Education

The General Motors Foundation plans to give $27.1 million -- the largest donation in its 34-year history -- to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan to help increase graduation rates and rebuild the area's skilled work force, the organizations announced Friday.

The money will go toward creating what's known as a Network of Excellence.

The network will choose five high schools from which to create up to 20 academies along with establishing five early learning communities to help get young children ready for kindergarten.

Chris Ulmer turned his passion for running into a fundraising drive for Teach for America, asking supporters to donate money for each one of the 250 miles he plans to run from Penn State to his home in Willow Grove, Pa., upon graduation.

Measured by the bottom line, a merger between White-Williams Scholars and Philadelphia Futures seems hardly noteworthy.

After all, the two Philadelphia nonprofit groups are worth barely $12 million, couch-cushion change when compared, say, with the $68 billion Pfizer Inc. spent to buy Wyeth last year.

Still, the thought of a marriage of the two college-prep programs gave Susan Segal goose bumps.

The merger will mark a rare coming together of two well-established and financially stable nonprofit organizations with a goal of serving more students more effectively.

Generous impulses often are described in fundraising appeals, conversation and greeting cards as coming "from the heart." In fact, the origins of giving probably are deep in the brain's circuitry.

The University of Notre Dame is leading a new research initiative that will merge economic, sociological, neurological and psychological studies to explain why some people give and some don't.

The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF) announced today that the Danville Regional Foundation (DRF) has awarded an unprecedented five-year grant of over $5.4 million for Smart Beginnings Danville-Pittsylvania County to dramatically expand the region’s commitment to school readiness for thousands of young children.

A $15 million gift to Rice University will allow it to expand its signature urban research project to cities around the world.

Versions of the Houston Area Survey, which has documented demographic and cultural shifts in Houston for almost 30 years, will be conducted in cities around the United States, as well as those in other countries.

Drexel University on Tuesday morning will announce a whopping $45 million gift from corporate executive and alumnus Bennett S. LeBow for a new academic center for its business school, which already bears his name.

It's Drexel's largest gift from a single donor and the 12th largest to be made to a U.S. business school, Drexel officials said.

Toronto Community Foundation head discusses the organizations unique business model and being named "Outstanding Foundation" by the AFP Greater Toronto.

A philanthropic watchdog group is hoping to light a fire under charitable foundations that support education by releasing a report Wednesday that points out how few of them focus enough attention on helping the most needy students.

The study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy said that only 11 percent of American foundations devoted at least half their grants to programs that benefit vulnerable students. It looked at 672 foundations that gave at least $1 million to educational causes from 2006 to 2008.

Seven California school districts on Monday said they are teaming up to push ahead with education reforms that previously failed to gain widespread traction with districts and unions throughout the state. The seven superintendents, which represent some of the state's largest school systems and more than 1 million students, announced the creation of a nonprofit organization called California Office of Education Reform.

The group will be launched with $3 million in donations from philanthropic foundations, including California Education Partners.