The Daily Tell

Last year's earthquake in Haiti, and the relief efforts that followed, have had a major impact on online charitable giving and philanthropic efforts and will likely continue to impact the area in the future. Since the disaster, dozens of charities have begun soliciting online donations, seeing an increase of 35 percent last year via this channel, according to a recent report conducted by Blackbaud.

The research also found that 8 percent of last year's total fundraising efforts came from online sources. Additionally, international affairs organizations found their online giving increase by 130.8 percent from 2009, Biz Journals noted.

"2010 saw the continued growth in the importance of online fundraising for nonprofit organizations," said Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud’s director of internet solutions.

"A recovering global economy, online response for disaster relief, peer-to-peer fundraising and the role of social media in the nonprofit sector all shaped 2010," he added.

In light of the Haitian disaster, mobile giving also increased, with the American Red Cross raising an estimated $32 million by soliciting $10 donations via an SMS campaign that was launched within the first few hours that followed the earthquake, according to Mobile Commerce Daily.

Blackbaud found that January 2010, the month in which the disaster occurred, saw the largest percentage of online fundraising, raking in 18.4 percent of charitable donations, in comparison to December of the same year, which saw 18.3 percent.

Additionally, 88 percent of nonprofit organizations saw larger donations, receiving at least $1,000 or more in charitable contributions. Blackbaud reported that median online giving more than $1,000 was $1,250, and the largest amount was $100,000. Forty-one percent of these large gifts were $1,000 and 6 percent were $5,000.

Last year's earthquake in Haiti, and the relief efforts that followed, have had a major impact on online charitable giving and philanthropic efforts and will likely continue to impact the area in the future. Since the disaster, dozens of charities have begun soliciting online donations, seeing an increase of 35 percent last year via this channel, according to a recent report conducted by Blackbaud.

The research also found that 8 percent of last year's total fundraising efforts came from online sources. Additionally, international affairs organizations found their online giving increase by 130.8 percent from 2009, Biz Journals noted.

"2010 saw the continued growth in the importance of online fundraising for nonprofit organizations," said Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud’s director of internet solutions.

"A recovering global economy, online response for disaster relief, peer-to-peer fundraising and the role of social media in the nonprofit sector all shaped 2010," he added.

In light of the Haitian disaster, mobile giving also increased, with the American Red Cross raising an estimated $32 million by soliciting $10 donations via an SMS campaign that was launched within the first few hours that followed the earthquake, according to Mobile Commerce Daily.

Blackbaud found that January 2010, the month in which the disaster occurred, saw the largest percentage of online fundraising, raking in 18.4 percent of charitable donations, in comparison to December of the same year, which saw 18.3 percent.

Additionally, 88 percent of nonprofit organizations saw larger donations, receiving at least $1,000 or more in charitable contributions. Blackbaud reported that median online giving more than $1,000 was $1,250, and the largest amount was $100,000. Forty-one percent of these large gifts were $1,000 and 6 percent were $5,000.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is anticipating some expansions over the upcoming months, but according to museum director Thomas Campbell, they won't come in the form of a new wing. Instead, Campbell is looking to advance the museum with virtual and digital updates.

Campbell began his position three years ago, filling in for his predecessor Philippe de Montebello, who served as director for 31 years. Montebello relied largely on attracting visitors via the Met's sheer grandeur, while, in contrast, Campbell is focused on welcoming and educating a new generation of visitors.

The Met will soon install WiFi throughout the museum's 21 buildings, most of which were built with thick walls, making the effort quite a feat. It will also relaunch its website this summer.

One of the largest endeavors the museum is preparing for is the roll-out of a self-guided tour that will be delivered directly to a visitor's mobile device. It will be tailored to fit the needs of the visitor, whether he or she is young, old, an art aficionado or a first-time visitor.

"The Met is an absolutely astounding museum, but it is a better museum for people who already know something about art and have a familiarity with the place, which can be intimidating," said Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums in Washington, to The New York Times.

"They face a big challenge trying to address that because of their sheer size and complexity. Smaller museums can try these things out much more quickly," he added.

