The Daily Tell

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will complete the renovation of its Costume Institute exhibition galleries using a $10 million gift from Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. The Museum will proceed with the renovations in 2012.

The new 4,200-square-foot gallery will be renamed to honor its donors and feature rotating installations that will allow the Met to change its approach to its costume and fashion collection. It will also include a costume conservation, study and updated storage center to house the Met and Brooklyn Museum costume collection. The Brooklyn Museum's collection was transferred to the Met in 2009.

"This project makes possible the museum's dramatic re-thinking of the display of historic costume and contemporary fashion," said Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute.

"The current galleries with their fixed vitrines and established flow will be transformed into a space that maximizes the ability of the museum to present its costume holdings in new and varied ways. A range of visual effects will also be employed to underscore the conceptual and narrative intentions of the changing exhibitions installed in this space," he added.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute holds more than 35,000 costumes and accessories. Its collections span five continents, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The museum has pieces from the 17th century up through the present, housing one of the largest costume collections worldwide. It was first founded in 1937 as the Museum of Costume Art, later being renamed the Costume Institute and becoming a part of the Met in 1946.

Partners HealthCare has received a $20 million donation from Robert and Myra Kraft to develop a center to improve community access to healthcare. The funding will also go toward developing cancer programs at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.

The grant will create a program to train community-based healthcare leaders. These fellows will be trained and mentored by field experts at Harvard University while caring for at-risk populations in community settings.

The Kraft Family National Center for Leadership and Training in Community Health will offer financial recruitment incentives to doctors and nurses, includingloan repayments of up to $50,000 for physicians and $30,00 for nurses in order to increase the number of healthcare professionals that practice in community settings by more than 100.

"My family and I are among the lucky ones who have received the incredible care available at Brigham and Women’s, Mass General and other top-flight medical institutions in New England, but there are far too many without access to the life-changing, life-saving care of the world’s best medical professionals," said Robert Kraft.

"Myra and I, as well as our entire family, hope that the center will establish a national model to motivate the most talented doctors and nurses to practice in community health settings where their expertise can have an immeasurable impact," he added.

Although Massachusetts does successfully offer healthcare coverage to all residents, 15 percent of its population has reported difficulty in finding a provider. The center will aim to address shortages and barriers to care in family medicine, internal medicine and psychiatric care, especially for those living in poverty.

Arts and cultural organizations in Roanoke, Virginia, will receive $2.5 million to help pay off debts off and stabilize operations, the Roanoke Times reported. The grant is provided by Nick and Jenny Taubman, who are funneling the largest portion of the grant to the construction of the Taubman Museum of Art.

Over the next two years, the Taubman Foundationwill award 20 grants ranging between $25,000 and $100,000, for a total of $1.25 million per year. The program benefits qualifying nonprofits within a 20-mile radius of Roanoke. Institutions receiving funding in the first year may reapply during the second year, but preference will be given to new applicants or those that did not receive funding with their first application.

After the two year period, the program is unlikely to be renewed, according to Nick Taubman.

"This is a one-time affair," he said to the source. "It's meant to get us up over a rough patch."

Taubman has long supported the arts in the Roanoke area, which have been struggling since the economic downturn in 2008. Before the economy slowed, a $66 million capital campaign to build his namesake art museum may have also affected area fundraising for other arts organizations.

Roanoke businessmen noted in the Times that, approximately 25 years ago, an initiative such as this was discussed to benefit local cultural nonprofits.

Qualifying nonprofit organizations must apply for the grant by March 15. Recipients will be announced in mid-April and funding will be distributed in July.

Aiming to boost food security for millions in developing countries, UK-based Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council is launching a $32 million international research initiative. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UK Department for International Development and Indian Department for Biotechnology are helping fund the research.

Grants and funding will be provided to teams in the UK, India and developing countries so that that research may be conducted in order to improve the disease-resistance, stress-tolerance and sustainability necessary for food crops. Funding will be provided to groups that can show how their research can help improve sustainable crops and food security between the next five to 10 years.

"Global society faces huge challenges in the coming years and securing safe, affordable and nutritious food for everyone is one of the biggest," said Douglas Kell, BBSRC chief executive.

"Scientists and organizations across the world have the capabilities and expertise to make a real difference in meeting the global food security challenge, but no single organization or country can do this on its own. By working together and by coordinating our activity, we can maximize the impact of our investment and of international science," he added.

Emphasis will be placed on staple food crops such as cassava, maize, rice, sorghum and wheat in sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa. To maximize the effects of the research, the initiative will support comprehensive approaches to improving the productivity and yield of crops.

Environmental changes, trading patterns and urbanization can all have a positive impact on food security over the upcoming years.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with the U.S. Agency for International Development to present the Haitian mobile service provider and its partner Scotia Bank with a $2.5 million award.

After last year's earthquake, Haitian bank branches, money transfer stations and ATMs still remain short. The award is the first to be made through a $10 million effort, the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative, established by the Gates Foundation to help speed up the delivery of financial services in Haiti for humanitarian services. It recognized Digicel's effort in launching Tcho Tcho Movile, the first mobile money service in Haiti.

The second award of $1.5 million will be made after another operator signs on. The third award, in the amount of $6 million, will be given when the 5 million mobile transactions is reached.

By establishing mobile services, charities and donors will ensure that Haitian citizens receive funding directly. Consumers can use their mobile phones to make withdrawals and deposits and transfer funds between their mobile accounts. Services such as bill payments, government services payments and international remittance transfers will also be added.

"As we have seen in other places around the world, mobile money can unlock the economic potential for millions of people," said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Global Development Program at the Gates Foundation.

"Making mobile money services available to the poorest families in the developing world can be a first step to introducing a broader range of financial services, including savings accounts, helping people build financial security and productive lives," she added.

Bill Gates is the richest man in America, according to the Forbes 100 list. He recently met in the U.S. with President Barack Obama to discuss leaving a portion of his fortune to philanthropy.

Yale University, a bastion of American higher education located in New Haven, Connecticut, has received a $50 million commitment from a Yale College alumnus to support the construction of a new state-of-the-art campus for its School of Management.

The Edward P. Evans Hall will be named for its eponymous donor, Edward "Ned" Evans, a private investor who graduated in 1964 and was, from 1979 to 1989, was the chair and CEO of the publishing house Macmillan. Evans now breeds horses on a farm in Virginia and has contributed generously to his alma mater several times, including a significant gift in 1991 to support the renovation and expansion of the Yale University Press building – now called the Evans Wing.

Evans said he was "delighted" to make a gift to the university that will provide a new campus and facilities for the Yale School of Management, enlarge its student body and propel it to the forefront of management education in the 21st century.

"The School of Management's new home will be as forward-looking as its pioneering curriculum," added Yale president Richard C. Levin. "With this gift, Ned Evans has expressed confidence in the School’s future and ensured that construction can proceed without putting undue pressure on our budget. We are immensely grateful for his generosity, and proud that his name will now be associated with this spectacular new facility."

The new facilities and 4.25 acre campus will be designed by Foster + Partners, the architectural firm chaired by Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Lord Norman Foster, a 1962 graduate of the Yale School of Architecture. 

The Lilly Endowment has announced at $22.9 million gift to the Ivy Tech Foundation, a part of Ivy Tech Community College, the largest public postsecondary institution in Indiana and the nation's largest state-wide community college with single accreditation.

Ivy Tech and schools like it have seen a massive boom in interest following the economic crisis of 2008, as adults who have lost their jobs have returned to school in a bid to acquire new, marketable skills and find more work. Enrollment at Ivy Tech itself has doubled in the last five years, leaving the school in sore need of additional facilities.

The $22.9 million endowment will be used to construct a new 196,000-square-foot facility, to be called the Indiana Center for Workforce Solutions. The center will offer pre-employment services, including resume writing and interviewing training, as well as training programs in fields such as health care, life sciences, information technology, advanced manufacturing, logistics and hospitality. Once completed, school officials estimate that 25,000 people a year will take advantage of the center's offerings. The facility will also host meetings and events for more than 300 organizations.

"The dramatic growth in Ivy Tech's enrollment demonstrates that Indiana residents understand that education is critical to their future," said Sara Cobb, vice president for education at the Lilly Endowment. "The new space should significantly help Ivy Tech in the accomplishment of its important educational aims."

Ivy Tech has campuses in 23 Indiana cities, including Bloomington, Indianapolis, Richmond, Sellersburg and South Bend.

The Ford Founation, a charitable group based in New York City, has awarded $4.1 million in grants to six organizations working to explore the social, cultural and economic factors that contribute to sexual behavior among America's youth and young adults.

Two groups – the Oakland-based Public Health Institute and the University of Arizona – will study how parent-child relationships affect sexual development. The former will use the grant to explore the sexual and reproductive health and rights of foster youth, as well as how parent-child relationships influence a young person's sexual development, while the latter will work with the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and YWCA Tucson to explore how young Latinas' relationships with their parents influence their sexual attitudes, as well as how young people are using social media in relation to sexuality.

