The Daily Tell

The Ford Foundation has committed $85 million to advancing rural land rights and helping rural and indigenous communities become more involved in stopping climate change.

The New York-based foundation hopes that the grants, to be used over a five-year period, will help people living in low-income rural communities in countries including Brazil, Indonesia, China, India and Mexico, as well as those living in grasslands, forest and marginal agricultural land in Eastern Africa and Central America. The aim of the project is to help these rural and indigenous populations take a more active role in preventing and reversing global climate change. By engaging these communities, the foundation hopes to reduce poverty and increase quality of life.

"This work heralds a new way of thinking about natural resources and sustainable development. It unlocks the potential for people, especially rural and indigenous communities, to be a part of the solution," said Ford Foundation president Luis Ubiñas.

The initiative will work to strengthen the voice and influence of rural leaders, encourage investments that benefit rural communities and demonstrate effective methods of community management. Since more than 30 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emission comes from the rural sector, helping these communities get involved in sustainable climate change solutions has enormous implications for the worldwide effort to end global warming.

"As sustainable development programs are ramped up globally, we have the responsibility of ensuring that the people who have historically lived in and preserved forests and natural resources are included in the global dialogue about the future of their lands," added Ubiñas.

The Ford Foundation was founded by the Ford Motor Company in 1936 thanks to an initial grant of $25,000 by Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford. Today, the foundation makes grants in all 50 states and supports programs in more than 50 countries.

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation has announced $3.2 million in grants to be used for bettering the arts community in Flint, Michigan.

The city is perhaps most famous for being the hometown of controversial filmmaker Michael Moore, who frequently shoots pieces of his documentaries there. The town’s history has been a checkered one, with the city reaching a peak population of approximately 200,000 in 1960 thanks to its location near the then-booming General Motors factory. It was then that the Flint Cultural Center, the benefactor of the Mott Foundation’s grant, was founded.

Since the 1960s, Flint has suffered from depopulation as the American auto industry has dwindled, only recently beginning to recover – but the city’s cultural and artistic touchstones have weathered every difficulty. Now, thanks to the Mott Foundation’s generous grants, as well as recent investments in Flint’s institutions of higher learning and three major GM facilities, the arts scene will continue to thrive.

The Flint Cultural Center was built entirely with private funds and draws visitors from more than half of Michigan’s 83 counties. It encompasses the Flint Institute of Arts and the Flint Institute of Music, which will receive Portions of the Mott Foundation’s $3.2 million in grants. The FIA will receive $1.25 million, and the FIM, including the Flint School of Performing Arts, the Flint Youth Orchestra and the Flint Youth Theatre, will receive $650,000.

The remaining $1.35 million will go to the Flint Cultural Center Corporation, a nonprofit organization established in 1992, which supports more than half a dozen independent Cultural Center partners.

"Mott’s funding for the various institutions that make up the Flint Cultural Center is part of a larger foundation effort to support Flint’s assets as the city continues to pursue its promise as a healthy, vital place to live and do business," said William S. White, president and CEO of the Mott Foundation.

Ever since he left his native country of Nigeria in 1974, Dr. Godwin Onyema, M.D., has dreamed of giving back to the nation where he was raised.

Onyema, who received his medical degree from a university in Nigeria, has been a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Chicago, Illinois, for more than 30 years. All that time, he held on to his vision and struggled to find the funds, time and space to build a world-class medical facility in his home state of Anambra, Nigeria.

Political and economic crises stymied his efforts until 1999, when a transition back to democracy brought greater stability to Nigeria. It was then that Godwin, together with his four children, Gozie, Afam, Ebele and Ncheta, decided on a formal plan of action. He assembled a team of brilliant workers and dedicated himself to making his dream a reality.

The result is the GEANCO Foundation, which derives its moniker from the first letter each Onyema family member’s name. The foundation is also a pro bono client of Mayer Brown and Ernst & Young, as well as being aligned with several prestigious universities, including Harvard, Georgetown and the University of Michigan. In addition to building the hospital in Anambra – which will be named after Godwin’s father, Augustine – the foundation is committed to the development and management of athletic, education and medical facilities throughout Nigeria.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa – nearly 1 in 5 Africans is Nigerian, though the life expectancy is only 47 years. The country is also home to the third-largest number of impoverished people in the world. Nigerians receive little in the way of developmental assistance, and the country’s health system recently ranked 187 out of 190 countries in a report by the World Health Organization.