Another effort that The Met has signed on with is a the Google Art Project, which brings art museums and collections to the internet. The website offers more than 1,000 pieces by almost 500 artists and lets visitors take virtual tours of galleries. Seventeen museums have signed on with the project, four of which are located within the U.S., the Los Angeles Times reported.

Thanks to one corporation, visitors to a popular video site will be able to donate money to charitable organizations simply by watching online content.

BroadbandTV recently unveiled a new YouTube location that will give visitors the chance to watch videos from nonprofit organizations, allowing them to sort by either a name or cause that one wants to get involved in helping. The VISO Give also features celebrity appearances from some of the biggest stars today, including cast members of the NBC show Community, Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers band, Usher and others who may be less famous but still be promoting causes. According to its YouTube channel, the new platform makes it easy for those interested to make a difference.

"VISO Give showcases videos from non-profits and documentary film makers from around the globe. For every video you watch on VISO Give, money is donated directly to? that cause, so keep watching and help make a difference with your online actions," the company states.

Many industry experts have praised the efforts of the companies involved, saying that they will give less popular charities the opportunity to gain visibility in the process.

"There's always the worry that big brands with aggregation services will end up co-opting content from their smaller content providers — using the videos to drive traffic to their own sites," writes Zachary Sniderman for Mashable.com. However, it's free for non-profits to sign up and VISO Give has intelligently made the channel non-exclusive, meaning non-profits can post or place their videos on rival sites or keep them native. It's a nice move by VISO and BroadbandTV and reinforces the idea that the channel is there to help."

NanoBio Corporation, a company that researches, develops and commercializes therapies for viral and fungal conditions based on proprietary nanoemulsion technology, has recently been awarded a $6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue working on a vaccine for a common virus called the Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

RSV is a highly contagious viral disease for which there is no approved vaccine. It is a significant global health problem that results in 900,000 hospitalizations annually in the United States and Europe and can lead to life-threatening complications like bronchiolitis and pneumonia. In fact, RSV is so common that nearly all children are infected with the virus at least once by the age of three, though most manage to avoid severe health problems.

Not everybody, however, is so lucky. Each year, around 100,000 infants are hospitalized with RSV in the United States alone. The disease is most dangerous to those whose immune systems are already compromised, to the elderly and to premature infants. Additionally, pneumonia is a leading cause of childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa, and new research suggests that RSV is the most common cause of viral pneumonia in parts of the continent.

NanoBio is working on a safe and effective solution to the disease – an intranasal vaccine. This vaccine is ideal for the developing world because it requires little refrigeration and can be administered without the use of needles.

"Our partnership with the foundation provides a unique opportunity to develop selected vaccine targets that will address significant health needs globally," said James R. Baker, Jr., MD, NanoBio's founder and CEO. "With the support of the foundation, NanoBio would continue research efforts and retain the rights to market the agreed-upon vaccines in the developed world, while the foundation would have access to the vaccines for the developing world."

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced nine Grand Challenges Explorations grantees, each of whom will receive up to $1 million to fund original and innovative research into solutions for global problems such as disease, poverty and hunger.

"The projects we are announcing today prove the value of investing in truly novel ideas to support global health," said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Global Health Program at the Gates Foundation. "In the first two years of the Grand Challenges Explorations program we have funded 340 projects, and if even one of these ideas comes to fruition, it could save countless lives."

Among the grantees is Dr. Mark Davis of Stanford University, who is working to create a new method to quantify and profile cellular immune responses to vaccinations, specifically for the influenza and rotavirus vaccines. Dr. Davis' work could create more effective vaccines that would protect the most vulnerable citizens from disease.

Other projects receiving support include efforts to create light barriers that can repel malaria-carrying mosquitoes; research on the use of novel proteins, called homing endonucleases, to interfere with HIV DNA in infected cells, killing the virus while preserving the cell; and exploration of the use of molecule-coated gold nanocrystals that could be tailored to circumvent many viral and bacterial evolutionary drug resistance mechanisms.

"Our continued investments in these projects are designed to achieve the highest possible impact, for the greatest number of people, over the longest period of time," added Chris Wilson, director of the Global Health Discovery program at the Gates Foundation. "We have set ambitious goals that we know we cannot accomplish alone – we hope that other researchers and funders will join us in our efforts to broaden the pipeline of ideas to save lives."

