Abraham Fund Initiatives (New York): Appointed Ami Nahshon, chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Federation and Foundation (Oakland, Calif.), to be president and chief executive officer. All Kinds of Minds (Chapel Hill, N.C.): Appointed Donald H. Grace, president of Chapel Hill-Chauncy…
Board Members’ Guide to Financial Statements
Understanding Nonprofit Financial Statements, Second Edition, by Steven Berger, describes nonprofit financial statements and explains how board members can use the documents to fulfill their legal and fiduciary responsibilities. Mr. Berger, president of Healthcare Insights, a Libertyville, Ill.,…
By Jessica Kronstadt
Contributor
Report on State Support for Religious Groups That Provide Social Services
Charitable Choice: First Results From Three States, by Sheila Suess Kennedy, describes the preliminary findings of research on the effects of federal welfare legislation passed in 1996 allowing religious groups that receive government financing to apply religious criteria when hiring, to display…
By Jessica Kronstadt
Contributor
D.C. United Way Is Suing Past Leader for $1.6-Million
Washington One of the nation’s largest United Ways is suing a former executive to recover $1.6-million in questionable payments he received from the charity during his 27-year tenure. The United Way of the National Capital Area, in Washington, has filed two lawsuits against Oral Suer, a former…
By Ian Wilhelm
Contributor
Federal Law on Charity Searches Is Challenged
The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of six nonprofit community and advocacy organizations, has filed a legal challenge to the controversial USA Patriot Act, an antiterrorism law enacted after the September 11 attacks. The ACLU said that the law wrongly permits FBI officials to order…
By GRANT WILLIAMS
Contributor
Group Urges Donations of Federal Tax Refunds
As the Treasury Department mails millions of tax-rebate checks to families with children this month, a nonprofit group that opposes the $330-billion in federal tax cuts enacted this year is urging people to donate their rebates to charity and petition the government to stop what it calls…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Court Reduces Value of Charitable Deductions
A new tax-court decision suggests that the Internal Revenue Service continues to keep a sharp watch on taxpayers who claim large charitable deductions on their income-tax returns. In the case, the U.S. Tax Court reduced by thousands of dollars a couple’s charitable deductions for gifts of land and…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Human-Rights Activists Have Source on Internet
A new Web site offers practical information for human-rights activists in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Human Rights Connection provides advice and case studies on how to work with the news media, plan an advocacy campaign, and use technology. The site is operated by three New York…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Newspapers Read on Public Television
The Reading Service of the Redwoods, an all-volunteer organization in Eureka, Calif., that uses television to make local newspapers accessible to area residents with vision problems or other disabilities that make reading difficult, has started broadcasting live. Since 1998, Eureka’s public…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Online Donation Site Starts Charging Fees
Network for Good -- an Internet site that allows donors to contribute to any charity in the United States -- has made a significant change in its operation: Instead of passing the entire donation to the nonprofit group, it has started to deduct a 3-percent processing fee from contributions it…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Key Senator Introduces Foundation-Payout Proposal
Washington An influential Republican senator has introduced a bill that would require grant makers to exclude some -- but not all -- administrative expenses when they calculate whether they have met the federal requirement that they give away at least 5 percent of their assets to charity each year.…
By Brad Wolverton
Contributor
Watchdog Group Says Bush Administration Is Trying to Silence Charities
As debate heated up last spring over the Bush administration’s plans to overhaul the federal Head Start preschool program for needy children, an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to local Head Start centers warning that they could get in trouble with the law…
By GRANT WILLIAMS
Contributor
Checking Up on Credit Charities
Debt-advice groups sparking new government scrutinyFollowing a divorce, a series of moves to pick up acting work, and a string of temporary jobs that dried up when the economy soured in 2001, Alyssa Polacsek owed $20,000 to two credit-card companies. Looking for help, she turned to Debticated, a…
By Debra E. Blum
Contributor
IN THE TRENCHES By Alison Stein Wellner For more than 15 years, the Transplant Foundation, in Miami, has provided information and comfort to people who are on the verge of experiencing one of modern medicine’s most sophisticated and dangerous operations: organ transplantation. Because of its close…
By Alison Stein Wellner
Contributor
How a Nonprofit Human-Resources Manager Learned the Value of Caring for Employees
ENTRY LEVEL Dana Winfield Age: 41 First nonprofit job: Telephone case screener, Judge Baker Guidance Center, Child-at-Risk Hotline, Boston Current job: Manager of human resources, Frick Collection, New York The first time it occurred to me that I wanted to go into the so-called “helping…
Getting Started on a Capital Campaign
A Nonprofit Space Odyssey: a Capital Projects Primer offers advice for nonprofit organizations considering a building or expansion project. CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, a consulting firm in San Jose, Calif., and San Francisco, and the Silicon Valley Council on Nonprofits, in San Jose, suggest…
By Jessica Kronstadt
Contributor