RealNetworks Foundation Starts With $2-Million
By DEBRA E. BLUMA Seattle software company has created a new foundation to help make good on the company’s three-year-old pledge to give a substantial portion of its profits to charity. RealNetworks, the maker of RealVideo and RealAudio software, which allow video and audio signals to be…
By Debra E. Blum
Contributor
Awards Honor Charities for Technology Ideas
By NICOLE WALLACEUsing technology to overcome isolation -- both social and geographic -- is a common element in many of the project proposals that won Ericsson Internet Community Awards. Ericsson, a Stockholm telecommunications company, honored five nonprofit organizations from around the world for…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Federal Technology Program Awards $13.9-Million
By NICOLE WALLACEThe Technology Opportunity Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded $13.9-million to 35 nonprofit organizations and state and local governments for projects that bring information technology to poor urban and rural areas. Commerce Secretary Norman Y. Mineta announced…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Charities Use Internet to Educate Voters
By NICOLE WALLACEAs the Internet changes the way politicians run for office, it is also influencing the way nonprofit organizations conduct their voter-education and advocacy activities. Web White & Blue (http://www.webwhiteblue.org), a project of the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, in New…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Bits: An New E-Mail List and a Conference on Nonprofit Technology
By NICOLE WALLACE Sue Ellen Smith, at the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, has started the Environmental Fundraisers Discussion List. Participation is restricted to fund raisers who work for environmental groups. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to sesmith@cccturtle.org that includes your…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Surplus Items Matched With Needy Charities
By NICOLE WALLACEExcessAccess.com is an online service that matches individuals and businesses that have items to give away -- anything from furniture to building materials -- with charities that can put them to good use. Businesses and individuals who join the for-profit service post on the Web…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Technology Experts Volunteer Overseas
By NICOLE WALLACETechnology-savvy volunteers are working on projects in developing countries through a number of new programs. The United Nations Information Technology Service (http://www.unites.org) encourages both international volunteers and volunteers in the countries it serves to sign up for…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
California Grant Makers Share Information Online
By NICOLE WALLACEHealth foundations in California are using an extranet to share information about their grant making with one another. An extranet is a private Web site that staff members from more than one organization use to share information, whereas an intranet is a Web site restricted to…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Bits: Data Standards and a Survey on Non-Profit Issues
By NICOLE WALLACE The Open Philanthropy Exchange Forum, a group of technology companies that provide products and services for charities, will meet in Chicago on September 21 to discuss the non-profit data-exchange protocol it introduced this summer (The Chronicle, August 10). The protocol is a set…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
N.Y. Activist Finances Online Lobbying Campaign
By NICOLE WALLACEAn activist in New York has invested $43,000 of her own money -- and countless hours of her time -- in an online lobbying campaign to persuade Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Irene Weiser, a mediator at a dispute-resolution center, also heads the board of a…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Microsoft Gift to Lift Technology Efforts
By NICOLE WALLACEThe Microsoft Corporation will contribute $10-million in cash and $15-million in software over five years to develop technology-assistance programs for charities nationwide. The gift is part of a partnership between Microsoft and NPower that will allow the Seattle charity, which…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Cancer Executive Admits to Stealing
A former top executive of the American Cancer Society’s Ohio Division has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $7.8-million from the charity. Daniel S. Wiant, chief administrative officer in the society’s Ohio headquarters, admitted that, dating back to 1997, he had engaged in bank fraud, money…
Bits: Internet Philanthropy Conference, Tool for Donors, and the Digital Divide
By NICOLE WALLACE A conference to discuss the role of technology in philanthropy, “Expanding Philanthropy through the Internet,” will be held in San Jose, Calif., September 25-26. The meeting is a follow-up to a forum, “E-Philanthropy: Technology and the Nonprofit Community,” held last October as…
2004 Olympics Organizers Seek Advice on Internet
By NICOLE WALLACEAs Sydney gears up for this year’s Olympic Games, the host of the 2004 Games is using the Internet to seek advice from volunteers at previous Olympics. The Greek Deputy Ministry of Sports has created a Web site, Volunteer 2004, where volunteers at past Olympic Games and other elite…
Gifts of Computing Power Aid Cancer Research
By NICOLE WALLACEThe Compute Against Cancer campaign lets computer users donate their machines’ unused processing power to cancer-research efforts. Parabon Computation is a company in Fairfax, Va., that takes large research problems and divides them into much smaller tasks that individual computers…
New Technology Group Sets Future Agenda
By NICOLE WALLACEA new membership group, the Non-Profit Technology Enterprise Network, has announced its plans for bringing together non-profit organizations and consultants who provide technology assistance to charities. The organization, also known as N-TEN, was formed last fall and grew out of…