WHAT WE’RE READING ELSEWHERE
Giving
A nonprofit backed by financial and policy luminaries, including hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin and former CIA directors John Brennan and James Woolsey, is putting $100 million into a company seeking to legalize the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs, focusing on MDMA to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder. (Bloomberg)
Beset by post-pandemic giving fatigue, focused on the war in Gaza, and lacking strong connections with the Adams administration, New York City’s millionaires and billionaires are closing their checkbooks to the crises facing the city, including a surge of migrants, homelessness, and a lack of affordable housing and child care. (New York Times)
The Lilly Endowment is giving an unrestricted $100 million grant to the United Negro College Fund to create a pooled endowment for 37 historically Black colleges and universities, which tend to have less financial cushion than non-HBCU schools. (Associated Press)
With donor-advised funds, freestanding advisories, donor collectives, and no-strings gifts, philanthropy is evolving into something less burdensome for giver and recipient, although the metrics-focused approach of philanthrocapitalism is likely here to stay, the Economist notes in a seven-part report on the state of giving. (subscription)
As global public health spending flags in the wake of the pandemic, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has approved its largest annual budget, $8.6 billion, suggesting a return to its traditional focus areas of infectious diseases and child mortality in poorer countries. (Reuters)
Unsure of how their big-ticket gifts to support university research were being used, and impatient with academic bureaucracy, a group of billionaires is luring top scientists away from schools to a venture they fund, Arena BioWorks, potentially jeopardizing the profits that fatten schools’ endowments when university researchers’ discoveries make it to market. (New York Times)
Bloomberg Philanthropies is putting $250 million into an effort to connect health-care-focused vocational high schools around the country with nearby medical institutions badly in need of workers, including $38 million for a public charter school in Boston whose graduates will be guaranteed job opportunities with Mass General Brigham, the city’s largest employer. (Boston Globe)
Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, have given $15.5 million of a promised $100 million donation to help Maui recover from last year’s wildfire, according to a spokesperson who declined to name recipients, while many local nonprofits and officials say they have not received any funds and do not know where the donations went. (Bloomberg — subscription)
National Rifle Association
Opinion: As the National Rifle Association defends itself against corruption charges in a New York City courtroom, only a damning verdict could force reforms at the troubled organization, which continues to be led by people close to its departing longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre. (Atlantic)
The National Rifle Association’s longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, has announced that he is stepping down, as a corruption trial against the nonprofit gets under way in New York City, capping years of declining fortunes and allegations of self-dealing and improper spending. (New York Times)
Legal Issues
A major Supreme Court case that could curtail federal agencies’ ability to regulate industry is being argued by the Cause of Action Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization backed by Stand Together, a nonprofit founded by petrochemicals billionaire Charles Koch, using lawyers from Americans for Prosperity, a social-welfare organization funded by the billionaire. (New York Times)
Some Democratic lawmakers are questioning whether a nonprofit called the Patriot Freedom Project, which was set up to support arrested Jan. 6 rioters, is abusing its tax-exempt status, as its founder uses the group’s events to host Donald Trump and openly call for his reelection, while urging people to vote against specific candidates. (NPR)
In an effort to protect creators who rely on copyrights to make money from their work, a new nonprofit, Fairly Trained, is offering to certify companies that train artificial intelligence models using works with the consent of their creators, rather than claiming that training falls under the fair-use exception to copyright protections. (Time)
More News and Features
In the midst of a row over antisemitism on campus, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology risk their tax-exempt status if they cannot allay the concerns of some members of Congress about their policies on free speech; spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and “how their endowments justify their tax-exempt purpose,” according to a letter sent to the schools by the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. (Bloomberg)
A 51-acre community of tiny houses, manufactured homes, and RVs outside Austin, Texas, with a population of nearly 400, held up as a possible model of permanent, affordable housing for chronically homeless people, has attracted private, local, and federal funds as it plans a major expansion. (New York Times)
Without explanation, Texas officials have stopped providing information to a local nonprofit that alerts its counterparts in northern cities when a busload of migrants from the Texas border is heading their way, as part of an informal effort to help the newcomers and avoid chaos at their destination. (CBS News)
To the dismay of some nonprofits and researchers, 15 Republican governors have rejected federal money to pay for free or discounted school lunches for children over the summer, citing concerns including budget woes and childhood obesity. (Washington Post)
The sudden firings of a top editor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at a well-funded and respected nonprofit newsroom in Texas shocked the staff of the Houston Landing and have some worried that nonprofit journalism could be falling prey to the same forces that are hollowing out for-profit local news organizations around the country. (Washington Post)
NEW GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
Your Chronicle subscription includes free access to GrantStation’s database of grant opportunities.
African American Heritage: The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund advances place-based cultural heritage preservation projects for historic places representing African American cultural heritage. The Fund’s National Grant Program supports ongoing preservation activities for historic places such as sites, museums, and landscapes that represent African American cultural heritage. Grants range from $50,000 to $150,000; deadline is February 1.
Literacy: The Snapdragon Book Foundation provides funds to improve school libraries for disadvantaged children in the United States. Grants are awarded to public, private, and experimental schools that serve disadvantaged children in pre-K through grade 12. Grants are typically $2,500 to $10,000; deadline is February 11.