Grants

For the second consecutive year, as part of its Environmental Champions campaign, the Sempra Energy Foundation will contribute $1 million to non-profit organizations with an environmental focus.
 This year’s initiative will extend to organizations in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The Salesforce.com Foundation, the global leader in integrating philanthropy and business, today announced its 2010 Technology Innovation grant recipients, representing organizations from around the world working on issues ranging from poverty to human trafficking to helping at risk children. The Technology Innovation grants are awarded to visionary nonprofit organizations who are customizing their use of salesforce.com's technology to support their and others' abilities to implement their social change missions. This year's 15 recipients received a total of $240,000 and access to a dedicated salesforce.com employee volunteer to share their expertise and best practices

Charities nationwide are again facing financial strain because of state budget crises—and many states expect their woes to continue into 2012 and 2013.

Nearly every state expects revenue in the 2011 fiscal year, which started in July, to exceed collections from 2010, but state officials worry that revenue growth won’t be enough to replace lost federal stimulus dollars.

Kristin Mugford Elected to Gift Fund Board of Trustees BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Fidelity® Charitable Gift Fund ('Gift Fund'), the nation’s largest donor-advised fund program and third largest public charity1, today reported that its donors made more than 152,000 grants totaling $531 million to nonprofits nationwide during the first six months of 2010, up 27 percent and 16 percent, respectively, from the same period last year. Both of these totals represent the strongest first half for outgoing grants in the Gift Fund’s 19-year history2. 'Our donors continue to give at record levels, reflecting their ongoing commitment to supporting the causes

The Corporation for National and Community Service awarded its new Nonprofit Capacity Building Program grants totaling $1 million to increase the capacity of nonprofits to improve lives in communities facing economic hardships. The two-year grants were awarded to five organizations to build and implement performance management systems to help achieve greater results for nonprofits in diverse communities.

Corporate profits are on the rebound, but most big businesses say it will be some time before they can give as much cash to charities as they did before the recession, according to a survey of the nation's largest companies by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and USA TODAY. More than 100 answered the survey, and the Chronicle analyzed tax data for a total of 162 companies. A majority of companies said they expect their charitable donations in 2010 to be about the same as in 2009 � a year in which cash giving fell by 7.5%. Of the 102

Eleven California nonprofits, from park groups to hospitals and an incubator for minority restaurateurs, have received grants totaling more than $1.1 million from the Hearst Foundations in New York.

The Hearst Foundations are private philanthropic organizations that operate independently from the Hearst Corp.

Bank of America Corp. on Thursday will commit $10 million in grants to nonprofit organizations that lend to small and rural businesses.

A host of nonprofit lenders, such as Community Development Financial Institutions, or CDFIs, have been struggling to make loans throughout U.S. communities. Those entities typically receive their lending funds from federal agencies, but recession-driven funding restraints have limited the ability of these organizations to lend.

Blame hard times, the spread of social media or the incentives created by a competition, but things have gotten ugly in an online contest among cultural organizations to win a $200,000 grant from American Express.

On Thursday night Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, one of nine nonprofit groups competing for the grant, posted a Twitter message saying: “I know we’ve asked before, but we really need to beat StoryCorps. We NEED your HELP. Show some love & vote for the arts.”

As a member of the grantmaking committee of the Future Fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, Dan Koenig, a lawyer at Connors Morgan Sinozich, learned a lot and made valuable contacts that have benefited his work as a member of the board of directors of Seven Homes, a local nonprofit that places children in foster homes and received a $1,000 grant from the Future Fund in 2009.