Education

Fewer people gave money to colleges in 2009, and those who did gave less than usual, a study of annual funds has found.

Participation in annual funds has been on the decline for a few years, but 2009 marked the first time that annual-fund revenue dropped as well, according to the 2009 Index of Higher Education Fundraising Performance. The report examined donations to 61 public and private colleges during 2009. Although the negative trends were more marked at public colleges, there were few positive signs for either group.

The study was done by Target Analytics, which is part of Blackbaud, a provider of software to nonprofit groups.

The United Health Foundation is providing more than $1.2 million in college scholarships to more than 200 students from diverse, multicultural backgrounds this coming school year.

Winston Wallin's college scholarship program isn't just about writing checks -- although he has poured about $20 million into it. Wallin has personally met the students, recruited business supporters, and set up a system to track students' grades and overall performance going back more than a decade.

This brand of hands-on philanthropy is creating a buzz in the world of giving. Dubbed "engaged philanthropy,'' it calls upon donors to give their time and talent to organizations, and to stick with them longer than a funding cycle.

WASHINGTON, May 28, 2010—Hundreds of children's literacy supporters attended Reading Is Fundamental's Gift of Reading Gala on May 26th at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. For more than 43 years, RIF has helped children discover the joy of reading by bringing books to life. This year's event raised more than $410,000 to benefit children's literacy programs nationwide.

The gala brought together distinguished policymakers, as well as corporate and community leaders who share RIF's vision of a literate America. Award-winning host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, Liane Hansen, was master of ceremonies at the gala. During the ceremony, stories from RIF alumni demonstrated the power that being able to choose a new book can have on children.

CHICAGO, Ill. – May 24, 2010 – The Walmart Foundation today announced a $1.2 million dollar donation to the National Energy Education Development Project (NEED) to install solar panels on 20 schools in five cities across the country. The five cities taking part in the program are Chicago, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Seattle.

“The Walmart Solar School program will help educate the next generation on the opportunities and benefits of using more renewable energy,” said Margaret McKenna, president of the Walmart Foundation. “This program aligns perfectly with Walmart’s sustainability commitment to involve our communities and customers in our environmental and social efforts.”

Exxon Mobil recently gave the University of Texas at Austin a $1,002,329 matching donation.

Exxon Mobil matched 3-to-1 the monetary gifts made to the university by its employees and retirees over the past year.

This is the first time the oil and gas corporation's yearly match has exceeded $1 million, according to a news release.

The San Francisco-based Jim Joseph Foundation has announced grants totaling $33 million to three leading training institutions for Jewish educators.

The grants to the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC), and Yeshiva University is in addition to $12 million the foundation awarded to the same institutions in September 2009 to help them weather the recession. The latest funding will be used to provide financial aid for students pursuing education degrees or certification in programs that prepare them to work with Jewish youth and young adults, and will help each institution to plan, staff, and implement new and enhanced programs designed to attract more educators to the field.

The United Negro College Fund has announced fellowship awards to eighteen African-American students through its Social Entrepreneurship K-12 Education Fellows Program, the inaugural project of UNCF's Social Entrepreneurship initiative.

Supported by a $1.08 million seed grant from the Walton Family Foundation and funding from the Wachovia Wells Fargo Foundation, the fellowship program is designed to build a pipeline of talented African-American college graduates equipped to enter careers that apply innovative, sustainable models to elementary and secondary education reform. Although research has demonstrated that reform efforts are more likely to be successful when their leadership includes members of groups likely to benefit from reform, organizations dedicated to school reform often lack diversity in their leadership.

While newsrooms cut back on staff and funds to cover stories, nonprofit news outlets have been proliferating at a remarkable rate, picking up where newspapers left off with donations and financial backing from foundations.

This week, the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University's Teachers College launched The Hechinger Report, a news outlet that covers national education issues through a website and collaborations with other news sources, according to a press release on Poynter.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today released an interim report summarizing responses to compliance questionnaires sent to 400 public and private colleges and universities in October 2008. Colleges and universities make up one of the largest nonprofit segments in terms of revenue and assets.

The interim report contains preliminary information on the respondents’ organizational structures, demographics, exempt and unrelated business activities, endowments, executive compensation as well as governance practices. Respondents are divided into three groups based on size of student population.