News/Stats/Studies

Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist and craigconnects, released an infographic detailing the use of social media by leading nonprofit organizations.

"How the Top 50 Nonprofits Do Social Media" is a fact-filled, comprehensive look at which leading nonprofit organizations are most proactively and effectively using social media channels of communication like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, and RSS feeds.

The American Technion Society has received a $30 million commitment from the estate of Henry Taub and The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation. The gift, awarded Tuesday, will go to making improvements at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

From the fund, $25 million will go to the Leaders in Science and Technology faculty recruitment program. The other $5 million is scheduled to go to the university’s faculty of computer science.

A new type of company intended to put social goals ahead of making profits is taking root around the country, as more states adopt laws to bridge the divide between nonprofits and businesses.

California is the latest state to adopt a statute permitting what is called flexible-purpose corporations, new companies that are part social benefit and part low-profit entities. The companies are now allowed under laws in more than a dozen states and two Indian tribes.

There is a crisis in the nonprofit sector. Since the great recession began, donations to the largest charities in the U.S. have dropped by billions. But the financial meltdown has not affected all charities and nonprofits equally. More versatile, general-purpose charities are faring the worst. For more tightly focused nonprofits, the decline is not nearly as sharp.

The more fundamental core problem is strategic. These institutions lack a strategy for connecting their mission with their ability to deliver. In short, this is a crisis of coherence.

With billions of philanthropic dollars flowing into higher education each year, careful allocation of funds, based on specific community needs, is required in order to achieve maximum impact, a new study says.

To help national and community foundations better allocate their higher-education dollars, the Institute for Higher Education Policy has developed a framework for categorizing U.S. metropolitan areas based on their specific higher-education needs.

Monday, Alaska's nonprofit organizations had reason to rejoice as the Department of Revenue released preliminary numbers showing they will receive a record amount of money through the Pick. Click. Give. program.

The program allows Alaskans to donate a portion of their dividend to a local nonprofit group when they sign up online for the annual payment to citizens of a portion of income from the state's Permanent Fund.

This year, just fewer than 19,000 people gave $1.5 million.

Idealware has released its updated report, A Consumers Guide to Grants Management, a free, 169-page review of the features and processes used by 20 grants management systems to help private foundations accept and review applications and track grants throughout their life cycles.

Even as the economy continues its slow recovery, many nonprofit organizations have a renewed sense of optimism, according to the United Way’s eighth annual Non-Profit Pulse Survey.

While many organizations have developed creative ways to do more with less, concerns linger over public sector funding, increased demand for services and general uncertainty over the future.

Susan Dunn, president and CEO of the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, said she was surprised by the increase in optimism in Hartford-area nonprofits from those surveyed.

Billions of dollars in arts funding is serving a mostly wealthy, white audience that is shrinking while only a small chunk of money goes to emerging art groups that serve poorer communities that are more ethnically diverse, according to a report released Monday.

The report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, shows foundation giving has fallen out of balance with the nation's increasingly diverse demographics. The report was provided to The Associated Press before its release.

President Obama’s plan to limit the value of charitable deductions for wealthy people would cost nonprofits at least $2.9-billion and perhaps as much as $5.6-billion, according to a study to be unveiled Friday by the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and paid for by a $1-million research grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Economists examined how people would be affected by Obama’s plan to limit to 28 percent the amount affluent people could write off in all itemized deductions.