NewsTrust - Philanthropy - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Back to school for the billionaires

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

iWatch News - By Rita Beamish - May. 04 (Special Report) - Microsoft chairman Gates, computer magnate Michael Dell, investor Eli Broad, and the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame have collectively poured some $4.4 billion into school reform in the last decade through their private foundations.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obamas Donated 14% of Their Income to Charity in 2010

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Chronicle of Philanthropy - By Lisa Chiu - Apr. 19 (News Report) - President Obama and his wife, Michelle, donated 14 percent of their income to charity in 2010, according to the couple’s 2010 tax return. The couple, which reported an adjusted gross income of $1.7-million in 2010, gave $245,075 to 36 charities.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Budget Plan Brings Big Changes to Tax Incentives for Donors

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Chronicle of Philanthropy - By Ben Gose - Feb. 14 (News) - President Obama proposed on Monday to sharply limit the value of charitable tax breaks taken by wealthy people.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Oh Yeah That: Haiti, Six Months Later

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

theawl.com - Jul. 12 (News Report) - "Jean Renald Clerisme, the presidential adviser, says that in any case the Haitian government hasn't received the money it was promised by the donors, which it would need to buy land and reconstruct. 'At a big donors' meeting in New York, we were promised $10bn (£6.64bn),' he says. 'But we haven't received even 2% of this money – how do you explain that?'"

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Know Before You Donate: Tips for Haiti Earthquake Relief

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New America Media - By Erin N. Marcus, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P. - Jan. 14 (News Report) - Before making a donation to Haiti earthquake relief efforts, make sure your money gets to the people who need it.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Despite Years of Crushing Poverty, Hope Grows in Haiti

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting - By Kira Kay, Jason Maloney - Jan. 11 (News Report) - In what is being hailed as a moment of hope for Haiti, as a confluence of security, brought by a large and aggressive United Nations presence, and relative political stability, under the tenure of President Rene Preval, has kept the country calm for a long-enough period that investors are tentatively starting to return to the Caribbean nation.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

In good we trust

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco - Jun. 07 (Special Report) - The Bay Area is inventing things again—not television or silicon chips or massive online auctions or the locavore lifestyle or the 140-character blurt, but whole new ways to make the world better.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Globally-Engaged Education

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Change.org - By Nathaniel Whittemore - Dec. 27 (News Analysis) - If you visit northern Uganda during the summer, you're likely to notice the surplus of young Americans running around Gulu town, seemingly all on official humanitarian business. If you listened in on their conversations, some would be talking about earned income strategies; some about microcredit; others about after school programs. And while their good intentions and passions are often much better developed than their skills and strategies for creating change, these young people constitute a potentially powerful force for good. The last few years have seen an explosion of education entrepreneurship, which is reshaping the American education system at every level and increasing student interest in social entrepreneurship. If this was a list of the forces that would shape social entrepreneurship most profoundly in the long-run rather than just in 2009, "globally-engaged education" would be right on top. There are a few factors driving the shift happening in education.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Hope in Crisis

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Culture11 - By Ericka Andersen - Nov. 24 (Special Report) - Although many Americans are concerned about the country’s looming economic crisis, the threat doesn’t scare employees and volunteers working tirelessly in American charities. The poor economy will no doubt put a strain on the year-end tallies for over 1 million private charities, nonprofit organizations and church congregations in the U.S. But, those I spoke with are prepared to weather the market storm.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Wikipedia volunteers reject dishonest donation drive

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Valleywag - By Owen Thomas - Nov. 07 (News Report) - Wikipedia, to cofounder Jimmy Wales's eternal dismay, is a nonprofit project rather than a lucrative private enterprise. The online encyclopedia, home to volunteer-written disquisitions on subjects like the umlaut in names of heavy metal bands, hopes to raise $6 million this year in a fundraising drive now featured in prominent ads on the top of most pages on the otherwise ad-free site. How's it going? An online thermometer, which has popped on and off the site, shows that the effort has raised $2,155,883 towards its $6 million goal. But that figure is meant to deceive potential donors about the level of Wikipedia's grassroots support. It started out $2.1 million ahead, by counting previously made donations from large organizations like the Sloan Foundation, which has already agreed to give Wikipedia $3 million over the course of three years.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Money buys happiness -- if you spend on someone else

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Canada.com - By Maggie Fox, Will Dunham, Todd Eastham - Apr. 19 (News Report) - Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else, researchers reported on Thursday. Spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found. Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others -- even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

School for social change

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:40:37 -0700

Ode - By Fred De Vries - Oct. 17 (Special Report) - Behind the public library, at the corner of Commissioner and Sauer streets, the problems of Johannesburg--and other cities on the African continent--are sharply defined. Shops are boarded up. An apartment building with broken windows screams urban blight. The residents were evicted several days ago "for hygienic reasons." These newly homeless families have created a kind of campsite on the sidewalk with mattresses and rope. Toddlers crawl through the rubble. Some 30 metres away at No. 54 stands the City and Community Development Association (CIDA) City Campus: a glass-and-steel beacon of hope. It is a business school for South African youth who are on the verge of falling through the cracks. The students, selected based on their school exam results and leadership qualities, can get a degree in business administration for next to nothing, largely funded by sponsor companies and benefactors. After four years of study, the graduates have good prospects of a well-paid job. Sello Kgosimore was one of the first students to graduate from the program. His mother was a cleaning woman for a white family in Johannesburg. He never knew his father. His illiterate grandparents raised him on a farm where they worked as farm labourers. As a youngster, Kgosimore dreamed of going to school, getting a car and buying a house for his mother. But his scholarship applications to universities were repeatedly rejected. "CIDA was my only study option," he remembers, "so it was crucial to me to succeed." With his diploma under his arm, he got a job as an auditor at DaimlerChrysler. Sello Kgosimore is now driving a Mercedes and wearing a tailored suit.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Gates funds HIV/AIDS vaccine research

Sun, 20 May 2007 16:03:24 -0700

The Money Times - By Anshul Sood - May. 20 (News Report) - The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has received a five-year, $9.7-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study ways of preventing HIV/AIDS transmission to children via breast milk. The endeavor supported by the grant will be the first of its kind to support eight basic and pre-clinical research studies exploring critical questions about breast milk transmission of HIV, pediatric immune responses, identification of appropriate vaccine candidates for pediatric populations, and clinical-trial optimization. It will also support up to three Phase I clinical trials of vaccine candidates - that is, testing in a relatively small group of humans, usually healthy, to learn how the vaccines affect the body and to establish that the vaccines are generally safe. The program shall fund clinical trials utilizing products that have been safely tested on adults previously. The best products, as advised by an advisory board, will move forward. The trials shall be conducted in selective study sites complying with the highest ethical standards. The volunteers will be offered high standard care and support at that site and participants will be followed for up to two years once entering the study.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer