Nonprofit News From Elsewhere Online
Buoyed by recent donations and growing enrollment, historically black colleges and universities are beginning to see higher credit ratings and lower borrowing costs. While undergraduate numbers sag across the country, renewed interest in racial equity has helped HBCUs attract more students, and the Supreme Court’s rejection of affirmative-action programs could accelerate that trend. Meanwhile, philanthropists such as MacKenzie Scott have been making huge gifts to the schools. Last week, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the credit rating of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, whose chancellor said he “received interest from 16 underwriters for the upcoming debt sale, the most in his 15 years in the position.” The firm also upgraded the outlook for Howard University, as its president predicts its endowment will reach $1 billion by the end of the year. “As firms look at us, how they evaluate our potential as well as our impact may be different from how it has been in the past,” Howard President Wayne A.I. Frederick said. (Bloomberg)
An anonymous donor has doubled a previous $500 million gift to McPherson College in Kansas, cementing the small liberal-arts college’s place among higher-education’s heavy hitters. The donation brings the college’s endowment to $1.59 billion, or nearly $2 million for each of its 800 students. The college says the two donations “will make its endowment the largest of any small liberal arts college in the country.” They will be paid over time or in full at the donor’s death. McPherson offers an automotive-skills program that has attracted notable gifts, including two scholarships endowed by Jay Leno. (Wichita Eagle)
Background from the Chronicle: McPherson College Aimed to Bring Big Donors Into the Fold — and Won a $500 Million Pledge
More News
- FTX Sues Over Investments, Donations Made by Charity Arm to Life Sciences Companies (Cointelegraph). Plus: FTX Foundation Planned to Buy Island Nation as ‘Bunker’ to Wait Out Apocalypse, Lawsuit Says (MarketWatch)
- Ravaged by Russian Troops, Bucha Rises From the Ashes, With Help From Philanthropy (NPR)
- Influential Activist Leonard Leo Helped Fund Media Campaign Lionizing Clarence Thomas (Washington Post)
- The Native American Activists Exposing Celebrity ‘Race-Fakers’ (Daily Beast)
Extreme Heat and Climate Change
- More Than Art: Museums Can Be Conveners for Climate-Crisis Cooperation (Seattle Times)
- Volunteers Help Identify Heat-Vulnerable Neighborhoods in San Francisco (Yale Climate Connections)
- Nonprofit Plants Thousands of ‘Super Trees’ Along Houston’s Shipping Channel (Yale Climate Connections)
- Nothing Feels Like Enough’: Surviving the Heat in a N.M. Homeless Encampment (Guardian)
- A Wildlife Rehabilitation Center’s Race to Save Baby Birds in Phoenix’s Record Heat (Washington Post)
Arts and Culture
- Tony Bennett Used His Celebrity to Promote Civil Rights (New York Times)
- How Buffalo’s Art Museum Hopes to Win Over the Working Class (Bloomberg)
- Smithsonian Latino Museum Sees Its Fate Thrown Into Budget Fight (Hill)
- In the Year of Infamous Basquiat Exhibit, Orlando Museum of Art Bounced Back Faster Than Disney (Orlando Business Journal)
Note: In the links in this section, we flag articles that only subscribers can access. But because some journalism outlets offer a limited number of free articles, readers may encounter barriers with other articles we highlight in this roundup.