New Resource Offered to Grant Seekers
The Foundation Center has started GrantSpace, a new site designed to make it easier for nonprofit workers to get information on financing their operations, securing grants, and operating effectively. New features on GrantSpace include a live-chat service with a Foundation Center staff member, job…
By Raymund Flandez
Contributor
Charity Seeks to Move Beyond Making Loans to Entrepreneurs
The fast-growing charity Kiva hopes to use its technology and pool of supporters to solve problems that go well beyond its initial efforts to help entrepreneurs in the developing world.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Meeting on Mobile Devices and Health
The mHealth Summit has landed a big keynote speaker: Bill Gates. The meeting, which will take place from November 8-10 in Washington, focuses on how cellphones and other mobile technology can be used to improve health care, particularly in developing countries. Other speakers will include Ted…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
New Directory of Evaluation Tools
The Foundation Center and the consulting firm McKinsey & Company have created an online directory of more than 150 tools and methodologies designed to help charities measure whether their work is making a difference. “The thought was to eliminate the need for starting from scratch and allow people…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Microfinance Site Adds Student Loans
Kiva.org expands services to allow donors to support student loans for college students in developing nations. (Tech)
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
The Seattle Foundation lifts the veil on its internal data about charities, via a new Web site.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Video Shows Nonprofit World’s Impact
A charity leader in Seattle has assembled a short video detailing the economic value of the nonprofit world.
By HEATHER JOSLYN
Contributor
Technology Grants Focus on Local Efforts
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded $2.2-million for projects that use technology to encourage people to get involved in local issues.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Charity Creates Software Business
Family Services of Greater Houston makes money from a data system it created to meet its own needs.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Annual Report Gets Video-Game Feel
VolunteerMatch saved $12,000 taking its annual report online in an unusual presentation that makes reading the report feel like playing a video game. The San Francisco charity used a new technology tool called Prezi to give the report zoom effects for text and photos. “It makes it so much easier to…
By Raymund Flandez
Contributor
Video Contest Honors Peace Corps
To honor the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, a nonprofit group is holding a video contest with $4,000 in prize money. Entrants should submit one- to two-minute videos that show how an active or former member of the Peace Corps, or the program as a whole, changed their lives. Submissions are…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Health Group Shares Its Logistics Software
Technology has been critical in VillageReach’s work to improve the delivery of medical supplies to isolated, rural clinics in Malawi, Mozambique, and Senegal. Now the Seattle organization is making the “open-source platform” it used to develop its logistics software available free, in the hopes…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Internet Video Contest Invites Charities to Compete
A new competition that asks people to submit short videos that describe why an “open” Internet is important to them will honor the best submission by a nonprofit organization, among others. Sponsored by the Open Internet Coalition, an advocacy organization, the competition coincides with the…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
New Tool Shows Donors How Gifts Help Charity
Goodwill Industries International has added a calculator to its Web site that shows supporters how their donated goods benefit the charity’s clients. For example, the money a Goodwill can get by selling a working computer allows the organization to provide eight hours of job training, while a bike,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
How Small Charities Can Make Web Sites Click With Supporters
Small charities don’t always give enough attention to their Web sites, but by making smart choices even the tiniest organization can have a powerful online presence.
By HEATHER JOSLYN
Contributor
Charities Send Supplies to Kyrgyzstan, but What Refugees Really Want Is ‘Peace’
Amid the turmoil of the violent and divisive conflict that has been raging in southern Kyrgyzstan over the past few weeks, charities have been gathering food, medical supplies, and sanitary items as they attempt to meet the emergency needs of refugees. When charity officials asked the refugees what…
By Sheila V. Kumar
Contributor