Nonprofit News From Elsewhere
Disaster-aid nonprofit Direct Relief will use a $50 million gift from MacKenzie Scott to launch a fund to promote health equity. Spurred in part by a re-energized racial-justice movement, the California organization will support clinics, free and charitable health centers, and other groups “addressing nonclinical matters and circumstances that strongly affect a person’s health.” The fund has raised half of its $150 million target, thanks also to a $10 million gift from the AbbVie drug company and $1 million from the NBA’s Miami Heat. It will give grants to nonprofits, public agencies, and other groups that provide health services, under the guidance of an advisory council that includes a former U.S. surgeon general. (Pacific Coast Business Times)
To raise money for their proposed $300 million settlement of sexual-abuse claims, the Boy Scouts of America will put nearly 60 Norman Rockwell paintings on the block. The Scouts holdings, with names like “On My Honor” and “I Will Do My Best,” tend to illustrate scouting life, although the painter was never a scout himself. They span nearly 60 years of Rockwell’s life. In the past decade, Rockwell’s paintings have fetched from $9 million to nearly $50 million at auction, but a biographer of the painter said the Boy Scouts holdings are not among his most valuable works. (New York Times)
Months after the Baltimore Museum of Art abandoned plans to sell major pieces to fund diversity and inclusion efforts, it has raised $1.5 million for that purpose. Two-thirds of that money comes from a new supporter, art collector Eileen Harris Norton. The donations will go toward an endowment, a new committee on diversity, higher salaries for hourly workers, and longer opening hours. Museum Director Christopher Bedford backed off a plan to raise $65 million from the sale of three works, including Andy Warhol’s “Last Supper,” after it raised a hue and cry last year. Noting that the museum has been around for more than 100 years and that 96 percent of its collection is from white artists, Bedford said he is impatient for change. (Artnet News)
More News
- U. of Wisconsin-Madison Faculty Senate Pushes for UW Foundation to Divest From Fossil Fuels (Daily Cardinal)
- These Baltimore Youth Leadership Nonprofits Just Merged. Here’s What They Learned (Technical.ly)
- Texas Ballet Theater Shuts Down Fort Worth Headquarters After ‘Catastrophic’ Storm Damage (CultureMap Fort Worth)
- Funders Want to Help Ensure Native Food Sovereignty. Many in Those Communities Want Philanthropy to Do Better. (Counter)
- Sheriff: Man Arrested in Ore. in Major Fraud Investigation Spanning Multiple States Involving Fake Nonprofits (KPTV)
About the Pandemic and the Charitable Response
- Pandemic Puts 1 in 3 Nonprofits in Financial Jeopardy (Associated Press)
- Latter-Day Saint Charities Donates $20 Million to Global COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign (Deseret News)
- National Gallery and Smithsonian Take Slower Approach to Reopening, While Some D.C. Museums Start Welcoming Visitors Back (Washington Post)