FN&C Now

Volume 6, Number 41 – December 2, 2005 IN THIS ISSUE NEWS COVERAGE: Five corporate leaders head South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund; Knight foundation gives $4.4 million for international press fellowships; BellSouth launches initiative to improve access to online learning AT THE COUNCIL: Emerging Philanthropic Leaders named; International Committee nominations sought; sign up for Breaking News JUST PUBLISHED: December Alliance looks at the future of philanthropy; survey says charities worried about year-end contributions; tools to aid funders and grantees in advocacy available; study shows 55 percent of teens volunteer NOW ONLINE: A new way to showcase corporate social responsibility ACT NOW: Register for conference on program-related investing; nominate a fellow for Stanford democracy and development program ON THE MOVE: Dara Major (Surdna); Amy Gutmann and Ana Palacio (Carnegie); Derek Yach (Rockefeller); Kate O'Malley and Jonah Frohlich (California Healthcare) NEWS COVERAGE EARTHQUAKE FUND: Five corporate leaders are heading the South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund (SAERF) to raise awareness and resources to help survivors of the South Asia Earthquake. The fund, announced November 9 by President George W. Bush, is being led by an advisory committee consisting of two representatives from the United States government and the Pakistani American community, plus Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO, General Electric; Hank McKinnell, Jr., chairman and CEO, Pfizer; Anne Mulcahy, chairman and CEO, Xerox; Jim Kelly, former chairman and CEO, UPS; and Sanford Weill, chairman, Citigroup. The fund is being administered by the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy, an international nonprofit forum of over 100 CEOs and chairpersons dedicated to advocating and practicing corporate philanthropy. Find out more: https://www.southasiaearthquakerelief.org . PRESS FELLOWSHIPS: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation granted $4.4 million to the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) to expand and improve the Knight International Press Fellowships program over the next two years. Each year, the program sponsors up to 22 journalists from the United States to work with developing independent presses overseas, principally in countries experiencing political and economic transition. The grant will also help fund other ICFJ programs that promote journalism excellence worldwide and provide much-needed resources for media, especially those working in emerging democracies. Read more: http://www.knightfdn.org/default.asp?story=news_at_knight/releases/2005/2005_11_18_kipf.html . ONLINE LEARNING: The BellSouth Foundation launched the $20 million, 20/20 Vision for Education initiative to improve access to online learning throughout the southeastern United States. The five-year program aims to deliver rigorous online instruction to increase high school graduation rates, particularly among low-income and minority students. BellSouth employees will contribute their expertise to the initiative and the corporation will also support efforts to provide affordable technology to low-income students and their families. The initiative commemorates the foundation's 20-year commitment to supporting education reform in the region. Read more: http://www.bellsouthfoundation.org/release_112805.asp . AT THE COUNCIL EMERGING LEADERS: The Council on Foundations recently named three fellows and their mentors to its Emerging Philanthropic Leaders Fellowship Program: Margaret Flanagan, president and CEO, Southern Illinois Community Foundation; Ricardo Lopez, program assistant, Rasmuson Foundation; and Danielle M. Reyes, program officer, Meyer Foundation. Each fellow will work with his or her mentor to address issues of importance to their communities and foundations. Flanagan will be mentored by Nancy B. Anthony, executive director, Oklahoma City Community Foundation, who will share her expertise on board, fund and program development. Lopez will work with his mentor, Ruth Tebbets Brousseau, director of evaluation and organizational learning, The California Wellness Foundation, on how foundations evaluate their work. Mentor Ligia Cravo of The William Randolph Hearst Foundations will share her expertise on leadership development with fellow Reyes. Read more: http://www.cof.org/Content/PressRelease/Display.cfm?pressReleaseID=3234 . INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE: The Council on Foundations is seeking nominations to fill upcoming vacancies on its International Committee. The committee seeks members who are committed to its goals of assisting the Council in building and extending the field of international philanthropy and increasing its awareness. Selections are made with a view toward ensuring the committee is broadly representative of the Council's membership. Nominations deadline is December 31, 2005. Questions? E-mail Isabelle Mack at macki@cof.org. Download a nomination form (PDF): http://www.cof.org/files/ Documents/International_Programs/2005Publications/Nomination_Form_(2006).pdf . 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, as well as members and staff of our colleague organizations. Subscribe by e-mailing your name, title and foundation name to media@cof.org. JUST PUBLISHED WHITHER PHILANTHROPY? The December issue of Alliance magazine looks at where philanthropy will be in 2025. It includes interviews with Council on Foundations President and CEO Steve Gunderson and European Foundation Centre CEO Gerry Salole. Guest Editors Katherine Fulton and Gabriel Kasper discuss the difficult process of cultivating change in philanthropy, based on their work with The Monitor Institute. Read excerpts from the issue or subscribe: http://www.allavida.org/alliance/alliancehome.html . YEAR-END WORRIES: GuideStar found that nearly 80 percent of more than 3,900 nonprofits and foundations surveyed anticipate that recent natural disasters will cause end-of-year contributions to remain at or decrease from 2004 levels. According to the Fourth Annual GuideStar Nonprofit Survey: Charitable Organizations and the Economy, 41 percent of respondents said contributions would remain the same as in 2004, and 38 percent expected contributions to drop. Only four percent anticipated an increase. Read more or download the survey (PDF): http://www.guidestar.org/about/press/051117_econsurvey.jsp . ADVOCACY TOOLS: The Alliance for Justice created two tools to help funders and grantees gauge the effectiveness of their advocacy efforts and the grantee's capacity to conduct advocacy campaigns. The Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool helps funders determine a current or potential grantee's level of readiness to engage in advocacy work and to develop a plan for increasing their capacity. The Advocacy Evaluation Tool helps nonprofits set realistic advocacy goals clear to both grantee and funder, then measure progress toward meeting those goals. The tools are being coupled with Investing in Change: A Funder's Guide to Supporting Advocacy, which outlines legal rules for funding advocacy. The tools were created at the request of the George Gund Foundation. Find out more or order the tools: http://www.afj.org/research_publications/publications/collection/Build_Advocacy.html?referrer_level_id=3185&ref_color=blue&ref_name=foundation&inform=7 . TEEN VOLUNTEERS: On Wednesday, First Lady Laura Bush announced the results of a survey that found that 55 percent of American teenagers volunteered last year (compared to just 29 percent of adults), and they contributed more than 1.3 billion hours of service. Conducted by the Corporation for National and Community Service, U.S. Census Bureau and Independent Sector, Building Active Citizens: The Role of Social Institutions in Teen Volunteering is the first major national study on teen volunteering in more than a decade. "This study suggests that the 9/11 generation may offer the antidote to declining levels of civic participation in our country," said David Eisner, the corporation's CEO. The survey also found that young people's volunteering is tied to their connections with family, religious congregations and schools. Read more or download the report (PDF): http://www.cns.gov/about/newsroom/releases_detail.asp?tbl_pr_id=220 . NOW ONLINE WHAT ARE YOU GIVING?: The GiveMeaning Foundation is launching GivingProfiles, a searchable online database now in an early working beta version containing specific charitable and community initiatives a company supports. "Most companies, irrespective of the industry, are actively involved with at least one charity; but the details of what they're actually doing are often hard to access, buried in a company's website," said foundation CEO Tom Williams. Companies that subscribe to GivingProfiles will get a custom webpage on the GivingProfiles website to display all of their corporate social responsibility activities. Find out more: http://www.givingprofiles.com . ACT NOW PRI CONFERENCE: The PRI Makers Network, a new association of grantmakers who use program-related and other investments to accomplish their philanthropic goals, will hold its first annual conference January 18–20, 2006, in Palo Alto, California. The Program-Related Investment Conference is cosponsored by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business' Center for Social Innovation. Speakers will include Jed Emerson, senior fellow, Generation Foundation; Nancy O. Andrews, president and CEO, Low Income Investment Fund; and Luther M. Ragin, Jr., vice president for investments, F. B. Heron Foundation. Registrations must be received by December 19, 2005. Register or read more (PDF): http://primakers.net/files/2006-01_pri_conference.pdf . DEMOCRACY FELLOWS: The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University will hold its second annual summer fellows program July 31 to August 18, 2006, at Stanford University. Fellows are early to mid-career policymakers, academics and leaders of civil society organizations from countries undergoing political, economic and social transitions, who will play important roles in their country's development. The program's goal is that, over time, the fellows will form a global network of public intellectuals and activists working on issues of democracy, development and the rule of law. Application deadline is January 6, 2006. Nominate a fellow or find out more: http://cddrl.stanford.edu/summerfellows . ON THE MOVE DARA MAJOR was named director for planning and strategic initiatives at the Surdna Foundation. She previously served as special assistant to the executive director. New board members at the Carnegie Corporation of New York are AMY GUTMANN and ANA PALACIO. Read more: http://www.carnegie.org/sub/news/two_trustees_ny.html . DEREK YACH will become director of the Rockefeller Foundation's Global Health program in January 2006. Read more (PDF): http://www.rockfound.org/Library/ Derek_Yach_to_lead_Rockefeller_global_health_program.pdf . The California HealthCare Foundation named KATE O'MALLEY senior program officer of the Hospitals & Nursing Homes program and JONAH FROHLICH senior program officer for Health Information Technology. Read more: http://www.chcf.org/press/view.cfm?itemID=116247 . 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: 12.19.05