Impact Investing: 5 Lessons for Putting Your Money Where Your Mission Is
To make sure their investments don’t conflict with their grant-making goals, foundations need to challenge their own assumptions and those of their advisers.
By Alex Haber
Contributor
John Oliver and Charity Team to Undo Millions in Medical Debt
In connection with a segment on his satire show Last Week Tonight that skewered debt-acquisition companies, the comedian partnered with nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt to buy and forgive nearly $15 million owed by patients for hospital treatment, The Guardian and the Associated Press write.
N.Y. Contests Company’s Plan to Buy Nonprofit Nursing Homes
The state attorney general’s office is seeking to block the purchase by a commercial firm that is already under investigation over a transaction that led to another nonprofit health-care facility being turned into luxury apartments, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Financial Woes Beset ‘Panama Papers’ Journalism Nonprofit
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which dramatically raised its profile this year by shepherding the release of documents showing how the world’s wealthy and powerful conceal their assets, is cutting back in the face of a financial pinch that is escalating tensions with its nonprofit parent, the Center for Public Integrity, writes The New York Times.
Abuse Claimants Seek Access to Minn. Diocese’s Charity Assets
The federal judge overseeing the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’s bankruptcy is weighing a call by victims of clergy sexual abuse to include hundreds of millions of dollars from church-affiliated charities among its assets, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Scandal Wracks Fla. Private School Funded by Koch Brother
Mining and energy magnate William Koch has fired the top official at the Florida academy he launched in 2011 amid allegations of sexual harassment, kickbacks, excessive spending, and grade-changing, The New York Times writes.
Scrutiny Leads Mo. Hospital to Curb Debt-Collection Suits
A nonprofit Missouri medical center that drew media and Congressional attention for suing thousands of low-income patients over unpaid bills has overhauled its financial-aid and collection practices, ProPublica and NPR report.
Women Primed to Give Big — if Nonprofits Are Willing to Change
Women have the wealth and ambition to be a major force in philanthropy, but charities have to recognize and respond to big changes in the demographics of donors.
By Megan O’Neil
Contributor
Cash Giving From Businesses Edges Up, Chronicle Survey Shows
Gilead Sciences, Walmart, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and ExxonMobil led the way, reflecting a strong presence throughout the list of financial institutions and drug companies.
By Alex Daniels and Peter Olsen-Phillips
Big Medical Charities See Yield From Biotech Investments
Groups like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust are becoming important sources of capital for fledgling firms working on new drugs and diagnostic tools and are seeing big profits on some investments, Reuters reports.
Survey Finds Pa. Charities Paid Dearly in State Budget Fight
Pennsylvania nonprofits shed hundreds of jobs and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to interest payments on bridge loans as a result of a budget impasse that blocked the flow of state money for six months last year, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Aid Charity Swears Off E.U. Money to Protest Migrant Deal
Doctors Without Borders says it will refuse all future funding from the European Union in protest of the bloc’s pact with Turkey to take back migrants landing in the Greek islands, writes The Wall Street Journal.
New Health Networks Championed by Obama Denied Tax Exemption
The Internal Revenue Service turned down a bid for tax-exempt status by an accountable care organization, saying it did not serve an exclusively charitable purpose, creating a major hurdle for the new type of medical network promoted by the administration as part of its health-care reform, The New York Times writes.
27% of Groups Scored by Charity Navigator Will See Ratings Change
The watchdog is revising its system for evaluating charities’ financial health, adding new criteria and changing others.
By Eden Stiffman
Senior Editor
Charity Navigator Unveils Changes in Rating System
The watchdog group will switch Wednesday to a new set of measurements that tweaks how it assesses the financial health of more than 8,000 nonprofits, including changes in how it weighs overhead costs, The New York Times reports.
Drug Firms Subpoenaed in Review of Ties to Co-Pay Charities
Federal investigators’ demands for documents from Biogen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Gilead Sciences come amid a widening inquiry into the pharmaceutical industry’s relationship with nonprofits that take donations from the companies to help patients pay for medications, Bloomberg reports.