Other groups will also focus on how sexual attitudes develop among minorities and the economically disadvantaged. A team at San Francisco State University's Health Equity Institute will collaborate with California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and FACES for the Future to study individual and systemic factors underlying the complexities of adolescent sexuality and childbearing among Latino youth, while the University of Michigan will be receiving funding to explore the sexual health outcomes of economically vulnerable and minority individuals in Detroit, including African-American girls, transgendered youth and Latinos involved in gangs.

Additionally, the University of Illinois will use its grant to examine how adolescents think about harassment and bullying related to gender, sex and sexuality. The Face Value Project, in collaboration with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, the Sloan School of Management at MIT and New York University, will examine public attitudes and stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sexuality.

The Ford Foundation is committed to advancing the understanding and acceptance of youth sexuality, promoting safe sex and comprehensive sexual education in schools and promoting and supporting the rights of women, minorities, the HIV-positive, the poor and other disadvantaged groups.

Cleveland-based University Hospitals has announced a $42 million gift from lifelong Clevelanders Jane and Lee Seidman – the largest gift in the history of the health system.

The generous gift will enable University Hospitals to launch the public phase of a $1 billion capital campaign and will support construction of a $260 million freestanding cancer hospital, the only in Northeast Ohio and one of only 12 in the nation. Scheduled to open in the spring of 2011, the 75,000-square-foot facility will have 150 beds and will bring all aspects of University Hospitals cancer care under one roof.

In recognition of the gift, the new facility will be named the Jane and Lee Seidman Cancer Center, while the system's integrated network of nine outpatient cancer programs in the region will be called the University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center.

"The Seidmans' extraordinary gift to University Hospitals marks a pivotal moment in our history and their generosity will have a lasting legacy,” said UH CEO Thomas F. Zenty III. "Through their remarkable philanthropic spirit, Jane and Lee have demonstrated their passion for our cancer program and the entire Northeast Ohio community. We are additionally pleased to announce that their gift launches our $1 billion fundraising campaign that will build on the success of our new facilities and further strengthen University Hospitals' unparalleled commitment to patient-centered care."

"This gift is truly from our hearts," said Mrs. Seidman, who added that her sense of philanthropy was developed at a young age by her own mother, a hospital volunteer. Additionally, her husband's mother used to spend her evenings transcribing books into Braille.

"We really wanted to make an impact in our community and support UH’s outstanding cancer program as this magnificent new cancer hospital opens," Mrs. Seidman continued. 

As the weather cools and snow falls across some parts of the U.S., many of us are cuddling up by the fireplace with some cocoa and a warm blanket. However, not everybody has that luxury – millions of people are without homes this winter, but the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is working to change that.

The Hilton Foundation has announced grants totaling $13 million as part of an initiative launched by the Los Angeles Business Leaders Task Force on Homelessness to end homelessness in Los Angeles by 2015.

Although it may not be a snowy city, being homeless in Los Angeles is as difficult as anywhere else. According to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, an estimated 254,000 men, women and children are homeless in Los Angeles County for at least part of the year and approximately 82,000 people are homeless on any given night. Unaccompanied youth are estimated to make up from 4,800 to 10,000 of these, although the average age of the homeless population is 40.

The grants announced by the Hilton Foundation seek to bring those numbers down to zero. They include $9 million to the Corporation for Supportive Housing for the creation of 2,500 permanent housing units; $600,000 to Common Ground to find 4,500 people living on the street or in shelters and provide them with housing; and $750,000 each to Mental Health America in Long Beach, the St. Joseph Center in Venice, Skid Row Housing Trust in Los Angeles and Step Up on Second in Hollywood for local efforts to get people off the streets and into permanent homes.

In addition, the Downtown Women's Center will receive a $330,000 gift to implement Critical Time Intervention, a program that will work to transition eighty chronically homeless women into permanent housing, while the PATH Partners will receive $700,000 to engage faith leaders in Los Angeles County on the problem of homelessness.

"This campaign is a great step forward to eradicating long term homelessness in our home town," said Steven M. Hilton, president and CEO of the Hilton Foundation, "and we are proud to participate as a funder and advocate and to encourage others to join us. Making a difference in the lives of vulnerable people is our core mission and there could be no greater way to fulfill this mandate than to help our neighbors find homes, medical and other services and, most of all, hope."