Climate change is widely acknowledged as the existential crisis of our time, a “code red for humanity,” in the words of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. With the Senate’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on Sunday — in the middle of a summer that has brought record heat and innumerable weather-related disasters — it looks like the federal government will finally take some long overdue action on climate change...
Organized philanthropy, like most things, looks different on the inside than it does from the outside. “Philanthropy” comes from the Greek for “love of humanity,” and public perceptions of it have usually centered on donors and how humanity-loving they really are. The good guys are generous rich people who give to causes we all approve of, like combatting climate change; the bad guys give in order to launder their reputations (like the opioid-promoting Sackler family) or to advance unsavory goals (like the anti-environmentalist Kochs). Either way, the salient questions about philanthropy, for most people, have to do with the size and the quality of a donor’s heart and soul...
https://i0.wp.com/impact.chartered.college/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-importance-of-teaching-philanthropy.jpg?resize=260%2C170&ssl=1 260w, https://i0.wp.com/impact.chartered.college/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-importance-of-teaching-philanthropy.jpg?resize=759%2C500&ssl=1 759w" data-lazy-loaded="1" sizes="(max-width: 759px) 100vw, 759px" />Philanthropy, that is ‘voluntary action for public good’ (Payton and Moody, 2008, p. 3), plays a fundamental role in civil society, both here in the UK and beyond. Central to this, the charitable sector is often at the forefront of challenging social and environmental injustice and inequality. In this article we argue that meaningfully engaging children in philanthropic action and charitable giving provides an ideal opportunity for children to critically participate and think about root causes of social issues and injustice...
Climate change’s negative effects are coming to bear on high-priority philanthropic issues. More and better funding can protect vulnerable stakeholders and speed the net-zero transition.
Editor’s Notes: The Nonprofit Quarterly’s new editor in chief, Cyndi Suarez, launches a new podcast series today featuring women of color in leadership. Through candid, in-depth interviews, listeners will come to understand how these women embarked on their paths to leadership, how their leadership styles have evolved over the years, how they envision their work now, and what they hope to see for their fellow women of color leaders.
“I’m noticing that women of color have been moving into key leadership positions in the nonprofit sector, including philanthropy,” Suarez explains in inaugural podcast. “Some of us are leading predominantly white organizations, often with the charge of transitioning them to more racially just design and practices.” Other leaders of color, like Amoretta Morris, direct organizations that are by and for people of color. Morris, who kicks off this series, is the newly installed president at Borealis Philanthropy.
When 18-year-old Stephen A. Schwarzman, the son of a Philadelphia dry-goods store owner, entered Yale in 1965, he took his meals, like all freshmen, in the Commons, a vast, baronial dining hall in a cluster of beaux-arts colossi that the university had constructed for its bicentennial in 1901. The Commons seemed to him like “a train station full of hundreds of people eating,” he recalls in his recently published business memoir, What It Takes. “The loneliness was crushing. Everything and everyone intimidated me.”
Now Schwarzman, the multi-billionaire CEO of the Blackstone...
To paraphrase Connecticut’s private, nonprofit social service agencies: Gov. Ned Lamont just doesn’t get it.
Frustration with Lamont, who rebuffed a request from nonprofits for $100 million of the state’s $2.5 billion reserve, recently surged after the governor urged the agencies to ask more from wealthy donors.
Leaders of nonprofits, who provide the bulk of social services in Connecticut and will soon be asked to do more, were disheartened by that suggestion, saying it belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what they do...
By John Leland
July 12, 2019
From a tidy glass office in Midtown Manhattan, Darren Walker gives away $650 million a year of other people’s money, and is paid nicely to do so. When he got this job in 2013, as president of the Ford Foundation, he set his sights on tackling inequality.
There were complications....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/nyregion/darren-walker-ford-foundation.html
The company gives each worker a budget to support nonprofits. It has limited its marketing budget in favor of giving more away to good causes...
https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Tito-s-Vodka-Gives-Its/246541
Last week, Ray and Barbara Dalio announced their $100 million donation to support education and economic development in Connecticut. It’s an impressive amount, almost impossible for our struggling state to reject.
But it comes with strings attached...
AnonMoos [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
For 30 years, Elizabeth Hird was a pioneer in the local community for environmental preservation and education. Perhaps no single act demonstrated her commitment to environmental conservation as much as her donation of Outer Island to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995.