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 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has selected 78 new charitable initiatives in 18 countries, it announced Monday.

Each of the 78 causes will receive $100,000 in the most recent round of Grand Challenges Explorations. The money, which will fund research projects, will tackle issues such as strategic placement of insect-eating plants to reduce insect-borne diseases, inexpensive cell phone microscopes to diagnose malaria, and the relationship of nano-particles to vaccines.

"Grand Challenges Explorations continues to generate unique and creative ways to tackle global health issues," said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program. "We are convinced that some of these ideas will lead to new innovations and eventually solutions that will save lives." The Grand Challenge Exploration is the Gates Foundation’s $100-million effort to improve healthcare around the world.

A major part of the investment will go toward research in vaccines. This research includes sweat-triggered vaccine delivery, a "seek and destroy" laser vaccine, and treating worm infections to improve vaccine effectiveness.

The announcement comes on the heels of the Gates Foundation announcing a $4.5 million fund in order to research planet cooling clouds, reports the Vancouver Sun. The funds will be used by climate researcher David Keith of the University of Calgary and Ken Calder of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Caldeira told the Sun that the money has gone to different researchers – this includes approximately $300,000 to Armand Neukermanns. Neukermanns, a researcher who is also involved with the Gates Foundation’s Silver Lining Project, is planning to conduct the first cloud brightening project trial the world has ever seen.

"David Keith and I allocated funds to Armand Neukermanns to use laboratory experiments to establish whether it would be technically feasible to produce sea water sprays (in order to cool the atmosphere)," Caldeira told the Vancouver Sun in an interview.

Community college presidents need to boost graduation rates by nixing weak remedial programs and offering new ideas and cutting edge technology instead, according to one of the founders of the largest foundation in the country.

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, commented on the need for high-tech school solutions at the 90th Annual American Association of Community Colleges Convention in Seattle. She backed up her words with a large investment in initiatives that encourage schools to offer accelerated academic catch-up.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated $110 million in grants to design new efforts to replace traditional remedial programs with initiatives that are proven to boost graduation rates.

Melinda Gates says research demonstrates that improving remediation is the best community colleges can do to increase the number of students who complete their studies.

"Either community colleges can keep doing what you’ve been doing, in which case you will gradually find yourself able to meet fewer and fewer of your students’ needs, or you can innovate," says Gates. "You can educate your students according to new models that yield dramatically better results for a fraction of the cost."

Fifty-seven million dollars will be distributed in grants over the next two years. Half of the foundation’s commitment has already been given to programs and colleges. The remaining grants will be given based on success of the earlier investments.

The foundation is looking for colleges and programs that collaborate well with high schools and middle schools to prevent remediation and offer multimedia tools to boost remedial studies. They also want to see programs that can efficiently blend accelerated learning with career training.

While 11 million students attend community colleges each year, more than half of low-income students start their post-secondary education at a community college.

The William J. Clinton Foundation, founded in 2001, is engaging the online community in an effort to raise money, asking users to learn more about climate change at the same time, the organization announced recently.

Named the "Take Initiative" campaign, it focuses on Earth Day activism, allowing supporters to sign up for Clinton Foundation-supported green projects and to take an online quiz on climate change.

For every person who visits the campaign’s website and takes the quiz, the foundation is donating $2 toward buying solar flashlights for people living in tent villages in Haiti. The Clinton Foundation says if 100,000 people take the quiz, it will reach its goal of sending 20,000 solar flashlights to improve safety conditions in the country that was ravished by earthquakes at the beginning of the year.

The campaign will conclude on April 22, 2010, when President Clinton hosts a special online forum with volunteers from across the country.

President Clinton says his nonprofit wants to address climate change issues to encourage individuals to make contributions that will bring to benefit to society.

"My foundation invites everyone to join us in the fight by taking initiative in their own homes and communities," says President Clinton. "I look forward to a lively and interesting dialogue about what we can all do to build a more sustainable world."

The Clinton Foundation has previously helped implement more than 250 energy efficiency building retrofit projects in more than 20 cities around the world.

President Clinton also recently partnered with President Bush when the two established a relief fund for Haiti and appeared in television ads together reaching out for support.