The Augustine Memorial Hospital, which aims to address these problems, will provide the people of Nigeria with an outpatient facility, an AIDS, malaria and infectious disease treatment center, maternal and pediatric care units, and living quarters for the hospital staff. The second stage of development will add a surgical facility, a triage center, a trauma center and an emergency room, as well as various specialties such as dental surgery, ophthalmology, cardiology, urology and orthopedics. Finally, a third stage will add a cancer center, a burn unit and a dialysis clinic, among other specialized services. All of these services are sorely needed in West and Central Africa.

The doctors sitting on the GEANCO Foundation’s board have a combined medical experience totaling more than 200 years.

Mayer Brown was recently recognized for its Pro Bono work for LawWorks.

On July 14, East Harlem got a makeover as more than 600 New York-based Digitas employees gathered to renovate and refurbish 10 community and child care centers run by the Union Settlement Association, East Harlem’s largest and longest-serving nonprofit social services organization.

Community Service Day (CSD), as we refer to the annual outing, is an integral part of our agency culture at Digitas. Over the years, we’ve contributed to a variety of local organizations. This year, we chose to work with Union Settlement, in great part because their good work extends throughout the community – from child care to senior care to adult education.

600 Digitas employees, 300 gallons of paint, 277 plants, 40 garden boxes, 25 carpet tiles and eight hours later, Union Settlement’s high-traffic facilities were completely renovated and revamped to benefit the thousands of people who use the buildings every day. The labor, donations and fundraising services provided by Digitas enabled a year’s worth of renovation, decoration and outdoor installation projects.

David Nocenti, Executive Director of Union Settlement Association, attested to the renovations. “The transformation of our facilities in just an eight-hour period was simply amazing. From the freshly-painted rooms, to the beautiful new murals, to the new playground equipment, to the stunning new plantings in the two gardens, to the new stage and tool shed and staff lounge furniture and art room lockers, to the entire day of activities in Jefferson Park, we feel like the very lucky recipients of our own ‘Extreme Makeover’ (except that we did not have to move out for a week while it happened!”

CSD is a powerful example of what can be accomplished when a company’s employees work together for a common cause. Digitas holds CSDs throughout its North American offices, and I’m excited for our upcoming projects in both our Stamford and Atlanta regions.

The dedicated and giving Digitas NY CSD leadership team included Stephanie Dodd, Jesse Gustafson, Meghan Rose, Ashley Swartz, Evan Tessler and Natalie Torres.

Joanne Zaiac is the President of the New York, Stamford, Atlanta region at Digitas.

Alex von Furstenberg has personally donated $1 million to the Curtis School.

At least $250,000 of the donation will be used to fund scholarships for deserving students. The Los Angeles-based Curtis School will use the remainder of the money for financing special projects.

Alex von Furstenberg, whose own children attend the Curtis School, said that his kids are "fortunate to be receiving a first-rate education."

"It is important to me that regardless of circumstance, deserving children get a shot at the same opportunity," he added.

The Curtis School, founded in 1925, “seeks to inspire a love of learning, to promote appreciation of and participation in athletics and the arts, and to instill a strong sense of moral behavior," according to its official website. The institution houses programs for approximately 500 students in kindergarten through sixth grade on its 27-acre campus located in the Santa Monica mountains. Without scholarships, yearly tuition is $21,800.

Mr. von Furstenberg’s dedication to education is shared by his family’s nonprofit organization, the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation. Since 1999, the foundation has donated more than $6 million to charter schools, universities and educational programs. The foundation is also involved in various other charitable pursuits, including community reform, environmental advocacy, medical research and human rights.

The Nduna Foundation has pledged more than $1 million to help open the Zimbabwe Collaborative Centre for Operational Research and Evaluation.

The center will be a policy research and data hub located in what Nduna founder Amy Robbins calls a "risky" zone, often neglected by larger nonprofits and the government.

"I’m never going to be the biggest player in the market, but if I can go to the riskiest places, which often go overlooked by larger organizations, we can add the most value," Ms. Robbins told the Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Robbins co-founded the Glenview Capital Management hedge fund with her husband, leading to earnings of more than $7 billion. She gave up her business life to become a full-time philanthropist in 2004. Since then, she has traveled to many conflict and post-conflict zones such as Zimbabwe, Niger and Ethiopia to provide aid where it is most sorely needed.

Zimbabwe, for example, has been crippled by years of drought and financial mismanagement, which left the Zimbabwean dollar so inflated that it was nearly valueless until it was abandoned in favor of foreign currencies in April of 2009. More than one-third of Zimbabwe’s children are chronically malnourished, and more than one-third live in homes without access to safe drinking water.

