UPCOMING EVENTS
Unless otherwise indicated, to rsvp for any of these events, contact Madia Logan.

AGF Programs

June 28, Evaluation: Philanthropy’s Dirty Little Secret If you’re curious about how your colleagues approach grantee evaluation, then this informal discussion session is for you. Join us for an exploration of questions like: How important is program evaluation to your staff/trustees? Is accountability to stakeholders/stockholders one of the factors that influence your organizations desire for evaluation data? How do you determine what information you need to determine if the grantee is doing a good job? Thursday, June 28, 2007 | 11:30am-1:30pm | Arizona Community Foundation (Open to AGF Members Only)

July 20, Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon: Join your colleagues for a refreshing trip to Flagstaff where we’ll gather at the rustic Flagstaff Arboretum for a lunch followed by a movie and discussion of the role of philanthropy in small communities. The DVD we’ll be viewing is entitled Clear Cut: The story of Philomath, Oregon. Friday, July 20, 2007 | 11:00-2:00 | Flagstaff Arboretum (Open to AGF Members Only)

Other Events of Interest...

June 5-6, Corporate Philanthropy Summit, New York City. Open to Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy members and Corporate Giving Standard subscribers. For details visit www.CorporatePhilanthropy.org.

June 14 – 17, Philanthropy: Finding Your Path conference presented by Shaking the Tree Foundation, The Tarrytown Estate, Tarrytown, New York. Topics to be addressed include exploring personal values and philosophy, finding funding opportunities, funding social entrepreneurship, family foundations, social investments, and getting younger family members involved. Note: This event is for wealth holders managing significant assets contemplating their charitable intent, single family office executives and family foundation trustees/directors. For additional information and program requirements, contact Maryann Fernandez (646) 839-5914 or visit the event Web site at .

June 27-29, National Center for Black Philanthropy, Inc. Sixth National Conference on Black Philanthropy For more information, go to http://www.ncfbp.net/.

Aug. 7-9, Council to Sponsor Conference on Rural Philanthropy  
Learn more about the challenges facing rural America and what philanthropy is doing to address them this August 7-9 in Missoula, MT.

PHILANTHROPY NEWS

Corporate Giving Statistics
The Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy recently released the results of their 2006 Corporate Giving Standard survey results. In 2005, 103 companies completed the online survey, including 40 of the Fortune 100 companies. Total contributions amounted to $10.5 billion in cash and product giving.

• Median total giving = $28.95 million
• Median total giving as a percentage of Revenue = 0.14%
• Median total giving as a percentage of pre-tax profit = 0.86%
• Median total giving per employee = $636

100 Best Corporate Citizens 2007
Environmental responsibility. Corporate governance and ethics. Fairness toward employees. Accountability to local communities. Providing responsible products and service to customers. Maintaining a healthy rate of return for investors.

Those are just some of the challenges of responsible business in the 21st century, challenges that are being met head-on by the 100 companies listed. These are the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2007—companies that are proving that good corporate citizenship and good business go hand in hand.

The 100 Best Corporate Citizens list takes a systematic approach to assessing the social and environmental characteristics of a good corporate citizen. The list is drawn from approximately 1,100 publicly held U.S. companies in the Russell 1000, S&P 500 and Domini 400 indices, relying on extensive data collected by KLD Research & Analytics, an independent investment research firm in Boston.

Now in its eighth year, the 100 Best Corporate Citizens list was developed by Business Ethics magazine, with statistical analysis designed by Sandra Waddock and Samuel Graves of Boston College. This is the first year the list has been published in CRO magazine, which salutes the 100 Best companies for their leadership roles in corporate citizenship. Click here to view the full list.

Philanthropy Can Eclipse G8 on Poverty
Wealthy philanthropists have the potential to do more than the Group of Eight leading nations to lift Africa out of poverty, according to Jeff Sachs, special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general.

Mr Sachs told the Financial Times that the financial clout of the likes of Microsoft’s Bill Gates and international investor Warren Buffett, who have pledged billions of dollars to global health and education, could eclipse flagging governmental initiatives.

“The Rockefeller Foundation was the world’s most important development institution of the 20th century, and the Gates Foundation can be that of the 21st century,” he said. “Gates can make a huge difference if they hit the right model.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was already the biggest charitable group in the world before Mr Buffett last year pledged to give it the bulk of his $40bn-plus (30bn, 20bn) fortune.

Mr Sachs proposed that other, less wealthy people could contribute to a new private sector foundation that could help speed the elimination of diseases and tackle specific challenges. To read the full article, click here.

Foundations Account for Bulk of IRS Penalties in Compensation Review
Dan Prives has analyzed the Internal Revenue Service’s recent report on executive compensation at nonprofit organizations and found that private foundations accounted for the bulk of the penalties levied by the tax agency against organizations that it said paid their leaders overly high salaries or otherwise use tax-exempt assets for their personal benefit.

