Urban Revitalization Faces Challenges
Community-development corporations -- non-profit organizations that strive to improve inner cities by building low-cost housing and working to attract businesses -- have made much progress in recent years, a new report finds. But the organizations still face challenges that hinder their ability to…
Experts Say Just Preaching Abstinence Will Not Deter Teen-Age Pregnancy
A sexuality-education provision in federal welfare legislation may do more harm than good, many non-profit leaders say. The provision, which was passed by Congress as part of the 1996 overhaul of the welfare system, requires that programs that receive earmarked federal funds teach youngsters that…
By DOMENICA MARCHETTI
Contributor
Abstinence programs and those for boys, prepubescent girls on rise At the Brotherhood Program in Indianapolis, teen-age boys from many of the city’s roughest neighborhoods meet three times a week to talk, among other things, about sex and sexuality. And to reinforce their sense of self-discipline,…
By DOMENICA MARCHETTI
Contributor
Toni Kipnis remembers feeling despondent every time she walked outside and faced her house’s peeling, “obnoxious green” exterior, which hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint since 1974. But the 68-year-old San Francisco resident lacked the money to have it painted. Last year, a group of volunteers who…
Federal Judge Orders Brooklyn Private School to Return $3-Million Gift
A federal judge has ordered a private school in Brooklyn, N.Y., to return a gift of nearly $3-million because the building it was intended to finance was not constructed by the deadline imposed by the donor. Despite the financial problems that returning the gift will cause the charity, the judge…
By Stephen G. Greene
Contributor
Heiress Bequeaths Major Paintings to 3 Museums; Other Recent Gifts
The philanthropist and art collector Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney, who died March 25 at age 89, has bequeathed 16 paintings by early-modern masters to three museums. The value of the works has been estimated as high as $300-million. The National Gallery of Art, in Washington, will receive eight…
Fund-Raising Fatigue Drove Environmentalist Into Business
Michael Martin cares deeply about the environment, but he never cared much for the fund raising required to keep a conservation group afloat. For eight years, Mr. Martin ran Concerts for the Environment, a Minneapolis non-profit group that organized free concerts nationwide. The concerts featured…
By Susan Gray
Contributor
Entrepreneur Brews Plan for Do-Good Businesses
Jeff Reifman has set out to be a modern-day Johnny Appleseed: He intends to start a crop of socially conscious coffeehouses, record stores, and other enterprises which will in turn create yet more businesses that do good works. Mr. Reifman has started his quest by creating Habitat Espresso, a…
By Susan Gray
Contributor
Business Makes Sure Coffee Growers Get an ‘Equal Exchange’
In the 1980s, three managers of a Cambridge, Mass., food cooperative were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the policies of the organization. The co-op had good intentions. It bought food directly from producers around the world in order to cut out distributors, whom the co-op felt jacked up…
By Susan Gray
Contributor
Company Taps Inner-City Web Talent
Ever since Nick Gleason spent a year in the early 1990s doing social work in Oakland, Cal., he has been determined to find a way to help poor people in the inner cities earn more money. Mr. Gleason, 30, considered starting a charity. He had worked for Habitat for Humanity in Oakland and thought the…
Environmentalist Makes His Cause Work for Him, Too
Tom Soto didn’t mind spending his early 20s as a penniless environmental activist. The charismatic leader was president of the Coalition for Clean Air in California, a board member of the California League of Conservation Voters, and board secretary of the Mono Lake Committee, which he helped…
By Susan Gray
Contributor
New Charity Hopes to Infuse Non-Profit World With Business Thinking
Vanessa Kirsch, founder of the national youth group Public Allies, remembers cringing the many times she heard foundation executives tell her: “Sorry, your group is just too successful. We can’t fund you.” Ms. Kirsch pounds a fist on a table at the recollection. “What kind of disincentive is that?”…
By Susan Gray
Contributor
Scientists Warned of Strings on Gifts
Corporate gifts to academic scientists often come with ethically troubling strings attached, according to a new study. In some cases, scientists who receive such gifts are expected to use them to test company products, for example, or to give the company the right to any patentable results produced…
Lilly: $128-Million to Higher Education
The nation’s wealthiest foundation, the Lilly Endowment, in Indianapolis, has announced that it will give $128-million to help colleges and universities. That amount is almost one-third of the $413-million that the $12.7-billion fund plans to award this year. The endowment awarded $42-million to…
Rhode Island’s Accidental Philanthropist
Alan Shawn Feinstein makes fighting hunger a way of life Last month, soup kitchens and food banks across the country announced that they had raised nearly $33-million during 11 days in February. The remarkable fund-raising blitz came after Alan Shawn Feinstein, a Rhode Island man who years ago…
By Susan Gray
Contributor