The Zimbabwe Collaborative Centre for Operational Research and Evaluation will be created in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Ms. Robbins, a mother of four, founded the Nduna Foundation in 2007 to provide aid to children in the developing world, with a particular focus on food security, HIV/AIDS, education and conservation, and wildlife restoration in the United States and Africa.

Ms. Robbins is also a recipient of Unicef’s Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award for her work in conflict zones in Africa, including Darfur. In addition, she was a co-founder of the Mercury Fund for Emergency Response, which aims to provide Unicef with resources in the early stages of humanitarian crises and emergencies.

After three years of work, engineers in India have succeeded in developing the world’s cheapest tablet laptop.

The device will cost Rs. 1,500 – roughly the equivalent of $35. That’s an incredibly cheap price when measured against the cost of the only other widely available tablet PC on the market, Apple’s iPad, which will run a consumer nearly $500 for its lowest-end model. Compared to the price of other consumer laptops, which can range from around $300 to more than $2,500, the device could change the face of technology in the developing world.

Perhaps most importantly, a $35 computing device could be an enormous boon to nonprofits dedicated to providing computers for schoolchildren in impoverished countries who often lack access to bathroom facilities, electricity and running water – let alone access to the internet or word processing.

In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a $200 laptop, at that time the cheapest device available. Negroponte recently announced his success in creating a $99 laptop made for his nonprofit group, One Laptop One Child, that can run Google’s Android operating system. The price is expected to drop to $75 by 2011, but so far, nothing can compete with India’s impressive achievement.

"This is our answer to MIT’s $100 computer," human resource development minister Kapil Sibal told the Economic Times at the device’s unveiling.

The $35 prototype – which Sibal eventually hopes to sell for only $10, and which India’s government will subsidize for students – is capable of word processing, web browsing and video conferencing. For a small additional fee, it also has an available solar-power option that will be enormously useful in rural areas that do not always have access to electricity.

According to the Associated Press, India is already home to a number of stunningly cheap innovations, such as a $16 water purifier, a car that costs less than $3,000 and, perhaps most impressively, open-heart surgery that costs only $2,000 – without insurance.

If they decide to embrace Sibal’s device, nonprofits like One Laptop One Child could benefit handsomely from such innovative and low-cost design. One Laptop One Child states on its website that its mission is "to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child," something the $35 laptop seems prepared to deliver.

The Corporation for National and Community Service has launched its Social Innovation Fund, starting the program off with inaugural grants that will direct millions in private and public funds toward 11 different nonprofits.

The corporation is dedicated to addressing increasing healthcare needs, closing the gap in achievement for low-income children and taking on economic challenges. To that end, the new SIF fund will be awarding money to a portfolio of organizations who were selected through a rigorous process that demonstrate the desire and ability to find solutions for problems in heathcare, education, youth development and personal financial management. The portfolio’s efforts will reach across 20 states.

"This portfolio is a collection of extraordinary organizations with an unparalleled body of knowledge and expertise on growing what works," said Patrick Corvington, the corporation’s CEO. "They are all driven by the search for bold solutions and recognize that we must use evidence to target limited resources where they will have the greatest impact."

The grants include $74 million in private donations, which, when combined with federal funds, total $123 million.

Of that prodigious sum, $7.7 million will go to Jobs for the Future, an organization that provides training and technical education to unemployed adults to provide them with marketable job skills. The two-year grant will be used to expand the organization’s operation, allowing it to work with more than 23,000 low-income individuals while addressing the skill needs of more than 1,000 employers.

Other organizations receiving grants include the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, which will receive $5.7 million; the National AIDS Fund, which will receive $3.6 million; and the Edna McDonnell Clark Foundation, which will receive $10 million.

Of the 11 organizations receiving funds, eight will be selecting subgrantees.

Paul Carttar, Director of the Social Innovation Fund, said the program "offers an avenue for community-driven solutions to grow and demonstrate their value."

The Corporation for National and Community Service was established in 1993 to meet the needs of the United States’ most vulnerable citizens. It works to connect individuals from all backgrounds with opportunities to get involved in bettering their communities and their nation.

Five London students awarded a place at Washington D.C. Leadership Summit and eight-week internship as part of Bank of America Student Leaders program

LONDON – Five young people from London have been selected as 2010 Bank of America Student Leaders in recognition of their leadership skills and passion for improving their local communities. This unique programme offers London-based sixth form and college students the opportunity to spend the summer learning key social and business leadership skills, to further inspire them in serving their communities and effecting positive changes in their local areas.