In 2002, Hird bequeathed another piece of real estate – this time her home – with instructions that it be sold and its proceeds added to the Outer Island Fund. The fund is currently valued at over $2 million, ensuring that Outer Island will be preserved in its natural state and used for education and research by students, environmental agencies and others for years to come.
Youth enrolled in Solar Youth 's Summer Camp are one of the many groups who benefit from island day trips and exploration. Become a kid again - watch them practice a humming meditation while studying periwinkles along the coastline.
Visit outerisland.org for more information about the research and education that goes on and friendsofouterisland.org for volunteer opportunities and upcoming events.
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"What Matters to You?"
Like Elizabeth, you or someone you know can create a lasting legacy through a permanent endowment that preserves your passions. To learn how to create your own donor advised fund, please contact Sharon Cappetta at scappetta@cfgnh.org or 203-777-7071.
This article is part of the Inspiration Monday story series produced by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
The Ford Foundation was once described as “a large body of money…completely surrounded by people who want some.” It’s easy to look at a big pile of silver like a major foundation and think that’s what American philanthropy is all about.
But, actually, philanthropy in the U.S. is not just a story of moguls and big trusts. In fact, it’s not primarily about wealthy people at all.
https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/philanthropy-magazine/article/the-power-of-small-givers
Community Foundation President & CEO Will Ginsberg shares his thoughts about Charlottesville, New Haven and our community's future on The Foundation's blog.
The time of testing is upon us. Will we stand up to the powerful forces that would substitute hatred and demonization for the inclusive, unified and optimistic spirit of community that we have so painstakenly built over the decades?
Read the post at #NHVCares Blog
From: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/04/what-money-can-buy-profiles-larissa-macfarquhar
The urge to change the world is normally thwarted by a near-insurmountable barricade of obstacles: failure of imagination, failure of courage, bad governments, bad planning, incompetence, corruption, fecklessness, the laws of nations, the laws of physics, the weight of history, inertia of all sorts, psychological unsuitability on the part of the would-be changer, the resistance of people who would lose from the change, the resistance of people who would benefit from it, the seduction of activities other than world-changing, lack of practical knowledge, lack of political skill, and lack of money. Lack of money is a stubborn obstacle, but not as hopelessly unyielding as some of the others, and so would-be world-changers often set out to overcome it. Some try to raise money, but that can be depressing and futile. Others try to make money, but it’s hard to make enough. There is a third, more reliable way to overcome this obstacle, however, and that is to give away money that has already been made by somebody else, and has already been allocated to world-changing purposes. This is the way of the grant-makers of the Ford Foundation... continues
The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven announces The Great Give® 2016, The Foundation’s seventh community-wide online giving event to raise funds for local nonprofits serving Greater New Haven. Over a 36-hour period from May 3 at 8:00 am to May 4 at 8:00 pm, gifts made to over 400 participating nonprofits will be eligible to be matched; more than $190,000 in matching funds and prizes for nonprofits is available. Grand prizes will be awarded to the nonprofits that attract the most number of individual donors ($15,000), get the greatest number of new donors ($10,000), raise the most money ($5,000) and more. Gifts will be matched on a pro-rated basis with additional funds by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and Valley Community Foundation. Local businesses and corporations, including Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Liberty Bank Foundation and others, are offering prize and match money during the 36 hours. Additional features for donors have been added. A list of participating nonprofits, prizes and rules is online at www.thegreatgive.org.
The Great Give® is the annual giving online event on giveGreater.org®, a local resource for learning and giving created in 2010 by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to increase philanthropy in the Greater New Haven region of South Central Connecticut. Since its beginning giveGreater.org® has distributed over $4 Million to local nonprofits. Donors wishing to support their favorite cause or charity can visit giveGreater.org® to find information on local nonprofits, including their mission, governance, programs, financials and community impact. Donors can also stay connected by visiting www.facebook.com/givegreater and following @givegreater on Twitter. The Great Give® 2016 is being held in conjunction with Give Local America’s day of giving.
Thanks to the generosity of three generations of donors, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven awarded over $30 million in grants and distributions in 2015 from charitable assets of more than $500 million and composed of hundreds of individually named funds. In addition to its grantmaking, The Community Foundation helps build a stronger community by taking measures to improve student achievement, create healthy families in New Haven, promote local philanthropy through www.giveGreater.org® and The Great Give®, and encourage better understanding of the region. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s 20 town service area includes: Ansonia, Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton, Wallingford, West Haven and Woodbridge. For more information, visit www.cfgnh.org or follow The Foundation on Facebook (www.facebook.org/cfgnh) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/cfgnh).
