June 1, 2015

LENDING A HAND: The William Penn Foundation, among several big grant makers increasingly focused on making society more fair,  is supporting high-quality early education and efforts to give children better access to health care.

News

Foundations Join Forces to Fight Inequality

By Alex Daniels

Dozens of America’s biggest grant makers are attacking the problem on several fronts. But will they really make a difference?

News

Forecast for Major Funds: Increased Giving in 2015

By Alex Daniels and Lance Lambert

Assets at the nation’s largest 31 foundations topped $148.7 billion last year as grant makers steered more than $7.8 billion toward nonprofits, according to a new Chronicle survey.

News

Feeling Flush, Hewlett Boosts Giving 80%

By Alex Daniels

The foundation is channeling more money to nonprofits whose grants it had to trim during the financial crisis.

YOUR NAME HERE: Naming rights are available for the law school at Fordham University; Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo.; Husky Stadium at the University of Washington; the community center in Presque Isle, Maine; the Tarrant Area Food Bank in Fort Worth, Tex.; and the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts in Greensboro, N.C.; among others.

News

As Menu of Naming Rights Expands, Fundraisers Pitch Options Online

By Drew Lindsay

Supporters see the phenomenon as a natural evolution in the Internet era, but critics say the growing practice makes this type of giving seem too much like a business transaction.

HIGH HOPES: After announcing his $100 million gift to the Newark, N.J., public schools, Mark  Zuckerberg paid a visit in 2010  with then-mayor  Cory Booker.

News

Will Criticism of Big Gifts Scare Off Tech Donors?

By Nicole Wallace

Some experts worry that entrepreneurs may shy away from the spotlight — and from giving — if the attention grows too intense.

REVVING UP NEW NONPROFITS: Y Combinator, which has long helped tech startups grow, is now applying its formula to charities. One of the first: Noora Health, which trains hospital patients' relatives in basic health skills to reduce complications.

News

A Famed Business Accelerator Opens the Door to Nonprofit Start-Ups

By Nicole Wallace

Y Combinator applies its business principles to support people seeking to solve the world’s problems.

PROTOTYPING SOLUTIONS: To test the idea of mobile preschools, T Lab fellows hired teachers and took a specially outfitted bus to two locations to see how it would work in real life.

News

A Nonprofit’s New Innovation Lab Helps Problem Solvers Experiment

By Nicole Wallace

Tipping Point Community borrows principles from the tech-development world to let nonprofits’ creative juices flow.

News

Silicon Valley vs. Philanthropy

By Nicole Wallace

Charities are clamoring for the support of tech moguls, whose elusive giving patterns may fundamentally change the nonprofit world.

News

Planned Anarchy: Playtime That Frees Kids From Structure

By Maria Di Mento

Digging in the mud, climbing trees, and building forts are all part of a wild, unstructured environment available at Ithaca Children’s Garden, a type of stimulation that advocates say is missing from many kids’ lives.

A PERFECT MATCH: Brian Druker, head of OHSU’s Knight Cancer Center, posed for an ad with donor Gert Boyle, who pledged $100 million toward a $500 million challenge.

Opinion

Opinion: Ben Franklin, Meet Phil Knight

By Benjamin Soskis

Does the challenge grant empower people or plutocrats? The question has vexed philanthropy for more than 200 years.

MAKING DREAMS REAL: Though she started out wanting to be an actress, Karen Brooks Hopkins says that at the Brooklyn Academy of Music she discovered the power of fundraising:  “If you could find the resources to make creative work happen, you could do anything.”

News

Karen Brooks Hopkins Stages a Success Story

By Nicole Lewis

An arts leader reflects on helping to raise the Brooklyn Academy of Music from “scrappy start-up” to a red-hot cultural center through passionate fundraising.

PRIVILEGE AND TRAGEDY: Albina du Boisrouvray inherited aristocratic status and wealth from her father. The death of her son at age 24 had a lasting impact on her philanthropy.

News

Why I Give: ‘I Had One Foot in the Silk and One Foot in the Mud’

By Maria Di Mento

Albina du Boisrouvray has been a journalist, a film producer, and a war-zone aid worker. She’s also an heiress who has given at least $100-million to charity.

Managing director Hillary Brooks is responsible for finance and operations.

Advice

A Nonprofit Scraps Top Executive Post in Favor of 4 Leaders

By Rebecca Koenig

A California charity copes with turnover at the top by eliminating the executive role altogether.

BUILDING A FUTURE: Per Scholas, a work-force training nonprofit, received a $250,000 loan from the New York Pooled PRI Fund, created by five foundations to share the risk of investing in charities. The money will help pay for a new Urban Development Center in the South Bronx.

News

‘Investment Club’ of Foundations Pays Off for Nonprofits

By Alex Daniels

Per Scholas, a work-force training organization in the South Bronx, is among the beneficiaries of a unique arrangement in which participating grant makers play a more active role in program-related investment decisions.

News

Surprise! A High-Efficiency Rating Can Hurt Giving

By Alex Daniels

Researchers at George Mason University find that some people may dial back donations to well-run charities, perhaps because they believe those nonprofits can do more with less.

News

Peter Laugharn Named Chief Executive of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

By Maria Di Mento

The grant maker’s new leader was previously head of the Firelight Foundation, a Hilton grantee that provides health, education, and resilience training to needy people in Africa.