Philanthropy Today

Software billionaire Judy Faulkner is ramping up a plan to give away most of her estimated $7.7 billion fortune. Faulkner, the 81-year-old founder and CEO of the Epic Systems health-care-software company, signed the Giving Pledge in 2015, but had a slow start in philanthropy. Over the past five years, though, her Roots and Wings Foundation, led by her daughter, Shana Dall’Osto, has used a trust-based approach to give $200 million to 320 groups working on early-childhood development. The goal is to get to $100 million annually in the next few years, Dall’Osto said. (Forbes— subscription)

The world’s largest internet archive, a nonprofit, is under siege from hackers who have taunted it for its shoestring budget but demanded no ransom. Launched in 1996, the Internet Archive has preserved more than 900 billion web pages in its Wayback Machine. It went offline last week after hackers leaked the information of millions of users and left a derisive message on the site. Archive director Brewster Kahle said it has “industry standard” security and before this year seemed to have escaped the notice of hackers. “Kahle said he’d opted not to prioritize additional investments in cybersecurity out of the Internet Archive’s limited budget of around $20 million to $30 million a year.” (Washington Post)

Background from the Chronicle: What One Nonprofit Learned From Getting Hacked — and How Other Groups Can Protect Themselves

More News

• The Giving Moment: What Turns People Into Philanthropists? (Financial Times — subscription)
• Far-Right Extremists Embrace Environmentalism to Justify Violent Anti-Immigrant Beliefs (ProPublica)
• Guilty Plea Suddenly Called Off in Major Detroit Nonprofit Theft (Associated Press)
• As Women’s Hoops Boom, NIL Boosters Favor Men, Records Show (Washington Post)

Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Politics

• JD Vance Campaign Event With Christian Right Leaders May Have Violated Tax and Election Laws, Experts Say (ProPublica)
  
  • Background from the Chronicle: J.D. Vance and His Many Philanthropy Grievances: What’s at Stake
• Conservative Think Tank Leader Calls for Banning Charities From Voter Registration Efforts (USA Today)
  
  • Background from the Chronicle: The House GOP Wants to Probe Nonprofits. Both Left and Right Have Pushed Back
• Left-Wing Nonprofit Skirted IRS Rules on Lobbying, Pro-Harris Advocacy (National Review)
• Karlie Kloss and Phoebe Gates Are Making the Election — and Reproductive Rights — Personal (Vanity Fair)

Note: In the links in this section, we flag articles that only subscribers can access. But because some journalism outlets offer a limited number of free articles, readers may encounter barriers with other articles we highlight in this roundup.