Philanthropy in China: Giving in | The Economist

Philanthropy in China: Giving in | The Economist: Despite making vast fortunes in a country suffering from widening income inequality, surprisingly few Chinese fat cats have embraced charitable giving.

That may be about to change. Jack Ma (pictured above), the founder of Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant, and Joseph Tsai, a co-founder, announced on April 24th that they have set up charities to be funded by stock options in the firm. This matters not only because Mr Ma is a widely admired entrepreneur. His firm is also about to go public in America, with analysts speculating it may be worth over $100 billion. It is thought that the options to be handed over to the new charities could be worth several billion dollars.

Greek philanthropy raises awareness of domestic violence in dodgeball event - The BG News: Campus

Greek philanthropy raises awareness of domestic violence in dodgeball event - The BG News: Campus: University sorority Alpha Chi Omega hosted an event on Thursday night at the Perry Field House on campus to raise awareness of domestic violence.

The event, “Dodge Domestic Violence,” consisted of a dodge ball tournament and was part of the sorority’s philanthropy work.

Forget Jeff Bezos. His Parents, Mike and Jackie, Are the People to�Know - Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence - Inside Philanthropy

Forget Jeff Bezos. His Parents, Mike and Jackie, Are the People to�Know - Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence - Inside Philanthropy: But here's the thing: The Bezos Family Foundation is no longer so small. While its assets remain modest, it gave away some $15 million in 2012—focusing largely on education. In just the past few years, the foundation has emerged as a bigger player in education philanthropy, making large grants to national organizations.

We'll be writing more about the foundation's education funding and strategy in the week to come; here we look at what Mike and Jackie Bezos are all about.

Are We Talking the Same Language? - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly

Are We Talking the Same Language? - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: Vocabulary is important. That’s how we convey meaning.

But unless you and I share the same understanding of what the words mean, we aren’t communicating. For example, when I say “leadership,” I wonder if you think what I think. And we can’t have a useful conversation about leadership until we share a common understanding.

So here goes: some basic definitions and distinctions in fundraising words.

Spice Up Your Nonprofit’s Blog with These 5 Content Ideas | Community TechKnowledge

Spice Up Your Nonprofit’s Blog with These 5 Content Ideas | Community TechKnowledge: Thinking about kicking your nonprofit’s blog up a notch? You already know how to tell your story on your blog by revealing personal stories, highlighting successes, and quantifying your progress. But what about the day-to-day process of crafting your blog’s message? It’s easy to lose the drive to create original content that really engages your readers. Mix things up and try these five new ways to tell your story and make your blog a compelling part of your nonprofit’s mission and message.

Is $1 Million Too Much to Pay for a Top Fundraiser?

Is $1 Million Too Much to Pay for a Top Fundraiser?: Should you be worried about the pay of fundraisers at the nonprofits you support?

Not really. Fundraising is often one of the highest paid positions in nonprofit, but many fundraisers are actually underpaid and overworked. And there is a lot of churn, with one study finding that fundraisers often get fired or leave after a just a short time.

High Museum’s Photo Department Transformed By $4M in Gifts | In the Air: Art News & Gossip | ARTINFO.com

High Museum’s Photo Department Transformed By $4M in Gifts | In the Air: Art News & Gossip | ARTINFO.com: Not long after SFMOMA revealed that it would be launching a new photo center in 2016, another museum has also shown a serious commitment to its photography department. Atlanta’s High Museum of Art announced this morning that it has received four major gifts, totaling $4 million, that will each contribute significantly to the expansion of its photography department and collection.

Bringing in donations requires personnel | Healthcare Finance News

Bringing in donations requires personnel | Healthcare Finance News: Hospitals are dependent on donations to help offset huge operating expenses. And in this turbulent time of rising costs and shrinking reimbursements, they need all the financial kindness they can get. That’s why investing in philanthropy personnel is important.

When the 2008 recession hit, many hospitals downsized their fundraising staffs, including their biggest money chasers, and lost ground maintaining donation levels, said William C. McGinley, president and CEO of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.

Many organizations are now playing catch-up as a result, McGinley said

IRA Rollover Provision Included in Senate’s EXPIRE Act - Press - AFP

IRA Rollover Provision Included in Senate’s EXPIRE Act - Press - AFP: 
IRA Rollover Provision Included in Senate’s EXPIRE Act

The IRA Charitable Rollover provision, which allows donors age 70� and older to exclude from their taxable income any IRA funds up to $100,000 that have been withdrawn and transferred to a charity when filing a tax return, is one step closer to being reinstated back into law.

