The Daily Tell

A recent donation from a foundation will help establish an autism center at MassGeneral Hospital.

The $29 million donation is been given by Nancy Lurie Marks and her foundation, and will help establish the Lurie Family Autism Center at the hospital. The center will base itself on the hospital’s LADDERS program, which helps deal with autism in young people.

Lurie Marks said that it has been a "lifelong dream" to help establish a center that can treat people with autism with compassion and dignity.

"I believe it is so important to address their many lifelong needs, from the medical care of the child or adult, to learning to find an effective way to communicate, to planning lifetime living and learning opportunities, to advocating for families," Marks said.

Founded by Dr Margaret Bauman in 1981, the LADDERS program covers a variety of disciplines, including neurology, developmental pediatrics and gastroenterology. Many of the children helped by the program are grown up now, which is where the Lurie Family Autism Center will come into play.

The center will provide for a number of areas, including occupational and physical therapy. Furthermore, it will help create a two-year fellowship program for physicians and researchers who deal with autism. The fellowship will give young physicians the chance to work more closely with patients who have autism.

The hunt is on for a director for the new center, who will hold an endowed chair at the Harvard Medical School. The director will be responsible with guiding the center toward providing new treatments for people with autism.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average ratio of children with autistic disorders is one of every 150. That ration can be as much as one in every 100, to one in every 300 children.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded a three-year, $5-million grant to a New Mexico-based program that interactive technology and information on medicine to provide specialty care for patients with serious, chronic conditions who live in rural and underserved areas.

The grant will be awarded to Project ECHO – an acronym for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes – a program based out of the University of New Mexico’s Department of Internal Medicine that "uses evidence-based medicine and telehealth technology to bring specialty care for chronic complex diseases to patients in rural and underserved areas," according to a press release announcing the grant.

Project ECHO also used parts of its funding to train doctors, nurses and physician’s assistants to address the needs of those living in rural and underserved areas with the hopes of creating better care in impoverished areas than is currently available with the current health care.

"Millions of Americans suffer from debilitating, chronic illnesses that could be treated if resources were available," said Nancy Barrand, a special adviser for program development at the RWJF. "The ECHO model teaches us that we can leverage our existing health care resources to provide safe, effective care to patients in their communities, regardless of where they are."

The three year grant provided by the RWJF will support the development of a new program modeled after ECHO’s current program to treat other serious diseases such as diabetes, substance abuse, asthma, rheumatology, high-risk pregnancy and other as well as others. The new program’s development will begin at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"We are extending the capacity and reach of the health care system by engaging more colleagues in highly needed specialties," said Sanjeev Arora, M.D. and Project ECHO’s director as well as the executive vice chairman of UNM’s Department of Medicine. "We believe that this approach can help bring best practice specialty care to millions more Americans."

A former vice chairman of the War Production Board and chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation as appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt, the RWJF was founded by Robert Wood Johnson and is the U.S.’s largest philanthropic organization that devotes itself exclusively to addressing pressing health and health care issues facing Americans.

If GiveAndDate.com has any say in the matter, the latest trend in dating is marriage – marriage between online dating and philanthropy, that is.

The website, which launched a beta version in May, aims to take the stigma out of online dating by pairing it with philanthropic organizations.

"By marrying philanthropy and flirting, GiveAndDate.com targets socially conscious singles looking for something beyond typical online dating," the website reads.

The website features the picture and profile of a different single male and female from New York each day. Within a limited time frame, visitors can give a minimum donation of $1 to "pass a note for a chance at a date."

Although the minimum donation is small, the website encourages visitors to donate more by showing the recipient of the note how much was donated.

If the person writes back, the two people can communicate as often as they want, free of cost.

GiveAndDate.com is currently partnered with four charities – Animal Haven, Solar One, the Council on the Environment of New York City and Williamsburg Collegiate – but continues to seek additional partnerships.

Over half of the money generated by users goes to charity, and the rest goes to supporting the website.

GiveAndDate.com also features a blog, and holds singles mixers that serve as fundraisers for its partner charities.

The site was founded by Charley Miller, who came up with the idea for the site while he was a graduate student in interactive game design at New York University, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported.

"Even if you don’t find the perfect date, you will raise money for charity," Miller told the Chronicle. "We do really feel like we can lower the stigma of online dating if people feel they’re flirting in the name of philanthropy."

According to Muhammad Yunus, a little can go a long way.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist is credited with the development of microfinance, in which small loans are given to underserved people to help them start their own businesses.

The concept has taken on many permutations since Yunus created Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, what is considered the first microfinance company.

For example, some nonprofit organizations have changed the concept to microdonations, in which a large volume of small donations can help a significant amount of people, as more donors can afford to give.

Yet some nonprofits are working with the original microfinance and microloan concept, such as United Prosperity, in which donors can act as guarantors for a microfinance loan to an underserved entrepreneur.

Through the United Prosperity website, donors can view the profiles of poor entrepreneurs who are seeking loans, and donate small or large amounts of money (there is no minimum donation amount) to the business or entrepreneur of their choice.

When a set amount of donations is reached, United Prosperity issues a cash-secured guarantee to a bank on behalf of the microfinance institution (MFI) that uploaded the entrepreneur’s profile. The MFI is then issued a loan from a local bank, which then lends the money to the entrepreneur.

After the entrepreneur repays the loan to MFI, which in turn repays the bank, the donor’s guarantee is returned and can either be withdrawn or can be used for another loan.

The value of this concept is both in the microfinance and the guarantor aspects – because loan guarantees are only a fraction of the total loan amount, a small donation goes a longer way than it would in the traditional donation format.

United Prosperity is the first person-to-person loan guaranteeing website, and aims to become a self-sustaining business with the objective of combating global poverty.

Even after death of actor Paul Newman, his Hole in the Wall Camps Foundation is still hustling, as it has awarded $1 million towards the creation of a new camp located along the Colorado River.

The funding given by Hole in the Wall to the Colorado-based Roundup River Ranch be allocated directed toward the camp’s $20 million capital campaign.

Including a recent string of donations received by the camp, Roundup River Ranch has pushed its fundraising totals to more than $18 million. Construction on the camp is expected to begin in the fall of 2009 with the hope of being finished by 2011.

"This grant signifies dedication from the Hole in the Wall Foundation in assisting Roundup River Ranch to move to the next level of sustainability for future operations," said Alison Knapp, founder and board chair of Roundup River Ranch. "The grant also provides great momentum for us to complete the capital campaign and bring us that much closer to breaking ground this fall."

Located on 85 acres of land along the Colorado River east of Glenwood Canyon, the camp hopes to become a member of the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, which oversee the eleven camps that specialize in accepting children with serious or life threatening illnesses.

The Roundup River Ranch will look to provide a rewarding camp experience for children who may not be able to do so otherwise at no cost to their families. An on-site medical center staffed by The Children’s Hospital of Denver will also be constructed to ensure the campers safety.

According to the Foundation’s website, Hole in the Wall Camps began as one camp – named The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp – that was founded by Newman in 1988 as a camp for children battling cancer. After expanding admission to children with other types of life threatening diseases, 10 additional camps were created to create the world’s largest group of camps of its kind that have served more than 164,000 children.

The Walmart Foundation’s Green Jobs Training Initiative has presented a $550,000 grant to the Conservation Corps of Long Beach (CCLB) to assist and encourage job training for California’s at-risk youths.

The CCLB, which will partner with the Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Network, will use the funding to hire at least 20 local "at-risk" young adults at a local Walmart while also hiring two full-time supervisors.

The funding will also fund the "weatherizing" of 30 low-income homes by installing "drought resistant landscapes" and solar panels to minimize energy costs, according to Walmart’s website.

"The Walmart Foundation is committed to supporting job-training programs that address the need for a green job-ready workforce that will put more people back to work," said Kimberly Sentovich, the vice president and regional general manager for Walmart’s California stores.

The grant was presented to the CCLB after they were selected by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a non-partisan organization made up of the 1,139 Mayors of cities with populations of more than 30,000 people, as one of six organizations to receive grants that would be used to "support local job training and youth employment experience in conservation projects," according to Walmart.

"With the Walmart Foundation Green Jobs Training Initiative grant, the Conservation Corps of Long Beach will expand its green job training program and hire at least 20 local at-risk young adults and two additional full time supervisors," said Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster. "This grant will directly result in putting more people to work while supporting the City’s sustainability goals."

The CCLB specializes in training at-risk young adults in the Long Beach area so they can master the basic skills for them to get hired at a job and make a living for themselves

The Walmart Foundation is the philanthropic wing of the retail store that supports programs that encourage education, workforce development, environmental sustainability, and health and wellness. In 2007, the Walmart, Sam’s Club and the Walmart Foundation donated over $295 million programs in various communities across the country.

Sustainability has become a large part of many multi-national companies as they try to be better stewards of the planet, and for one cement company, that means using wind energy to help reduce its carbon footprint.

Cemex, a Mexican-based cement company, has been part of the Eurus wind farm in Oaxaca, Mexico since its beginning as a way to decrease its carbon output by using the renewable energy produced by the farm’s turbines.

As a joint project with the Spanish firm Acciona, the farm is expected to have 167 wind turbines in the Tehuantepec Isthmus area of Mexico, which is known for its wind capacity. The $500 million project is expected to produce enough energy to power a Mexican city of 500,000 residents.

With Cemex using 25 percent of the energy produced by the farm will go to power its Mexican facility, the company is attempting to decrease its carbon output.

Green Momentum reported earlier this year that this Cemex environment initiative has allowed the company to improve its ability to cut CO2. In its annual sustainability report, Cemex said it was able to reduce its CO2 emission by 15.8 percent over 1990 levels, according to Green Momentum.

Lorenzo H. Zambrano, chairman of the board and CEO of Cemex, said all of this is just part of a larger attempt to improve the company’s impact on the environment.

"We are committed to becoming more sustainable by using alternative fuels and applying more efficient processes to save energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and contributing to a cleaner environment," he said. "We are determined to include renewable electricity sources in our energy mix, and feel very proud of the Eurus wind farm."

As the "viral sharing" trend continues to boom, many businesses are beginning to use online videos for marketing and promotional purposes.

Now nonprofit organizations have started to join the game, using viral video sharing to promote their cause, as seen recently in the widely popular "JK Wedding Dance" video which was linked to a domestic abuse charity.

Yet one nonprofit, World Flix, took the viral video trend to a new level – the organization based its entire premise on that one strategy.

World Flix, whose mission is to "change the world one video clip at a time," uses online videos to empower visitors to donate to a variety of humanitarian causes.

The nonprofit is based on microdonations, so visitors only have to give small amounts to make a difference. This widens the scope of possible donors, enabling more people to be able to afford donations.

The mission, which the organization defines as "e-philanthropy for the next generation," relies on the founding principles of bringing humanitarian issues to the public through the use of online video clips, enabling more people to "know the joy of giving" by allowing microdonations, and providing 100 percent transparency to donors about where their money is going.

The organization’s CEO, Laika Grant Mann, stumbled upon the idea behind World Flix while studying at Georgetown University’s Nonprofit Management Executive Program. She knew she wanted to find a way to make philanthropy more accessible, and was inspired when she saw her sons film a short video for YouTube.

"This is the chapter in my life to change the world," Mann told the Santa Cruz Mercury News.

Donors can visit worldflix.org to watch videos of the causes, which include preventing blindness in Tibet, providing clean water to Haitian children, and donating mosquito nets to a hospital in Uganda. They can then donate to any of the causes, or upload videos of their own.

With the number of online users expected to reach 2.2 billion around the world over the next five years, according to Forrester Research, online philanthropy initiatives such as World Flix have the potential to reach a significant amount of people.

Looking to encourage growth and education while highlighting the positive aspects of its community, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice has awarded more than $2 million in grants to 25 local nonprofit organizations.

The organizations, which work in various different fields throughout the community including arts and culture, education, and environmental services, were each given a portion of $2.1 million in grants, the largest total amount of funding ever awarded by the Foundation in a single grant cycle.

Among the organizations that will receive funding will be Florida West Coast Public Broadcasting (WEDU), which was awarded $286,000 to produce 12 new episodes of A Gulf Coast Journal with Jack Perkins, a local award-winning program filmed by the studio.

The Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Sarasota-Manatee will receive $144,928 over the next two years to help increase its social service features for its youth, family, and senior clients through various state and federal funding opportunities.

Coastal Behavioral Healthcare will also receive $155,761 with the help of the Community Health Endowment Fund to help purchase and maintain technology to convert its health records from print to an electronic system.

"This infusion of operating cash into our local nonprofit community will help agencies bridge funding gaps and make up revenue shortfalls while they focus on their long-term strength and sustainability," said Teri A Hansen, the president and CEO of the Foundation. "Our community needs these nonprofits now more than ever, and our Board of Directors sought to invest the kind of help that the organizations need to remain viable."

According to its website, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation is the largest community foundation in the state of Florida with assets of nearly $200 million. Since its founding in 1995, it has awarded more than $90 million in grants to various organizations in the areas.

It seems the recession has not stopped the world’s wealthiest individuals from donating generous amounts of money to philanthropic causes, as there are 14 living philanthropists who have donated $1 billion or more in their lifetimes, Forbes reported.

Leading the list was Bill Gates, who has donated $28 billion so far, mostly through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community.

In second place was hedge fund manager George Soros – who recently donated $35 million to fund a back-to-school shopping program for disadvantaged New York children – with a total of $7.2 billion in philanthropic donations.

Scientist Gordon Moore placed third with $6.8 billion – most of it as stock in the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation – followed by Warren Buffett in fourth place with $6.4 billion.

Eleven of the philanthropists on the list are billionaires, while three donors are not counted as billionaires largely as a result of their donations.

Interestingly, 10 of the 14 most generous philanthropists are from the United States, which only claims 45 percent of the world’s billionaires as residents, Forbes reported.

In addition, all but one of the philanthropists on Forbes’ list are self-made.

"People who make their own money, entrepreneurs, are the most generous," Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy, told Forbes. "They understand they’ve been very fortunate, and their good fortune in society depended on the schools they attended and their communities."

The Forbes data is consistent with an earlier study from Ledbury Research, which found that the majority of wealthy individuals consider philanthropy a "key expense" that they would maintain despite the recession. In addition, the survey found increased philanthropic activity among self-made individuals as compared to those with inherited wealth.