As part of the award, this month the selected students will be travelling to Washington D.C. for the Bank of America Charitable Foundation’s week-long Student Leadership summit. In addition to attending the summit, the Student Leaders will participate in eight-week non-profit internships, paid for by Bank of America, at organisations in their local communities. Students gain hands-on experience and learn the finer points of nonprofits management and leadership while the non-profit organisations benefit from the additional resources and support.

This year’s London Student Leaders are:

Merlain Makiadi, Southfields Community College
Sami Ali, Drayton Manor High School
Verdzhiniya Ivanova, New Vic Sixth Form College
Rebecca Duncan, Newsted Wood School for Girls
Olorunfemi Bolarinwa Situ-Amoo, Pimlico Academy

“At Bank of America, we strongly believe that an investment in future leaders plays a pivotal role in revitalising our communities,” said Jonathan Moulds, President of EMEA, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “By providing opportunities for our youth to be leaders in their communities today is important not only to our long-term success in London but also as a nation and world. Through our Neighbourhood Excellence Initiative and our larger corporate social responsibility efforts, we’re helping to create a culture of global service – one that benefits individuals, families, non-profit organisations and the neighbourhoods they serve.”

At the week-long leadership summit, students will learn how service benefits communities economically; how corporate, non-profit and government collaboration is instrumental in community revitalisation;and the important role that non-profit organisations play as community anchors, particularly during times of economic difficulty.

Through a series of interactive workshops and hands-on activities, the summit will include educational seminars and the participation of several special guests. Highlights include:

Meetings on Capitol Hill to discuss important issues that impact young people such as lack of financial education in secondary schools and affordable opportunities for a post secondary education.
Leadership sessions that introduce business etiquette, identify personal strengths, develop future goals and identify opportunities for giving back to the community wherever they land.

The Student Leaders programme is one component of Bank of America’s signature philanthropic programme, the Neighbourhood Excellence Initiative(r). Since the programme’s inception in 2004, it has recognised and awarded more than 1,200 Student Leaders in the US and the UK, many of whom have gone on to leadership positions at colleges and universities while continuing to lead civic engagement efforts.

About the Neighbourhood Excellence Initiative

The Bank of America Charitable Foundation’s Neighbourhood Excellence Initiative annually recognises organisations, individuals and students who have shown a commitment to improving their communities. Since the programme’s inception in 2004, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation has committed more than $110 million globally to the NEI programme and will invest over $20 million in 2010 alone.

This fall, as part of the Neighbourhood Excellence Initiative, Bank of America will also announce Neighbourhood Builders, two local nonprofits in each of the 45 participating markets that will be awarded $200,000 each in unrestricted funding for their commitment to improving and revitalizing their communities, and Local Heroes, five individuals in each market with proven dedication to improving their communities through community service who will be able to direct a $5,000 contribution from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation to an eligible non-profit of their choice.

Bandana Spettigue is from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice has announced the creation of a five-year project designed to improve schoolchildren’s understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The STEM program, as it has been nicknamed, will invest between $500,000 and $2.5 million annually in three high schools and five middle schools in the Sarasota and Charlotte counties of Florida. The program is designed not just to improve children’s test scores, but also to spark a lifelong interest in science and mathematics. Additionally, the foundation hopes that, if successful, the program will be implemented in more counties across Florida.

"Research indicates that 15 of the 20 fastest-growing jobs through 2014 will require substantial math and science preparation, and that Florida, as well as the United States, is failing to develop an adequate supply of STEM-capable workers," said foundation president and CEO Teri Hansen.

"While our economy demands a larger and more proficient STEM workforce, enrollment and success in those courses is rapidly declining," Hansen continued. The foundation’s project is designed to address and reverse this decline.

The STEM program incorporates two strategies for helping Florida students master mathematics and science.

First, the program aims to improve teacher readiness and preparation to meet Florida’s Next Generation Math and Science standards. A significant part of the funding will go toward training teachers to meet the higher standards and new models of the program.

The second strategy is to collaborate with employers and internship providers to enhance student opportunities that increase achievement and promote readiness for postsecondary programs and careers in sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"The time for action is now, and the foundation is creating a community-based coalition to tackle this issue," said Hansen.

Since its formation in 1995, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation has donated $104 million in grants to the community. The foundation aims to maintain, support and improve Florida’s programs in the arts, health, human services, civic affairs and the environment.