Bits: Ed Dept. Awards $32-million to Benetech
By Nicole Wallace The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a $32-million grant over five years to Benetech, a technology charity in Palo Alto, Calif. The money will enable Benetech to add more than 100,000 new books to its Bookshare.org online library for people who are blind or have other…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Medical-Simulation Program Wins $15.6-Million Grant
By Nicole WallaceA San Francisco company has created complex medical-simulation software that allows health-care professionals to forecast the effectiveness and cost of different treatments and to compare the approaches. Now the company is getting philanthropic help — $15.6-million from the Robert…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Tech Museum Honors Five Innovative Charities
By Nicole WallaceThe Tech Museum of Innovation has presented its annual awards honoring the creative use of technology to promote economic development, education, the environment, equality, and health. Each of the five winners — all nonprofit groups — received $50,000: Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Colonial Williamsburg Creates Digital Map
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is working hard to bring 18th-century Virginia to the Internet. The charity has embarked on an ambitious two-year project to create an online interactive map that will allow users to examine how the town changed during the 1700s and to learn about the people…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Giving Site Offers Donors a Satisfaction Guarantee
GlobalGiving — an online-donation site that matches donors with grass-roots social and economic-development projects in the developing world — is guaranteeing donations of up to $10,000. The Washington organization describes the move as a way to be more accountable to people who make contributions…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A California Grant Maker Offers Local Charities Free Consulting Help
Door of Hope, a nonprofit group that serves homeless families in Pasadena, Calif., needed help: Its donations had declined and the charity was in financial jeopardy. So a year ago its executive director, Tim Peters, began meeting with a management consultant who has, so far, ALSO SEE:ARTICLE: Five…
By Darlene M. Siska
Contributor
Foundations Slow to Adopt Technology
By Sam KeanGrant makers continue to lag behind other groups in adopting and using information technology, according to a recent survey. The Technology Affinity Group and the Council on Foundations co-sponsored the survey, which gathered results from 334 foundations. It was the third such survey…
By Sam Kean
Contributor
Company Says Hackers Stole Charity Data
By Sam KeanNinety-two nonprofit groups that use Convio, a company that helps charities raise money and send advocacy appeals online, had their accounts broken into in late October, the company has announced. All the attacks involved charities that use GetActive, a software company Convio acquired…
By Sam Kean
Contributor
Bits: Darwin, Australia, Library Wins Award From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Northern Territory Library, a regional library system in Darwin, Australia, has won the 2007 Access to Learning Award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, for its work bringing information technology to indigenous groups. The library system will receive $1-million from the…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Advocacy Campaign Tries Out Blog Ads
President Bush’s veto this month of a children’s-health-insurance bill inspired one charity, Families USA, to try a new advocacy-campaign tactic — advertising on blogs. Families USA, an advocacy group in Washington that promotes high-quality, low-cost health care, took out ads on 14 primarily…
By SUZANNE PERRY
Contributor
Surgeons Go Online for Help With Cases
When plastic surgeons in developing countries are confronted with difficult cases, they often don’t have colleagues nearby with whom they can consult. Interplast, a charity in Mountain View, Calif., is trying to lessen the effects of that isolation with an online system that lets those surgeons…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Google and YouTube Offer Charity Programs
Two leading Internet companies — Google and YouTube — have announced new efforts to help charities raise money and spread the word about their work online. Through the end of 2008, nonprofit organizations will be able to use the Google Checkout service to accept online contributions on their Web…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Two Organizations Announce Staff Changes
Two nonprofit technology groups are undergoing leadership changes: the Nonprofit Technology Network and the ePhilanthropy Foundation. On November 1, Katrin Verclas will step down as executive director of the Nonprofit Technology Network, a national organization for individuals, charities, and…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Charities Enlist Help to Review Legislation
Government watchdog groups have joined forces on a project that asks citizens to help investigate Congressional earmarks. Earmark Watch builds on databases that Taxpayers for Common Sense, in Washington, has created, which list thousands of measures inserted into 2008 spending bills by members of…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Offers of Technology Aid Often Go Unused
Few small grass-roots organizations in California take advantage of the free or low-cost services offered by nonprofit technology-assistance groups, or even know that those services are available, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of San Francisco’s Institute for Nonprofit…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Creative Online Campaigns Win ‘ePhilanthropy’ Prizes
The ePhilanthropy Foundation has presented its awards for excellence in nonprofit use of the Internet for fund raising and advocacy. Mama Cash, an organization in Amsterdam, received the award for best fund-raising campaign for its second annual Campaign 88 Days, an effort to educate the public…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor