Philanthropy This Week

Courtesy of Elizabeth Atwell

Good morning.

This week a new report urged Americans to think anew about the power of national service to heal divides.

The report came from two former senior leaders at the Corporation for National Service who joined forces to show bipartisan support for national service. They are David Eisner, who served under President George W. Bush, and John Gomperts, who worked for President Barack Obama.

Their argument is simple:

“National service was created to take on the country’s biggest challenges, and right now that means tackling toxic polarization head on.”

Eboo Patel, a Chronicle columnist and founder of Interfaith America, called attention to the report — and its embrace of what the authors call “Civic CPR” — in his latest opinion essay.

Eisner and Gomperts propose that AmeriCorps volunteers and alumni get trained in bridge-building skills and then be sent to work around the country. And they want to see philanthropy support these efforts and engage researchers to make sure that they are doing their work effectively.

Already, philanthropy is pitching in to encourage the idea, Eboo notes. AmeriCorps has hired a new bridging and service fellow, paid for by grants from the Einhorn Collaborative, Schmidt Family Foundation, and Solidarity Giving.

But to enable bridge-building efforts to make a difference, Gomperts and Eisner note, it takes a far more powerful force than today’s organizations can achieve, given that most groups working on the problem are very new and still very small.

Eboo argues there’s no time to waste in unleashing AmeriCorps volunteers to fight polarization. “A pluralistic democracy requires opportunities for people of different identities and divergent ideologies to work cooperatively on common projects.”

Here’s what else you need to know:

Spencer Platt, Getty Images

Foundations may give slightly more this year than last if the stock market remains at current levels.

Grant makers’ assets grew 8 percent in the first half of this year as global stock markets continued to rebound from a drop in the first nine months of 2022. But they haven’t bounced back to December 2021 levels, when assets were nearly $1.4 trillion — more than the current $1.3 trillion, reports Yesica Balderama, who looked at estimates from FoundationMark, a company that tracks endowment investments.

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Sabbaticals seem to be growing more popular in the nonprofit world as organizations have become increasingly concerned about employee burnout.

Among the beneficiaries of a four-month break was Elizabeth Atwell (pictured at the top of this newsletter), a project manager at the Wallace Center, a sustainable agriculture nonprofit housed at Winrock International.

Atwell used the time to hike the Appalachian trail, a lifelong goal. Now, Atwell told Emily Haynes, “I am a stronger leader and a better person because I got to take sabbatical and got to focus on more fully becoming the person I’ve always wanted to become by achieving this truly childhood dream.”

Funding for sabbaticals isn’t easy to come by, but the Durfee Foundation has long been distributing funds for time off, in part because it sees so many nonprofit employees at a breaking point.

Twenty years into its grant-making program to fund paid leave, itsurveyed past recipients of its grants and identified burnout and overwork as top reasons leaders sought sabbaticals.

Sabbaticals seem to make a difference for entire organizations, not just the person who takes time off. Emily notes that one study suggests that sabbaticals have widespread benefits for organizations: They offer a chance to help midlevel employees upgrade their skills, jump-start succession planning, and foster a more engaged board.

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Two often-overlooked strategies to fund nonprofits are helping some groups overcome the “starvation cycle,” in which they receive funds to pay for programs but not operating expenses (opinion).

Supporting charities’ reserves and investments can be game-changing, letting them “focus on solutions instead of survival,” write Monica Aleman of the Ford Foundation and Ndana Bofu-Tawamba of Urgent Action Fund-Africa, a consortium of four feminist funds supporting women, trans, and nonbinary human-rights defenders.

“Investments such as stocks, bonds, and other financial vehicles can completely change how a nonprofit views itself, enabling more courageous and visionary approaches to its work,” they write.

The Ford Foundation’s $5 million grant to the Urgent Action Fund allowed the charity, among other things, to boost its investments and increase its fundraising efforts. The result: more gifts, including $20 million from MacKenzie Scott, and the creation of a center for African women human-rights defenders who face relentless violence and discrimination — a project it would not have embarked on otherwise because of the ongoing costs.

The first nonprofit to attempt to introduce a medical device to the U.S. market faced hurdles from the tax code, FDA regulations, and Medicare and Medicaid programs — and ended up spending $82 million.

The idea for a low-cost hormonal IUD produced by a nonprofit company — Medicines360 — sprang from a collaboration between a foundation and a pharmaceutical scientist because the cost of the device was out of reach for most women, writes Sono Motoyama.

The goals: to expand access to hormonal IUDs, one of the most effective forms of birth control, and to introduce competition into the market and thus lower prices.

After an expensive phase-three clinical trial to get FDA approval and some surprises — that middlemen who benefit from distributing high-priced drugs and even Medicare and Medicaid programs don’t favor low-cost drugs — the devices are now available for $50 apiece.

Medicines360 is now urging a change in federal rules to make it easier for nonprofits to develop products that meet public-health goals.

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As you start your weekend, we have one more thing to consider about volunteerism: Our colleagues at the Associated Press took a look at the volunteers on Maui who have cobbled together countless improvised, solutions to the urgent problems facing residents in the aftermath of the deadly wildfires.

We hope you find plenty of reading to inspire you this weekend and help you recharge for the week ahead.

— Marilyn Dickey and Stacy Palmer

After the Hawaii wildfires, neighbors are unloading supplies, billionaires are writing checks, and nonprofits are scrambling to shelter people and safeguard some of the archipelago’s critically endangered wildlife.

• Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Pledge $100 Million to Maui Recovery (CNN)
• This Maui Center Houses Some of the World’s Rarest Birds. Staff Saved It From the Flames (Washington Post)
• Native Hawaiians Organize Aid for Maui Fire Victims as Government Lags (Washington Post)

Professional athletes with ties to Hawaii are mounting efforts to help those affected by the Maui wildfires. (Los Angeles Times)

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is setting up a nonprofit to apply artificial intelligence to the biggest scientific challenges, according to people familiar with his plans. (Semafor)

Open Society Foundations is phasing out much of its grant-making focused on issues internal to the European Union. (Reuters)

A Montana judge has ruled that officials violated the state’s constitution when approving fossil-fuel projects without regard to their impact on the climate. (New York Times)

Over the past decade, major commercial donor-advised funds and community foundations have allowed their donors to steer more than $200 million to dozens of organizations deemed hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (New Republic and OptOut Media Foundation)

The Orlando Museum of Art is suing its former director, accusing him of seeking to profit from a planned exhibition of paintings falsely attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat. (New York Times)

Opinion: More universities should launch philanthropic endowments to help their researchers’ medical discoveries make it to the marketplace. (Stat)

Your Chronicle subscription includes free access to GrantStation’s database of grant opportunities.

Performing arts. The Shubert Foundation provides general operating support for nonprofit, professional theatres, with a secondary focus on nonprofit, professional dance companies. The foundation is especially interested in theatre and dance companies that develop and produce new American work. Nonprofits with a record of developing and producing new work and a demonstrated commitment to underserved audiences or underrepresented voices are eligible to apply. The minimum grant amount is $15,000. The deadlines are October 18 for dance applications and December 5 for theater applications

Adult literacy. The Wish You Well Foundation supports the development and expansion of new and existing adult literacy and educational programs that teach adults the literacy skills they need to communicate, grow, and thrive within their communities. Grants range from $200 to $10,000.