Mr. Prives, who has worked in finance jobs at several nonprofit groups, writes on his blog, Where Most Needed, that private foundations received four-fifths of the $21-million assessed by the IRS against nonprofit groups following its recent investigation. That is a significant share, he says, given that foundations accounted for only about one-fifth of the organizations that were examined by the IRS.

“The misbehavior on the part of the private foundations must have been really substantial,” writes Mr. Prives.

Digging deeper in the report, Mr. Prives found that most of the abuses at foundations was the result of loans to officials — often in the form of using foundation collateral to secure a personal loan. Read The Chronicle’s article on the IRS report. To gain access to this article, you need a Chronicle subscription or a one-day pass.

Donor Advised Funds are Growing Exponentially
Assets of the nation’s largest donor-advised fundes reached $19.2 billion in 2006, up more than 21% from $15.9 billion a year ago, say a new Chronicle of Philanthropy survey. Officials at many funds say a strong economy and heightened interest in giving accounted for the gain. The funds are offered primarily by financial companies and community foundations, but some other charities, such as Jewish federations and universities also offer them.

Rural areas get fewer charitable dollars per capita than urban parts of the country: Now some charities are trying to tackle this philanthropic divide.

Behind the gap are issues of perception and geography. Most foundations are based in urban centers and have a limited picture of what constitutes "rural," says Karl Stauber, chief executive of Northwest Area Foundation of St. Paul, Minn. Rural America includes four types of regions, all of which can have economic needs, he says: scenic areas that attract tourism, areas within commuting distance of metropolitan centers, agricultural regions and isolated parts of the country such as mountains and deserts. Click here to read the full WSJ article.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Taking Philanthropy Seriously: Beyond Noble Intentions to Responsible Giving
Many acts of charitable giving fail in their stated goals and some are actually harmful. In Taking Philanthropy Seriously, the authors explain why this state of affairs exists. They outline solutions, ranging from those that equip philanthropists to do good work to those that build a domain of philanthropic knowledge, ethical codes, and best practices. Attention is also given to considering recipients' needs, frustrations, and hopes for support. Philanthropic leaders disclose instances of both good and compromised work, show how ethical concerns are secondary to "success" in philanthropy, and reveal strategies to promote effective and ethical conduct.

Contributors are Lynn Barendsen, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William Damon, Akash Deep, Peter Frumkin, Howard Gardner, Laura Horn, Carrie James, Leslie Lenkowsky, Paula Marshall, Jennifer Menon, Sarah Miles, Liza Hayes Percer, Rob Reich, Tanya Rose, Paul G. Schervish, James Allen Smith, Nick Standlea, Thomas J. Tierney, and Susan Verducci. William Damon is Professor of Education at Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Susan Verducci is Senior Research Associate at the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University and coordinator of the GoodWork Project. Click here to learn more.

Listen, Learn, Lead: Grantmaker Practices That Support Nonprofit Results This publication by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, reports on their Change Agent Project which is an effort to collect information from nonprofit leaders and grant makers about how foundations can help charities become more effective. The report also includes five profiles of foundation leaders working to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of grant making. To obtain a copy of the report, visit www.geofunders.org.

Board of Boards CEO Conference Report
On National Corporate Philanthropy Day, February 26, 2007, thirty-five top CEOs convened to discuss Imperatives for Corporations Investing in Society. This report offers insight into the key issues and best practices shared by the CEOs in attendance.  To download a free copy, click here.

Child Well-Being Index 2007 Reports
Following an upward swing that peaked in the early part of this decade, the progress being made towards improving American children's quality of life has come to a standstill, according to the Foundation for Child Development's 2007 Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI), an annual comprehensive measure of how children are faring in the United States.

This stall can be found across the majority of the CWI's seven domains, with the exception of children's health, which continues its dramatic decline, and in the area of children's safety. The safety domain continues its encouraging upward trend, buoyed by a general decline in teen pregnancy, violent crime, and drug and alcohol use among youth. Viewed over the last six years, the Index CWI as a whole has dipped and risen by only fractional amounts with the exception of an upsurge in 2002, attributed to community and family response to the 9/11 tragedies. Click here to read Child Well-Being Release

 

 

EDUCATION RESOURCES

Reducing U.S. High School Drop Outs by 20% Would Yield $18 Billion Economic Benefit
“Is excellent education for all of America’s children a good investment?” asks a new report from Columbia University. According to researchers, 23 percent of males and 15 percent of females leave the education system without a high school degree. If served effectively, these dropouts would each add $65,000-$150,000 to our nation’s economy in wages and reduced health care, crime and public services expenditures. Reducing America’s high school dropout rate by just 20 percent would create a net economic benefit of $18 billion. The report accounts for the costs of providing a quality education using four well-known and successful education intervention models.  For the complete report click here.