Chronicle Insider

Madison Children’s Museum

Dear Subscriber,

My colleague Jim Rendon has reported extensively on the ways philanthropy is seeking to curb climate change — and the topic is one we return to frequently in our opinion pages.

But in our August issue, Jim and reporter Sara Herschander bring you another important perspective on the issues as they explore how nonprofits are transforming their work to cope with the demands of a warming planet.

Jim and Sara explain how museums, like the Madison Children’s Museum (above), are retrofitting their buildings, housing groups are elevating foundations and adding green space to stave off flood damage, disaster-relief groups are transforming their operations to deal with more frequent disasters in highly populated places, and community-health centers are turning themselves into climate-resilient hubs.

Foundations and governments are providing lots of new money to help organizations, especially the federal Inflation Reduction Act, which is providing billions of dollars for conservation efforts of all kinds and has nearly $40 billion earmarked for nonprofits.

While many nonprofits are motivated by the desire to do all they can to protect the planet, they are also eager to obtain the financial savings that come with installing energy-efficient measures.

The savings can be substantial, notes Dennis Creech, an adviser at the Kendeda Fund. “This is money that an executive director doesn’t have to raise,” he says. What’s more, he adds: “It’s not a one-time thing. It’s every year. It’s like setting up an endowment.”

Also in this issue:

Courtesy of The Kendeda Fund

Drew Lindsay examines the philanthropy of Diana Blank, who has quietly given away more than $1 billion, mainly in the often-neglected South. Blank, whose fortune comes from her former husband, Arthur Blank, a co-founder of Home Depot, stands out for her approach to giving. Drew writes. In her earliest days, she simply asked groups what they needed — and provided big dollars in response. Throughout her giving career, she has supported grantees for long periods, eschewed onerous grant applications or evaluation measures, and done all she could to show she believes nonprofits, not philanthropists, should be the ones calling the shots. What’s more, she recognized the perilous state of many nonprofit finances and decided to help organizations build operating reserves. Now at the age of 80, she’s getting ready to empty her fund of all of its assets, joining a growing list of big grant makers that have set a date to end all operations.

Rasheeda Childress writes about the ethical and legal issues involved when nonprofits use artificial intelligence in their work. Already nonprofits have found themselves in trouble: The National Eating Disorders Association was in the final stages of enlisting a chatbot to answer all questions on its hotline when it discovered people were being told to take actions that would have harmed their health. Lawyers say the biggest concern might be when nonprofits use A.I. in hiring because its algorithms could turn out a result that is biased and end up discriminating against candidates. Using A.I. to decide which donors to target also has potential biases, especially if they are based on historical data that reflects racism of the time. “We can’t just rely on these tools and descriptions of the past to tell us how the future is going to be,” Rodger Devine, a fundraiser at Pomona College and president-elect of APRA, a group that represents prospect researchers, told Rasheeda. “We have a responsibility to shape and create a more equitable and just world that we want to live in.”

We devote our entire opinion section to one topic: a debate touched off by an essay from Theodore Wagenaar, a donor who says he’s been turned off from making significant gifts to nonprofits that fail to communicate with him how his donations are being used. Fundraisers, chief executives, and others responded with outrage and praise for his essay — and we hope the critiques will offer you new insights on the best ways to work with supporters.

I hope you can join me Thursday for a briefing at 2 p.m. Eastern time when I’ll ask experts from across the country to help you better understand what the Supreme Court’s college-admissions decision means. We’ll explore the impact on giving, whether the ruling’s logic means that nonprofits should adjust their policies on hiring and governance, and examine what’s next for efforts to fight racial bias and expand social mobility. And perhaps just as important, we’ll clear up the misinformation about the ruling’s impact on philanthropy.

Here’s who you’ll have a chance to learn from:

• Cory Anderson, chief innovation officer at the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and chair of ABFE
• Raquiba LaBrie, vice president of programs at the San Francisco Foundation
• Julia Judish, special counsel at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
• Michael McAfee, CEO of PolicyLink
• Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund
• Robert Ross, CEO of the California Endowment

Register today.

Michael Theis, The Chronicle

I’m very excited that we welcomed our new editor-in-chief, Elbert Ventura, to the Chronicle yesterday. We’ll provide opportunities for you and other subscribers to share your thoughts with him about what we can do that will most help you advance your organization, your mission, and your career.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll let me or any of our other colleagues know how we can serve you better.

Enjoy reading our new issue,

— Stacy Palmer, chief executive