Utah Preschool Program Yields First ‘Pay for Success’ Payout
Goldman Sachs will reap financial gains for funding a Utah program that showed positive results in keeping kids out of special education. It is the first time a U.S. social-impact bond has paid off for the investor, The New York Times writes.
Schwab Report Shows Where Donors Gave $1 Billion in Fiscal 2015
The donor-advised fund’s first giving report shows that on average donors gave 20 percent of their assets over the past five years.
By Alex Daniels
Contributor
Pa. Charities Face Crunch as State Budget Fight Stretches On
With Pennsylvania’s budget impasse now in its fourth month, state-funded social-service groups are bracing for a cash crisis that could soon force many to curtail or suspend programs, writes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
City Opera Creditors Back Plan to Revive Moribund Company
One of two groups competing to reorganize the bankrupt New York City Opera has won the crucial backing of the entities owed millions of dollars by the arts organization, The New York Times writes.
Princeton Endowment Returns Best Yale’s and Harvard’s
The 12.7-percent investment gain beat Ivy League peers that have reported results so far and vaulted Princeton into fourth place among the biggest U.S. college endowments, Bloomberg reports.
Study Raises Questions About Colleges That Go Nonprofit
An education researcher argues in a new report that some commercial colleges that change to nonprofit status behave like “covert for-profits” and generate financial benefits for their backers, The Chronicle of Higher Education writes.
World Bank Charts Decline in Ranks of the Extremely Poor
The international development lender said Sunday that the number of people living in extreme poverty is likely to drop this year to less than 10 percent of the global population for the first time, the Thomson Reuters Foundation reports.
Borrowed From Business: Nonprofits Try Their Own Version of Wall Street-Style Earnings Reports
Some charity leaders are bullish on quarterly updates like those that businesses are required to do but acknowledge the risks involved with flinging open the books.
By Megan O’Neil
Contributor
Surviving Rough Waters: How the Nature Conservancy Bounced Back From Scandal
A decade ago, the group was rocked by investigations by Congress, the IRS, and the EPA, and donations withered. A structural overhaul — and a big dose of transparency — helped restore the public’s trust.
By Rebecca Koenig
Contributor
Brookings Scholar Resigns in Flap Over Corporate Funding
An economist long affiliated with the Brookings Institution has resigned from the Democrat-leaning think tank after being assailed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren for research she contends was influenced by a corporate sponsor, writes The Washington Post.
New York’s Gotham Chamber Opera Shutting Down
The troupe, which has won acclaim for producing small-scale works in a variety of unconventional venues, announced Thursday that it would close following the discovery of a previously unseen deficit, writes The New York Times.
Planned Parenthood Funds Intact in Adopted Spending Bill
With Democrats joining a portion of the Republican majority, Congress cleared a stopgap spending measure Wednesday that will keep the federal government running through December 11 and fully funds Planned Parenthood, reports The Washington Post.
Hearing Raises Issue of Planned Parenthood Leader’s Salary
U.S. News & World Report and The New York Times examine Cecile Richards’s compensation following a hearing Tuesday in which House Republicans raised the issue.
Opinion: Economics of Insurance Doom Obamacare Co-ops
A Bloomberg columnist writes that the economics of health insurance stack the odds against financial sustainability for the nonprofit coverage co-ops established under the Affordable Care Act, four of which have gone under since the start of the year.
Minnesota Hospitals’ Charity-Care Costs Plunge 22%
Medical centers in the state saw the biggest drop in the cost of unpaid care in 20 years in 2014 as a lower uninsured population sent charity-care expenses down sharply, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Grassley Demands Details on Red Cross Response to GAO Review
Senator Charles Grassley is asking the Government Accountability Office for more information on what he termed the American Red Cross’s “apparent unwillingness to fully cooperate” with a federal review of its emergency relief work, ProPublica reports.