‘Fast Company’: Honoring Social Entrepreneurs
Efforts to revamp American high schools are gaining increasing attention, in part due to the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, says Fast Company magazine (January). The article cites Bill Gates as saying that “our high schools — even when they’re working exactly as designed — cannot…
By Marty Michaels
Contributor
College Investments Topped 9% in 2005, Studies Find
Investments by the endowments at American colleges and universities earned substantially more than the stock market last year, according to two new reports. Surveys by the Commonfund Institute, in Windsor, Conn., and the National Association of College and University Business Officers, in…
By Harvy Lipman
Contributor
A Report on Giving by 189 of the Largest U.S. Corporations
The 2005 Corporate Contributions Report, by Sophia A. Muirhead, summarizes the results of the Conference Board’s survey on giving at 189 of the largest companies and corporate foundations in the United States in 2004. Contributions from corporations totaled $7.87-billion, and among the 133…
By M.J. Prest
Senior Editor, Solutions
A Search for ‘Meaningful Work’ Fires Up a Civil-Rights Advocate
I grew up in central New Jersey, the great-grandson and grandson of immigrants who came from Ireland and Poland. My father worked rotating shifts on the assembly line for a pharmaceutical manufacturer. It was very much a world where he did not have much control over his job, and I knew that…
‘Time Bank’ Concept of Swapping Services Gains Ground Internationally
The time-banking phenomenon, in which neighborly deeds can be used to earn “time dollars” that are traded for ALSO SEE:Trading Favors for CharityCharities Team Up to Bring Time-Bank Project to Ravaged Gulf Coast similar favors, has not been limited to the United States. More than 300 time banks…
By Sara Anne Donnelly
Contributor