Social Entrepreneur blog for the world changers
Heather Joslyn
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Homepage: http://philanthropy.com/news/
Posts by Heather Joslyn
Career Advice for the New Year: Live Discussion Tomorrow
Jan 11th
Take a rare chance to pose your stickiest questions — anonymously — about job hunting, recruiting, or managing to an executive recruiter and a nonprofit human-resources manager during our live online discussion tomorrow.
Join us on Tuesday, January 12, at noon U.S. Eastern time for an online edition of Hotline, The Chronicle’s advice column.
Online Giving Contest Draws Controversy
Dec 21st
An online contest run by the banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Company has drawn criticism for the way in which it conducted the event, which sought to give millions of dollars to 100 charities selected by votes from the public, according to The New York Times.
Three nonprofit organizations — Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project, and Justice for All, which opposes abortion — say they believe that the company disqualified them because it grew uncomfortable about associating the Chase name with their controversial missions.
The organizations say that until the company made changes to the contest, they appeared to be among the 100 most popular charities among voters. Shortly before the contest ended, drawing a half-million organizations and more than a million voters, Chase stopped giving participants access to voting information, and it has not disclosed how many votes the winners received.
Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for Chase, declined to give the Times vote tallies for any of the participating charities or to say whether any of the groups had been disqualified. Chase’s eligibility rules state that the bank can disqualify any participant. “We are proud that through this effort we’re giving $5 million to small and local charities,” he said, “raising awareness for thousands of charities and helping them gain new supporters.”
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Brooke Astor’s Son Sentenced in Larceny Case
Dec 21st
Anthony D. Marshall, who was convicted of stealing millions from his late mother, the philanthropist Brooke Astor, was sentenced today by a New York judge to one to three years in prison, reports The New York Times.
The sentence was for first-degree grand larceny — the most serious of 14 counts on which Mr. Marshall was found guilty — for giving himself a $1-million lump-sum raise for managing Mrs. Astor’s finances. Justice A. Kirke Bartley Jr. also gave Mr. Marshall one year on each of the other 13 charges, to run at the same time as the longer sentence. He said Mr. Marshall’s prison term begins on January. 19.
Of Mrs. Astor, the judge said: “What would she say if she were here? Would she blanch at the spectacle?” The late philanthropist, who died at age 105 in 2007, gave nearly $200-million of her fortune to a number of New York charities in her lifetime and promised millions more to organizations including the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art upon her death.
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White House AIDS Meeting Will Focus on the South
Nov 16th
President Obama’s top AIDS policy adviser will hold a rare local meeting today in Jackson, Miss., with activists, patients, and health-care providers about the need for increased federal money for HIV/AIDS care in the South, according to the Associated Press.
The meeting, said Jeffrey S. Crowley, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, is intended to spotlight the significant percentage of cases in the South and how the disease disproportionately hits members of minority groups.
The South leads the country in the percentage of deaths related to AIDS. Yet the region ranks last with regard to overall federal dollars spent per HIV-infected patient, at $6,565 a year, according to the Southern AIDS Coalition. In addition, say patients and activists, rural areas of the South often face a dearth of nonprofit and public services aimed at HIV and AIDS patients.
NAACP Chief Promotes Expansion of Group’s Constituency
Nov 3rd
Benjamin Todd Jealous, who took the helm last year of the century-old civil-rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is leading efforts to expand the organization’s reach beyond its core constituency of African Americans, according to The Washington Post.
The NAACP, which has 2,200 chapters, now includes under its umbrella a group comprising Bangladeshi Americans in Hamtramck, Mich.; chapters in Seattle and San Jose headed by Southeast Asians; and groups in the Southwest that include Latinos and Native Americans. The Post article highlights a chapter in a Maine prison made up mostly of white men.
Read The Chronicle’s recent profile of Mr. Jealous.
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National Group Votes to Take Charge of La. Acorn Affiliate
Oct 20th
The national leadership of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, voted this past weekend to take over the Louisiana chapter of the nonprofit group, in the wake of the firing last week of the affiliate’s top executive, according to The Times-Picayune, in New Orleans.
However, leaders of the Louisiana group, including recently dismissed executive Beth Butler, say they plan to separate from the national charity, setting up offices under a different name. The national organization declined comment on the Louisiana group’s plans.
Spending by Washington AIDS Charities Scrutinized
Oct 19th
One of every three dollars spent by the city of Washington on specialized AIDS organizations between 2004 and last year went to groups with financial problems or shaky records of service, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.
The Post will feature the results of its investigation all this week in a series that spotlights organizations that have received city money, such as the Miracle Hands Community Development Corporation, which has continued to receive robust support even though it has come under fire for mismanagement and spotty services, and the Women’s Collective, a group the newspaper says is well regarded by its clients but that has suffered cuts in support by the city.
Officials at Miracle Hands Community Development Corporation defended the group’s work, saying it was ideally positioned to deliver help to hard-to-reach populations.
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Fired Accountants Sue Feed the Children
Oct 19th
Two accountants who worked for the charity Feed the Children have sued the organization for wrongful dismissal after telling the group’s board members that a charity official tried to cover up the fact that the group owed $1.1-million in taxes, according to The Oklahoman.
Stephanie Dean and Stefani Hovarter, the accountants, said in a lawsuit filed October 14 in Oklahoma County District Court that the Oklahoma City charity fired them on September 29 after they informed the board of the “potential fraud or illegality in the failure to report and pay taxes owed to the state of Oklahoma.” The lawsuit also says that Christy Tharp, the charity’s chief financial officer, knew about the problem but failed to report it.
Officials from the charity have declined to comment on the lawsuit, and Ms. Tharp did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
Questions Raised About Nonprofit Executive’s Salary
Oct 19th
The salary paid to a Washington lobbyist whose nonprofit social-service group is the subject of concerns because of its management is under scrutiny by the Washington city government, according to The Washington Post.
The city requested this month that two group homes for developmentally disabled people run by Individual Development be put into receivership and that all referrals to the organization’s 11 facilities cease. The organization has paid lobbyist David W. Wilmot as much as $300,000 in one year for his work there, according to Internal Revenue Service records cited in the article. In addition, he has received a $300,000 loan from the nonprofit group, the Post reports.
Mr. Wilmot, who has been at the group’s helm for a decade, defended his salary and the charity’s work in an interview with The Post, pointing out the intensive care many of the organization’s clients require, and said he did not take a salary in his first couple of years leading the charity.
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N.Y. Group Expands Effort to Bring Older Workers to Charities
Oct 19th
ReServe Elder Services, a New York organization that seeks to match older adult workers with charities that need their services, is seeking to expand its work in additional cities, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The group, which has placed about 1,000 New Yorkers age 50 and up in part-time roles at more than 200 charities and government agencies, is also seeking to streamline its matchmaking process, starting accelerated training programs that educate groups of 10 to 20 retirees at a time for specific assignments.
For more on ReServe and programs like it that focus on older adults interested in nonprofit jobs, see this recent Chronicle article.
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