Minnesota Council on Foundations Blog – Philanthropy Potluck

Philanthropy/nonprofit stories in local newspapers/media:

• NWF Wants To Know, What’s the Big Idea?
  Crookston Times: Breakthrough ideas with the potential to be profitable business ventures are being sought for the upcoming IDEA (Ingenuity Drives Entrepreneur Acceleration) Competition. IDEA is a project of Ingenuity Frontier, a collaboration of partners joined by a common purpose – to grow the economy of Northwest Minnesota by outfitting the next generation of homegrown innovators for success in the global marketplace.
• U Gets 3 Fs: Foundation, Football And Fundraising
  Minneapolis Star Tribune: Cancer research and a new football stadium were key in helping the University of Minnesota Foundation raise a record $289 million.
• Could Stagnant Mileage Deduction Drive Volunteers Away?
  MinnPost: The Internal Revenue Service sets the standard deduction for business driving based on an annual cost study — but it takes an act of Congress to change the mileage deduction for volunteers. The business mileage rate is 58.5 cents a mile. The volunteer mileage rate is 14 cents a mile. Since 1997, the rate has increased more than 85 percent. The last congressional hike for the volunteer mileage rate came in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, when it went from 12 cents a mile to 14 cents.
• Bremer Grant To Help Fund Milroy Center
  Marshall Independent: A $50,000 grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation will help get a proposed wellness center in Milroy off the ground.

National:

• More than $110 Million Raised For Disasters In Asia
  Chronicle of Philanthropy: As charities make the transition from providing food and medicine to helping rebuild homes and schools, some say the money raised may not meet all the longer-term needs.
• A Gloomy Giving Outlook: Many Businesses Expect Donations To Remain Flat This Year
  Chronicle of Philanthropy: Some corporate leaders said they may be forced to scale back their giving this year and next because of falling profits.
• America’s ‘Philanthropic Divide’ Isn’t Getting Narrower
  Great Falls Tribune: The annual report by the Big Sky Institute for the Advancement of Nonprofits documented that the nickname “Treasure State” may once have been appropriate based on the state’s resource wealth, but not when it comes to the state’s receipt of philanthropic giving. Recently released data show that instead of getting better, the situation has been getting worse.

Local philanthropy/nonprofit items:

• Hospitals Line Up For Philanthropic Booster Shots
  MinnPost: Nonprofit hospitals appear to be increasingly reliant on wealthy individuals and foundations for major building projects. As these big institutions look for large sums of money, that’s probably not great news for other nonprofits trying to get in line for a philanthropic booster shot. The Minnesota Council on Foundations released a capital and endowment campaigns report that said Minnesota health-care organizations had $131 million in current capital/endowment campaigns and $133 million in requests, more than 40 percent of the total.
• Blandin Pushing Ultra-High-Speed Internet for Rural Minnesota
  MinnPost: Anyone who understands that the Internet is a platform, social media are fundamentally shifting the way we connect and communicate with one another, and that application and computing functionality is rapidly shifting to the cloud, will instantly appreciate the efforts of a broadband public policy initiative by the nonprofit Blandin Foundation in Grand Rapids, Minn.: Blandin on Broadband.
• Early Ed Pilots Off To Encouraging Start
  Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial: Several small but significant moves have recently been aimed at eventually assuring that all Minnesota 5-year-olds can come to kindergarten ready to learn. A foundation is being laid for a Minnesota-made approach to early education that delivers on its advocates’ promises — one on which the state’s policymakers can build. Pilot programs and charitable funding can only go so far. They can start Minnesota down the path to becoming a state in which no child starts kindergarten behind. But only state policymakers — the governor and Legislature — can go the distance.
  > Star Tribune: Parents Get Help in Choosing Child Care
• Grants Help Education Gain for All
  Bemidji Pioneer: Much has been said about preparing our workforce for 21st century jobs. Most will agree that can only come through high education — both at the four-year academic degree level and at the two-year community or technical college level. But success at that level must start with preparation at lower levels. Grants from Blandin Foundation and the Otto Bremer Foundation are more in line with a principle of preparing those most in need to succeed beyond high school, in either two-year or four-year higher ed programs.
• Revisiting Rushford
  KAAL-TV: Almost one year ago, the floods nearly wiped out the entire community of Rushford. But now business owners say things are getting better. August 19 will mark the one-year anniversary. The Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation toured the area today to see the progress. They were also one of the first organizations to help the community bounce back. The foundation donated around $800,000 to help.
• Medtronic Grant to Flood Victims
  Rochester Post-Bulletin: The $25,000 grant from Medtronic Foundation for Rushford area residents affected by the flood of a year ago has been given out to 254 residents, said Nancy Brown, Winona Health Foundation executive director.
• St. Cloud Looks To River
  St. Cloud Times:One of the world’s most renowned natural resources cuts through the heart of St. Cloud. But a visitor staying at a downtown hotel or dining at a restaurant might not even know it. Most of the city’s buildings face away from the Mississippi River and offer limited, if any, views of the waterway. A number of communities in the 10 states that border the Mississippi are rediscovering the river and embracing it with new development, walking and biking trails, and public spaces close to the waterfront. The Central Minnesota Community Foundation and other local groups are sponsoring a series of meetings about the river starting next week.

National philanthropy/nonprofit news:

• Three Years After Katrina
  New York Times editorial: The pace of recovery is slowing in New Orleans as the city approaches the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina late this month. With a mélange of federal, state, city and private recovery efforts under way, it is difficult to grasp what is really happening in the stricken city.
• Charity Sites That Let Donors Call the Shots
  Wall Street Journal: The average donor has very little power over where the money they give eventually ends up. If you want to exercise the kind of control that deep-pocketed philanthropists enjoy, consider donating to one of a new breed of charities that allow donors to browse descriptions of specific projects online and fund them, in whole or in part.
• Making A Child’s Life Better In Every Corner
  New York Times: Caryl M. Stern, chief executive of the United States Fund for Unicef, discusses philanthropy and the state of the world’s children.
• N.F.L. Wants Exemption From Revealing Executives’ Salaries
  New York Times: Such information must be made public through the I.R.S. Form 990 because the N.F.L. headquarters in New York has nonprofit status, but the league is asking Congress for an exception to the requirement of publicly disclosing the names and salaries of employees at N.F.L. headquarters who make more than $150,000 a year. The N.F.L. argues that it is not a charity that receives public donations, but rather it is a trade association financed by the 32 teams; the team’s owners can ask for the salary information at any time.