Troy, Mich.

Troy, Mich., July 16, 2009 — My last post in February about the foundation’s response to the economic downturn described our plan to review requests from our capital challenge grantees to help them complete their capital campaigns. We have since extended additional assistance in a number of forms – from providing more time to complete the campaign to pursuing a different mix of revenue sources within the fundraising goal.

TROY, Mich., April 9, 2209 — Signaling the importance of affirming and strengthening philanthropic support for nonprofits in times of crisis, the trustees of The Kresge Foundation awarded nearly $73 million in grants in the first quarter of 2009. The awards represent the largest quarterly commitment in the 85-year-old foundation's history. It also reflects the foundation's continuing effort to build-out its longer-term strategies to fortify the essential components of healthy, vibrant communities while identifying ways to help improve the life circumstances of low-income citizens in the here-and-now.

It’s been a long wait, but business-intelligence technology finally is within the reach of nonprofit organizations. Business enterprises have had these tools to play with for some time, but many nonprofit fundraisers are new to the game and are left scratching their heads, wondering what to do with them. Since nonprofits are without established best practices, they first need to get a clear understanding of business intelligence and start asking themselves some questions. They should find out whether the staff is effectively managing the donor pipeline, if the board has clear insight into the organization at all levels, whether real-time campaign-performance monitoring