Read AFP's Written Comments House Committee on Ways and Means Hearing on the Benefits of Permanent Tax Policy for America’s Job Creators (April 21, 2014)

Donor service critical for community foundations � Philanthropy North Carolina

Donor service critical for community foundations � Philanthropy North Carolina: Donor satisfaction is vital for community foundations,” says the report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

“Donors who are more satisfied with their community foundations are more likely to indicate that they plan to continue giving and more likely to recommendation the foundation to others,” the report says. “The consequences of donors not being satisfied with their community foundation are simple — donors will walk away and won’t help bring new donors to the foundation.”

massnonprofit.org ::

massnonprofit.org ::: April 22, 2014 — More than 130 Massachusetts nonprofits fielded runners in Monday’s 118th running of the Boston Marathon, supported by thousands of volunteers and donors, to raise millions of dollars for causes focused on health and wellness, youth, education, homelessness, disability, and civic life.

Privacy Worries Shutter Gates-Funded Education-Data Nonprofit – Philanthropy Today - Blogs - The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Privacy Worries Shutter Gates-Funded Education-Data Nonprofit – Philanthropy Today - Blogs - The Chronicle of Philanthropy: A foundation-funded nonprofit software company that collected and stored information about public-school students announced Monday that it was closing over parental concerns about privacy, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times report.

Center for the Future of Museums: Khan Academy & Cultural Understanding

Center for the Future of Museums: Khan Academy & Cultural Understanding: Smarthistory at Khan Academy is used by museum visitors, independent learners, professors, teachers and their students. There are nearly 600 short-form art history videos created from conversations recorded on-site (in urban spaces, archeological sites, museums, churches and mosques), as well as hundreds of essays on art and art history. We’ve begun to partner with museums to bring their formidable expertise to a global audience (often by simply repurposing pre-existing content). And we are working with over 100 art historians with deep knowledge of content stretching from Ancient Egypt to contemporary art in sub-Saharan Africa.

[INFOGRAPHIC] Nonprofits and Communication Segmenting

[INFOGRAPHIC] Nonprofits and Communication Segmenting: t’s no secret that effective donor communications is the secret to higher donor retention rates – but what makes for effective donor communications?

Segmenting your emails, newsletters and acknowledgement letters are a great way to customize and individualize your messaging to donors. But are most nonprofits doing this?

We recently conducted a survey with our friends over at Nonprofit Marketing Guide to see how nonprofits are (if at all) segmenting their online and offline communications. You can view the results in the infographic below

Pension Fund for Artists Capitalized by Pooled Artwork - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly

Pension Fund for Artists Capitalized by Pooled Artwork - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: Artists, like the rest of us, have to plan for retirement, and the Artist Pension Trust is an unusual nonprofit retirement mechanism for artists. Established in 2004, the APT involves some 2,000 artists from around the world who have put a portion of their work into one of nine investment funds. Participating artists have to contribute 20 pieces of art over 20 years; in return, they’ll receive annual distributions from the funds (basically pools of contributed art) based on how much of the art sells and for what price.

As explained on the APT website:

Controversial CFC Regs Approved by OPM; Both Parties Protest - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly

Controversial CFC Regs Approved by OPM; Both Parties Protest - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: After the reports on this year’s campaign, with donations plummeting a record 19 percent, it was only a matter of time before Congress got involved to question exactly what might be going on with the Office of Personnel Management’s oversight of the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) and with OPM’s proposed regulations to make things better.

Last week, in a very rare demonstration of bipartisan action, especially one involving Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the two—along with Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and David Reichert (R-WA)—wrote to the Office of Management and Budget, which now has to approve the OPM rules, suggesting that parts of OPM’s proposed regulations could actually make the CFC worse. It might be hard to imagine that the CFC might get worse, or to believe that Issa and Cummings, last seen in a very public

Indexes Are the New Infographics - PhilanTopic | PND | Foundation Center

Indexes Are the New Infographics - PhilanTopic | PND | Foundation Center: The nonprofit sector seems like the last place you'd find indexes in widespread use. After all, indexes are built on data; well-established ones like the Consumer Price Index take a vast amount of consumer good prices and pack them into a neat little number, which can then be plotted longitudinally to give us a barometer of inflation over time. As nonprofits begin to leverage the troves of data they've been sitting on, however, it is changing the way the rest of us look at data.

