Muscular Dystrophy Association

Venture philanthropy is a growing movement that includes the idea of a nonprofit selling access to its data for profit. Nonprofits make investments that may pay dividends down the road, somewhat like what big academic institutions have been doing for years. It differs from traditional sources of funding for nonprofits, which most often depend on donations from foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals.

This form of venture philanthropy garnered attention last year when the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation sold its rights to royalties from Kalydeco for a landmark $3.3 billion.

The charity event Awesome Games Done Quick, a weeklong gaming livestream featured on the video-streaming site Twitch, raised more than $1.5 million for charity research earlier this month, benefiting the Prevent Cancer Foundation. How it did it says a lot about the value of embracing niche audiences online.

The weeklong gaming marathon was hosted at a physical location, but the momentum and energy behind the event was really online, where people could watch speedrunners play live, chat about it, donate money and potentially win some prizes.

As FundRaising Success gears up for the ninth annual Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence, take a look back at the 2010 Campaign of the Year from Muscular Dystrophy Association and DaVinci Direct.

As we gear up for this year's Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence competition, take a look back at the winner of the 2010 Campaign of the Year — as well as the Direct Mail: Renewal (fewer than 50,000 mailed) winner — the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Research Leaders campaign, submitted by DaVinci Direct.

Green Bay firefighters have raised thousands of dollars for a worthy cause by standing in traffic and collecting donations from passing motorists.They also unknowingly have broken the law.

Promotional products retailer 4imprint donated in-kind to 47 nonprofit organizations and charities throughout the U.S. and Canada in the third quarter of 2011 as part of its one by one(TM) philanthropic giving program. These donations come in addition to the 113 donations already made in the first and second quarters of this year.

Princeton University has announced a $10 million gift from longtime supporter Lynn Shostack to endow its Project X fund, which supports innovative projects in engineering.

Launched as a two-year pilot program, the fund provides small grants to engineers who wish to pursue projects outside their formal area of expertise or are too speculative to attract conventional funding. To date, the fund has supported research ranging from an exploration of techniques to sterilize hospital rooms to the development of an idea for playing highly realistic three-dimensional sound from conventional speakers.

BiddingForGood, the charitable e-commerce platform connecting consumers and marketers to thousands of nonprofit auctions, announced its unique, dynamic Goodometer(TM), a public display of the tangible impact the company delivers on an hour-by-hour basis. The company also announced it will license its trademark to any company that would like to create its own Goodometer(TM).

After 45 years promoting treatment and a cure for children he calls “my kids,” comedian Jerry Lewis announced Monday he is retiring as host of the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon that has become synonymous with his name. Lewis, 85, issued a statement through the association calling it “time for an all new Telethon era.”

Many benefactors hand out grants to Omaha-area organizations and programs every year. But few of those philanthropic groups are made up of teenagers. Youth in Philanthropy is a group of high school juniors and seniors who, as sophomores, participated in Youth Leadership Omaha, which is sponsored by Creighton University and the AIM Institute. The program’s graduates then move on to the Ambassadors alumni organization and its Youth in Philanthropy program.