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Volume 6, Number 13 – April 18, 2005 IN THIS ISSUE AT THE COUNCIL: Council elects officers and board members; new lecture series on international philanthropy; sign up for Breaking News NEWS COVERAGE: Mott foundation gives its largest grant ever; Carnegie Scholars studying Islam and the modern world announced; new state associations of nonprofits being formed JUST PUBLISHED: New report assesses charity watchdogs ACT NOW: Register for conference on philanthropy, ethics and international aid; submit Difficult Dialogues proposals by May 16 to the Ford Foundation; nominate research for the Hodgkinson Prize by June 24 ON THE MOVE: Hank Brown (Daniels Fund); Hugh D. Leahy, Jr. (Delaware Community); Elisa Spungen Bildner, David Ilan Weis and Sandy Cardin, et al. (Jewish Funders); Scott Young and John Suek (Community Reinvestment) AT THE COUNCIL NEW OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS: During the 56th Annual Conference in San Diego last week, the Council on Foundations elected officers, re-elected five current members and elected five new members to its board of directors. Board Chair Emmett D. Carson, president and CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation, will serve the second year of his two-year term in 2005–2006. Officers elected to one-year terms are Vice Chair Maxwell King, president, The Heinz Endowments; Secretary Kathleen Odne, executive director, The Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation; and Treasurer Sherry Salway Black, trustee, First Nations Development Institute. Carson and Robin S. Tryloff, board chair of the Chicago Donors Forum, were re-elected to the board for one-year terms. Current board members re-elected for three-year terms were C. David Campbell, president, The McGregor Fund; Christine Park, president, Lucent Technologies Foundation, and Julie L. Rogers, president, Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation. New members are: Antoinette M. Bailey, vice president of community and education relations, The Boeing Company; Martha D. Lamkin, president and CEO, Lumina Foundation for Education; Jennifer Leonard, president and executive director, Rochester (NY) Area Community Foundation; Richard L. Moore, president, The Weaver Foundation; and Judy Jolley Mohraz, president and CEO, The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Read more: http://www.cof.org/Content/PressRelease/Display.cfm?pressReleaseID=2539 . LECTURE SERIES: The Council and the Van Leer Group Foundation of The Hague, Netherlands, established a new lecture series on international philanthropy. The five-year series will begin in 2006, in conjunction with the Council's 57th Annual Conference. The lectures will honor Rien van Gendt, executive director of the Van Leer Group Foundation and recipient of the 2005 Distinguished Grantmaker Award. Read more: http://www.cof.org/Content/PressRelease/Display.cfm?pressReleaseID=2536 . Read an interview with Rien van Gendt in the March/April 2005 Foundation News & Commentary: http://www.foundationnews.org/CME/article.cfm?ID=3194 . FREE NEWS SERVICE: Breaking News is a free, daily e-mail newsletter summarizing the top articles—mostly from national and regional newspapers—about philanthropy. Breaking News is available to Council members only. Subscribe by e-mailing your name, title and foundation name to media@cof.org. NEWS COVERAGE LARGEST GRANT: The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation gave $25 million—the largest single grant in the foundation's history—to the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. The grant will carry on the legacy of Michigan auto pioneer and philanthropist Charles Stewart Mott, who gave the university $6.5 million 40 years ago to build its first children's hospital. The new grant will be used to construct a state-of-the art building for children's and women's health services. Because the Mott grant is a challenge grant, the university health system launched a campaign urging donors to "Take the Mott Challenge." Read more: http://www.mott.org/MCH/index.asp . NEW SCHOLARS: The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced 16 Carnegie Scholars for 2005, all of whom are studying facets of Islam and the modern world. The foundation decided the program would focus on Islam for several years to make the field more central to American research and instruction and expand the breadth of knowledge to build leadership and guide national and foreign policy. The scholars-who will receive up to $100,000 each over a two-year period for research-are Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, University of California, Los Angeles; Asma Afsaruddin, University of Notre Dame; John R. Bowen, Washington University of St. Louis; Brian T. Edwards, Northwestern University; Noah R. Feldman, New York University; Michael M. J. Fischer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sohail H. Hashmi, Mount Holyoke College; Bernard Haykel, New York University; Ayesha Jalal, Tufts University; Amaney A. Jamal, Princeton University; Adeeb Khalid, Carleton College; Ebrahim E. I. Moosa, Duke University; Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University; Abdulaziz Sachedina, University of Virginia; Elizabeth F. Thompson, University of Virginia; and Muhammad Qasim Zamen, Brown University. Read more: http://carnegie.org/sub/news/ann_scholars.html . STATE ASSOCIATIONS: The National Council of Nonprofit Associations will