Mark of Distinction

Until June 30th Markham Winery is holding a contest awarding two people $25,000 to accomplish a project in their city. You can nominate someone or submit a proposal on their website. On July 27th, 10 projects will be chosen and posted on their website. The public with then vote to determine each winner. (Submitted by Laurie Shulman from Marina Maher Communications)

Social Media Makeover by CommuniCause

Vote for a nonprofit that you think needs a social media makeover. The winning nonprofit will get a free $25,000 makeover. Check out the CommuniCause website for details and to vote. This campaign is going on from now till July 31st, 2009. (Submitted by Jeremy Hilton)

What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you’ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: check out BuddyPress.

BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as easy for anyone to create a social network as it is to create a blog today. There’s been an explosion of social activity on the web, it’s probably the most important trend of the past few years, but there’s been a dearth of Open Source tools that enable the social web.

In WordPress we have a robust and extensible base that can scale to many millions of users, and BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you’ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.

I don’t think BuddyPress will be something you use instead of your existing social networks, I mean all your friends are already on Myspace, but if you wanted to start something new maybe with more control, friendlier terms of service, or just something customized and tweaked to fit exactly into your existing site, then BuddyPress is a great framework to use. Maybe even someday you’ll be able to connect your BuddyPresses to each other and to the existing monolithic social networks.

This is just a 1.0 release and it’s not for everybody yet, for example it currently requires using MU which is a bit trickier to get set up than regular WordPress, but regardless I’d recommend diving into the community at BuddyPress.org, which is great example of the software in action.

Here’s Andy’s official announcement post.

Jazz at Lincoln Center is in settlement talks with a Pennsylvania insurance executive it says did not follow through on a five-year, $500,000 donation commitment, according to Bloomberg.

The organization sued AV International chief executive Andre V. Duggin earlier this month, claiming he still owes $327,500 on his 2005 promise, made in writing two weeks after he joined the renowned New York venue’s board, and subsequent additional pledges.

In other arts news, the Financial Times reports that budget cuts at British museums have not affected attendance. More than a third of 312 museums and galleries surveyed by the nonprofit Art Fund saw gains in visitors between September 2008 and last March, and 38 percent experienced no change.

Also, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians have agreed to forgo promised wage and pension hikes, making what amounts to a $1-million donation to the organization, The Washington Post reports.

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Major international humanitarian agencies are running appeals seeking millions of dollars to aid Sri Lankans fleeing the fighting as the country’s army seeks to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels, reports Reuters.

Camps and hospitals are reportedly bursting at the seams as civilians, many of them badly injured, stream out of the war zone. Critical needs include shelter, food, water, sanitation, clothing, bedding, mosquito nets, and psychological support.

CARE is appealing for $9-million for Sri Lankan aid, and Save the Children is running a $3.65-million campaign. All told, the United Nations, the federal government, and some 40 aid agencies are seeking $155-million but so far have received less than a third of that.

A joint paper by the San Francisco Foundation and the city attorney’s office recommends major changes among the Bay area’s nonprofit groups as a gaping municipal deficit crimps charities’ budgets, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The study suggests ways the city can reduce the nearly $500-million a year it spends on some 800 social-service providers as it seeks to close an unprecedented $438-million budget gap. It recommends that the city help some of San Francisco’s 7,000 nonprofit organizations cut costs, merge, or close.

“There are going to be changes in the nonprofit landscape — not all are going to survive,” the foundation’s executive director, Sandra Hernandez, said.

Los Angeles education philanthropists Bruce and Martha Karsh have pledged $3-million toward a plan to open new charter schools in the area, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The donation is the second major recent gift to help charter-school operator KIPP LA reach a goal of expanding in the next five years to 14 elementary and middle schools in the area from the current three. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation gave $12-million last year.

The nationwide KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) network runs 66 schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia, many of which have achieved significant academic gains with largely poor and minority student bodies, the newspaper reports.

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The Greater Boston Guild for the Blind, the city’s only adult day health-care center for the visually impaired, will stop serving clients tomorrow, a victim of rising costs and declining donations, The Boston Globe reports.

The facility in the West Roxbury area will officially wind up operations in June. Its 15 employees will be laid off, and clients are being referred to other adult day centers across the region.

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In a Wall Street Journal opinion column, the leaders of two of the nation’s largest minority organizations write that business philanthropy can play a “make or break” role in meeting public needs during the economic crisis.

National Urban League head Marc Morial and Janet Murguia, chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, recall the surge in giving by individuals and companies during the Great Depression and cite recent campaigns by Avon, Comcast, and UPS in urging businesses to help fill the gap left by squeezed government budgets and nonprofit groups facing fiscal struggles.

Richard Pratt, a Polish emigre who became one of Australia’s richest men and a leading international patron for Jewish causes, died of cancer Tuesday at age 74, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports.

Mr. Pratt, who immigrated to Australia with his parents on the eve of World War II, made his estimated $3.8-billion fortune as the head of Visy Industries, a global packaging and recycling business. The Pratt Foundation, which he founded in 1978 with his wife, Jeanne, has given some $140-million to charities in Australia, Israel, and the United States.

Nonprofit social-services groups in 19 states said in a recent survey their payments from state or local governments have been received later than they were due, in some cases forcing charities to cut jobs or services, notes Government and Politics Watch, The Chronicle’s online column.