philanthropy

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Google Offers $10M for Ideas to Change World

Project 10^100 seeks big ideas

(Newser) - Google, named for an astronomically large number, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a call for ideas that could improve the lives of astronomically large numbers of people. Project 10100—pronounced '10 to the 100th'—seeks submissions from the public for world-changing ideas that the company will donate $10 million...

Wall St. Disarray Leaves Mess for Nonprofits

Charitable giving suffers as firms fold, merge, cut back

(Newser) - The victims of the Wall Street tsunami aren't all investment bankers and McMansion brokers. Kids with diabetes, residents of low-income housing, and fans of classical music are among those who could take a hit as nonprofits that depend on philanthropy from financial services firms absorb the fallout, the Boston Globe...

At $50M, Oprah Stars on Celeb Giving List

Barbra Streisand ($11M), Paul Newman ($10M) among other 8-figure standouts

(Newser) - Parade's annual list of the 30 most generous celebrities is out, and among the best philanthropists are:
  • Oprah Winfrey: $50.2 million for education, women and children's advocacy.
  • Herb Alpert: $13 million for music education.
  • Barbra Streisand: $11 million for the environment, women's issues, AIDS research.
  • Paul Newman: $10 million
...

Broad Donates $400M for Gene Research

Record gift helps Harvard/MIT venture get to root of disease

(Newser) - Eli and Edythe Broad plan to donate $400 million more to the Massachusetts foundation they started 4 years ago to research the genetic causes of disease, the Boston Globe reports. “It's the biggest investment we've ever made,” said Broad, whose gift to the joint Harvard/MIT venture is the...

Muslim Charities Seek US Seal of Approval

Better Business Bureau will vet groups to encourage donors

(Newser) - Muslim charities will voluntarily open up their books to the Better Business Bureau in the hopes of gettiing donors to reach for their wallets again, the Wall Street Journal reports. A coalition of groups requested the BBB's seal of approval to counter the stigma felt since the Sept. 11 attacks....

Gates Urges Companies to Get Creative to Improve Lives

He ruminates on how to tweak market forces to help more people

(Newser) - Bill Gates tweaks his corporate colleagues with an essay in Time urging businesses to look harder for ways to extend the benefits of capitalism to a greater portion of the global population. As a philanthropist, he says, he recognizes the need for nonprofit work, but as a businessman, he knows...

Bloomberg, Gates Take On Smoking
Bloomberg, Gates Take On Smoking
Jul 23, 2008 1:20 PM CDT

Bloomberg, Gates Take On Smoking

Billionaires donate $375M to global anti-tobacco campaign

(Newser) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their piles of money and pouring $375 million into a global effort to cut smoking. The two philanthropists—who have a combined worth of more than $70 billion—say the new effort will target developing countries where tobacco...

Investor Templeton Dies at 95

He founded huge investment firm, awards for spiritual research

(Newser) - Influential investor and philanthropist John Marks Templeton has died at age 95. The founder of Templeton Mutual Funds, one of the biggest investment funds in the world, died in the Bahamas, the Washington Post reports. In 1999, Money magazine called him "arguably the greatest global stock picker of the...

Teary Farewell for Gates
 Teary Farewell for Gates 
Jun 27, 2008 4:18 PM CDT

Teary Farewell for Gates

Microsoft CEO salutes founder, leaving after 33 years, for 'enormous opportunity'

(Newser) - Microsoft celebrated Bill Gates’ last day as a full-time employee today, the Seattle Times reports. More than 800 employees, family members and friends shared memories at the company’s corporate conference center in Redmond, Wash. CEO Steve Ballmer bid a tearful farewell to his longtime friend: "We've been given...

Prize Philanthropy: A Winning Concept

Donors make innovators compete for cash

(Newser) - When the X-Prize foundation offered $10 million to anyone who could develop a viable commercial spacecraft, it didn’t just send innovators scurrying, and it didn’t just grab headlines. It also began the next big trend in philanthropy. Donors are in love with prize philanthropy, Portfolio reports, and causes...

Make Dams and Food, Not War and Ethanol
 Make Dams and Food,
 Not War and Ethanol 
OPINION
May 22, 2008 4:55 PM CDT

Make Dams and Food, Not War and Ethanol

A dollar of prevention is worth many times that in cure, researcher pleads

(Newser) - Ethanol is among the "poor solutions to high-profile problems" researcher Bjorn Lomborg blasts in the Wall Street Journal. According to calculations by his Copenhagen Consensus, “carbon mitigation policies” return only 90 cents for every dollar spent; in contrast, he writes, $1 billion spent on tuberculosis would result in...