establish nonprofit associations in 15 states to advocate for and strengthen nonprofits. The project, funded by a $200,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will launch associations in Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The project will also create a comprehensive strategy of best practices in developing a state association. Read more: http://www.ncna.org/_uploads/documents/live//PressRelease_ EmergingAssociations_4-05.doc . JUST PUBLISHED RATING THE RATERS: The National Human Services Assembly and the National Council of Nonprofit Associations turned the tables on charity watchdog organizations and publications by assessing them. Among the findings from Rating the Raters: An Assessment of Organizations and Publications that Rate/Rank Charitable Nonprofit Organizations are that watchdogs' approaches and criteria vary, they tend to focus on financial measures rather than program results and they may use simplistic criteria. The organizations studied were the American Institute of Philanthropy, Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, Standards for Excellence Institute and the Combined Federal Campaign. Publications studied were the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Forbes, the NonProfit Times and Smart Money. Download the report (PDF): http://www.nassembly.org/nassembly/documents/Rating_the_Raters_Final_3%20.pdf . ACT NOW INTERNATIONAL AID: Is philanthropy the right response to global poverty? What ethical problems do foundations face when they give international aid? Can the impact of aid programs be rigorously assessed? To answer these questions and more, The University Center for Human Values at Princeton University will hold a conference, "Philanthropy, Ethics and International Aid," May 5–6, 2005, in Princeton, New Jersey. Among the panelists are Paul Brest, president, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Joel L. Fleishman, director, Foundation Strategy and Impact Research Program, Duke University; Ray Offenheiser, president, Oxfam America; and Smita Singh, special advisor for global affairs, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Register or read more: http://www.princeton.edu/~uchv/peia . FOSTERING SPEECH: Difficult Dialogues is a $2.5 million Ford Foundation initiative supporting scholarship, teaching and civil dialogue on college campuses around sensitive issues. Foundation President Susan V. Berresford commented, "Debates taking place on college campuses often mirror controversial issues being examined in the society-at-large. Educators are seeking ways to foster constructive dialogue on these matters and at the same time reduce intolerance and threats to academic freedom. Foundation resources can help this effort." The foundation's request for proposals asks colleges and universities with general undergraduate programs to submit preliminary proposals by May 16, 2005. Read more: http://www.fordfound.org/news/view_news_detail.cfm?news_index=151 . HODGKINSON PRIZE: Independent Sector is seeking nominations for the 2005 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize, sponsored in part by the eBay Foundation and the NonProfit Times. The nomination deadline for the prize, which recognizes outstanding published research that increases the understanding of philanthropy, voluntary action, nonprofits and civil society around the world, is June 24. Award recipients will be announced at Independent Sector's 25th Anniversary Conference, October 23–25, 2005, in Washington, DC. Find out more: http://www.independentsector.org/programs/research/VAH_Research_Prize.html . ON THE MOVE HANK BROWN will step down as president and CEO of the Daniels Fund on August 1, 2005 to assume new responsibilities at the University of Colorado. Read more: http://www.danielsfund.org/news/newsdetail.asp?nID=68 . HUGH D. LEAHY, JR. is now the Delaware Community Foundation's senior vice president for southern Delaware. The Jewish Funders Network elected ELISA SPUNGEN BILDNER chair, DAVID ILAN WEIS vice chair, SANDY CARDIN secretary and MICHAEL RUKIN treasurer. RACHEL BENDIT, MICHAEL HILL, HUBERT LEVEN, HELAINE LEVY and MARK WEISSMAN were elected board members. The network also hired RAE JANVEY as vice president for member relations, JO-ANN MORT as vice president for strategic communications and IDANA GOLDBERG as program manager. The Community Reinvestment Fund, USA, hired SCOTT YOUNG as senior vice president and chief financial officer and JOHN SUEK as loan production administrator. SUBSCRIBE FN&C Now is published by the Council on Foundations to keep you in the loop by sharing news between bimonthly editions of Foundation News & Commentary magazine (FN&C Now Web archive: http://www.foundationnews.org/now/index.htm ). Please feel free to forward this message to your friends and colleagues who might enjoy it. To subscribe (it's free) to FN&C Now, send an e-mail to fncnow@cof.org . Questions or comments about FN&C Now? Contact Paula J. Kelly at 202/467-0261. To contribute a news item for consideration, please e-mail fncnow@cof.org . To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail to leave-fncnow-4832R@int1.cof.org . To subscribe to Foundation News & Commentary, an award-winning magazine, please send an e-mail to fncsubs@cof.org , or visit our website at http://www.icnfull.com/cgi-bin/cobolscript.exe?cof/cofmain.cbl . Council on Foundations 1828 L Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202/466-6512 webmaster@cof.org last update: 4.20.05