5 Examples Of Greeks Stepping Up To Do Good

5 Examples Of Greeks Stepping Up To Do Good: Philanthropy is a key part of Greek life, and recently, a few fraternity and sorority events caught our eye.

Shaving Their Heads For A Reason

Charity mud run attracts 1,600 entries | Derby Telegraph

Charity mud run attracts 1,600 entries | Derby Telegraph: The annual JCB Mud Run, which takes place on a five-mile obstacle-strewn course in the grounds of the company's headquarters at Rocester, raises money for children's charity NSPCC.

This year's event, which will be the third time the run will have been held, takes place on Saturday, July 5.

Obstacles this year include a huge mudslide and a 100ft underground tunnel.

A brisk run for charity | mndaily.com - The Minnesota Daily

A brisk run for charity | mndaily.com - The Minnesota Daily: hivering in huddled groups as the sun set on the Northrop Plaza on Friday, more than 50 half-naked University of Minnesota students prepared to run a mile and a half around campus for charity.

Many of the students on the plaza were attending their first Undie Run, an increasingly pop

Crisis Management 101: Tips to Help You Survive Tough Times | npENGAGE

Crisis Management 101: Tips to Help You Survive Tough Times | npENGAGE: No one likes a crisis. Especially nonprofit leaders like you.
With life already overly busy, increased demand for your services, a constant push to increase funding and more ideas being suggested than you can possibly implement, when do you have time for a crisis? Never.
Alas, that’s the nature of crisis. Things happen when they happen, and usually when you’re least expecting it. So what do you do? Push the worry away and deal with problems if and when they happen? No, instead, you should plan. Here’s a high-level view to get you started.

Embezzlement: It Could Happen to You: Associations Now

Embezzlement: It Could Happen to You: Associations Now: It’s a feeling no association executive wants to know, but many do. A Washington Post analysis revealed in late 2013 that more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations in the United States had reported to the IRS a “significant diversion of funds” since 2008, when the IRS Form 990 first included a question about such losses.

Foundation Center - Press Release - New Report on Foundation Funding to Address Domestic Violence

Foundation Center - Press Release - New Report on Foundation Funding to Address Domestic Violence: New Report on Foundation Funding to Address Domestic Violence

New York, NY — April 21, 2014. Today, the Foundation Center announced the release of a landmark report on foundation support for organizations and programs working to prevent — and address the consequences of — domestic violence in California. Enabled through a grant from Blue Shield of California Foundation, and using data from the Foundation Center’s research database, Foundation Funding to Address Domestic Violence in California is the first-ever examination of philanthropy’s contribution to the field of domestic violence. The report provides a landscape analysis to inform community organizatio

If You Don't Treat Your Interns Right, You are Mean...and Stupid. | LinkedIn

If You Don't Treat Your Interns Right, You are Mean...and Stupid. | LinkedIn: Lots of people and companies think interns are inexperienced, short-term students--so it isn't worth investing in them. This kind of thinking is both mean and stupid. (Yes. I feel pretty strongly about this.)

Charity Works: The ‘art’ of receiving philanthropy - The Washington Post

Charity Works: The ‘art’ of receiving philanthropy - The Washington Post: A grand gesture of goodwill can sometimes leave charities in jeopardy, such as when a donor’s financial gift isn’t enough to do the work requested.

White House Hosts ‘Next Generation’ Young and Rich - NYTimes.com

White House Hosts ‘Next Generation’ Young and Rich - NYTimes.com: On a crisp morning in late March, an elite group of 100 young philanthropists and heirs to billionaire family fortunes filed into a cozy auditorium at the White House.

Their name tags read like a catalog of the country’s wealthiest and most influential clans: Rockefeller, Pritzker, Marriott. They were there for a discreet, invitation-only summit hosted by the Obama administration to find common ground between the public sector and the so-called next-generation philanthropists, many of whom stand to inherit billions in private wealth.

Fundraising Pay Passes the $1,000,000 Mark - Ideas & Advice - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas

Fundraising Pay Passes the $1,000,000 Mark - Ideas & Advice - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas: More than two dozen fundraisers at the nation’s nonprofits earn more than $500,000, and at least two make $1-million or more, according to a Chronicle analysis of the latest compensation data available