Shakira Shakes Cash Loose for Charity
Shakira Shakes Cash Loose
for Charity
May 18, 2008 11:30 AM CDT

Shakira Shakes Cash Loose for Charity

Pair of star-studded shows take on Latin American poverty

(Newser) - Shakira, Ricky Martin, and dozens of other Spanish-speaking pop stars performed at simultaneous fundraising concerts in Mexico City and Buenos Aires yesterday, reports the LA Times. “It is doable, we can really eradicate poverty,” said the Colombian singer, whose shows benefited Alas, a charity that helps Latin America's...

Harvard Gets $100M From Rockefeller

Gift will fund study-abroad and arts programs

(Newser) - Harvard fund managers rejoice! The university will get to stock its coffers, already $35 billion strong, with a $100 million gift from David Rockefeller, the largest ever by an alumnus, the New York Times reports. The money will be used to expand the university's arts program and help more students...

Peru Distributes '$100 Laptop'
 Peru Distributes '$100 Laptop' 
Apr 24, 2008 3:18 PM CDT

Peru Distributes '$100 Laptop'

One Laptop per Child effort faces on-the-ground test

(Newser) - One Laptop per Child got a bumpy start, with the “$100 laptop” soaring to $188, for-profit competitors snatching customers, and developing countries hesitating to buy. But the true test for the nonprofit comes now, as Peru prepares to send 486,500 computers to its poorest schoolchildren. The country faces...

Bill's Charity Linked to Tibet Crackdown

'Philanthropic dynamo' took '05 donation from shady Internet firm

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton's strong public stance against the crackdown in Tibet flies in the face of her husband's past fundraising ties in China, reports the LA Times. At the crux is a 2005 speech the former president gave for which he received an undisclosed donation to his charitable foundation—from Internet...

Hockney Donates 40-Footer to Tate

Enormous work would have fetched millions on open market

(Newser) - David Hockney has donated his largest-ever painting to London's Tate museum rather than sell it for a presumed price of several million dollars, reports the Times of London. Hockney, one of the world's foremost figurative painters, said donating the 40-foot-long Bigger Trees Near Warter was a "duty," and...

Robin Williams, Wife Divorcing
 Robin Williams, Wife Divorcing
Mar 27, 2008 7:19 AM CDT

Robin Williams, Wife Divorcing

Comedian's wife files to end 19-year marriage

(Newser) - Funnyman Robin Williams and his wife are splitting up after 19 years of marriage, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The divorce petition, filed by Marsha Williams in San Francisco, cited irreconcilable differences. The pair met when Marsha worked as a nanny for Williams' son from a previous marriage. She later...

With Big Give , Oprah Shows Smaller Side
With Big Give, Oprah Shows Smaller Side
TV REVIEW
Mar 21, 2008 6:26 PM CDT

With Big Give, Oprah Shows Smaller Side

Reality charity show provokes sniffles, but writer calls it vain

(Newser) - The new ABC show Oprah’s Big Give might be exactly what it claims—an epically scaled, nurturing-obsessed cult of personality—but the format is old and unsuitable, Nancy Franklin writes in the New Yorker, and the star is self-obsessed. The competition charity program sometimes reduced to her tears, Franklin...

Oprah Makes Giving Competitive
Oprah Makes Giving Competitive
Mar 2, 2008 12:42 PM CST

Oprah Makes Giving Competitive

New show's contestants will compete to be the best philanthropist

(Newser) - Heavyweight philanthropist Oprah Winfrey will outsource giving to a whole new level tonight: Her new ABC reality show, “Oprah’s Big Give,” makes charity a competition. Contestants compete to raise money for needy folks and causes, and each week the lowest-earner is given the boot, reports the New ...

The House of Mirthlessness
The House of Mirthlessness
Feb 28, 2008 12:19 PM CST

The House of Mirthlessness

Drowning in debt, Edith Wharton's Mass. estate faces foreclosure

(Newser) - Edith Wharton's masterpieces include The House of Mirth, but the story of her own house is much less joyous. Her estate in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, currently a museum called the Mount that chronicles her life and career, is drowning under some $9 million in debt. Now, writes the Berkshire ...

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