Foundations Seek Games With Social Benefits
Foundations are paying for two new efforts to support the burgeoning field of video games designed to promote social change and better health. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in Chicago, has awarded a $450,000 grant to Games for Change and Parsons New School for Design, both in…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
GuideStar Database Adds ‘Donate Now’ Feature
Donors have a new option when making charitable gifts online. GuideStar, a nonprofit organization in Williamsburg, Va., has added a “donate now” feature to its Web site, which provides reports on nonprofit groups based on the informational tax returns they file and other data. “An important part of…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Giving Sites End Year With Big Gains
Two giving portals that allow donors to make contributions to the charities of their choice saw big jumps in online fund raising in 2007: Online gifts made through Network for Good, in Bethesda, Md., totaled $53.5-million in 2007, compared with $35.4-million in 2006, an increase of 51 percent.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Google Finance Site Includes Charity Details
Information on nonprofit organizations can be found in some unlikely places. Visitors to Google Finance who enter the name of a national charity, such as the American National Red Cross, can in some cases pull up a page that provides a summary of the organization’s work and links to recent news…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A Foundation Apologizes for Self-Promotion
Since this article went to press, GiveWell’s board has removed Holden Karnofsky as its executive director and board secretary. For more information, read The Chronicle’s update on the board’s actions. GiveWell promises to be the “world’s first completely transparent charitable grant maker” (The…
By Ian Wilhelm
Contributor
Contests Seek to Spur More Americans to Give
In its latest push to encourage philanthropy, the Case Foundation, in Washington, has started two online contests to give away $750,000. For the first, “America’s Giving Challenge,” the foundation joined with Parade magazine, a weekly newspaper insert, to grant $500,000. Participants must either…
By Sam Kean
Contributor
Bits: Ed Dept. Awards $32-million to Benetech
By Nicole Wallace The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a $32-million grant over five years to Benetech, a technology charity in Palo Alto, Calif. The money will enable Benetech to add more than 100,000 new books to its Bookshare.org online library for people who are blind or have other…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Medical-Simulation Program Wins $15.6-Million Grant
By Nicole WallaceA San Francisco company has created complex medical-simulation software that allows health-care professionals to forecast the effectiveness and cost of different treatments and to compare the approaches. Now the company is getting philanthropic help — $15.6-million from the Robert…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Tech Museum Honors Five Innovative Charities
By Nicole WallaceThe Tech Museum of Innovation has presented its annual awards honoring the creative use of technology to promote economic development, education, the environment, equality, and health. Each of the five winners — all nonprofit groups — received $50,000: Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Colonial Williamsburg Creates Digital Map
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is working hard to bring 18th-century Virginia to the Internet. The charity has embarked on an ambitious two-year project to create an online interactive map that will allow users to examine how the town changed during the 1700s and to learn about the people…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Giving Site Offers Donors a Satisfaction Guarantee
GlobalGiving — an online-donation site that matches donors with grass-roots social and economic-development projects in the developing world — is guaranteeing donations of up to $10,000. The Washington organization describes the move as a way to be more accountable to people who make contributions…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A California Grant Maker Offers Local Charities Free Consulting Help
Door of Hope, a nonprofit group that serves homeless families in Pasadena, Calif., needed help: Its donations had declined and the charity was in financial jeopardy. So a year ago its executive director, Tim Peters, began meeting with a management consultant who has, so far, ALSO SEE:ARTICLE: Five…
By Darlene M. Siska
Contributor
Foundations Slow to Adopt Technology
By Sam KeanGrant makers continue to lag behind other groups in adopting and using information technology, according to a recent survey. The Technology Affinity Group and the Council on Foundations co-sponsored the survey, which gathered results from 334 foundations. It was the third such survey…
By Sam Kean
Contributor
Company Says Hackers Stole Charity Data
By Sam KeanNinety-two nonprofit groups that use Convio, a company that helps charities raise money and send advocacy appeals online, had their accounts broken into in late October, the company has announced. All the attacks involved charities that use GetActive, a software company Convio acquired…
By Sam Kean
Contributor
Bits: Darwin, Australia, Library Wins Award From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Northern Territory Library, a regional library system in Darwin, Australia, has won the 2007 Access to Learning Award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, for its work bringing information technology to indigenous groups. The library system will receive $1-million from the…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Advocacy Campaign Tries Out Blog Ads
President Bush’s veto this month of a children’s-health-insurance bill inspired one charity, Families USA, to try a new advocacy-campaign tactic — advertising on blogs. Families USA, an advocacy group in Washington that promotes high-quality, low-cost health care, took out ads on 14 primarily…
By SUZANNE PERRY
Contributor