In The News
Some links of interest over the past few days…
from our Jewish world:
Dame Vivien Duffield: ‘You’re lucky if you have one good relationship’
the woman behind one of the most progressive foundations in the UK; a major current initiative, the new Jewish Community Centre in London.
There are two strands to the small but powerfully built Dame Vivien Duffield: her fabled ability to raise money and her even greater enthusiasm for giving it away.
In a lifetime’s rampant philanthropy, she has parted with an estimated £176 ($350.) million from her various foundations and is still distributing £6 million a year.
SEVERAL ISRAELI organizations and institutions have begun marketing the concept of philanthropy. Aside from wanting to promote the idea of giving for the greater good, some of these organizations are marketing their own raison d’etre or their pet projects. Israel is marketing the development of the Negev and actively looking for foreign and local investors. If the Negev is to become the southern hub of Israeli hi-tech, it has to be able to include qualified personnel as the human assets in its marketing strategies. Moreover it has to provide adequate education facilities for people living in the area to want to stay there to study.
and from the business side:
Causes Reports On Its First Year - $2.5 Million For 20,000 Charities And NonProfits
Causes, a Facebook and MySpace application that promotes viral donations of time and money to charities and nonprofits, launched a year ago. They’ve now released statistics today on their usage and donation numbers for that first year.
The company says they’ve registered 12 million users who are now supporting more than 80,000 non-profit causes worldwide. $2.5 million has been raised for 19,445 different 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Facebook reports 60,000 daily users of the application, and MySpace reports 25,000.
New IRS Rules Help Donors Vet Charities
Revised Tax Form Will Make Nonprofits Reveal More About How They Spend
Tax Exemptions of Charities Face New Challenges
Authorities from the local tax assessor to members of Congress are increasingly challenging the tax-exempt status of nonprofit institutions…
One issue is the growing confusion over what constitutes a charity at a time when nonprofit groups look more like businesses, charging fees and selling products and services to raise money, and state and local governments are under financial pressure because of lower tax revenues.
The Brits Weigh In on Tomorrow
After attending the Facing Tomorrow Conference, being treated to all the press reports (mostly American oriented - even if appearing in the Israeli news), and all the various comments both pro and con about the Conference floating around the blog-o-sphere (the Anglo-Israeli crowd commented heavily on the expense while people are hungry in Israel), here is a view from a U.K. attendee and speaker:
“… Peres succeeded beyond expectations in creating an event so ambitious in its reach, so impressive in its execution, that his countrymen could justifiably feel both proud and reassured about what it said about Israel’s international status…”
and this about our communities leadership:
“Other billionaire “conference trustees” — a long list including Lev Leviev, Daniel Abraham and Poju Zabludowicz — seemed not to see the irony in seminars discussing “the leaders of tomorrow” being dominated almost entirely by men over 55. No matter that, in one seminar, former Rutgers sociologist Chaim Waxman linked declining communal participation to an “increasing perception that the communal leadership is elitist, parochial, self-serving and resistant to innovation”. Pah: the “circle of wealthy old men” he identified as running most major Jewish organisations saw no reason to step aside.”
With our interest, here at eJewish Philanthropy, in the ‘younger generation’, I found these last comments, in particular, relevant. Guess the entrenched leadership of the Jewish communal world is a universal problem; reminds me of the recent Republican party Presidential primary race in the U.S!
Read more from David Rowan, editor of the U.K.’s Jewish Chronicle: Leadership: a billion-dollar question.
image source: thejc.com
Britian’s Wealthiest Give More
Britain’s wealthiest continue to prove their generosity; “the super-rich are engaged in unprecedented levels of giving. They are more directly engaged in the distribution of that money than ever before.”
According to the Sunday Times Rich List Giving Index, almost $4.65 bn. (May 9 exchange rates) has been given away or pledged by the leading 30 philanthropists among Britain’s richest 1,000 individuals. This is nearly double the $2.36 bn. given last year, and more than five times the amount given in 2006.
The Giving Index ranks Rich List members by the proportion of their total wealth donated to charity over the preceding 12 months. The average Giving Index for the top 30 donors was 26.42 in 2008, almost treble that of 9.36 last year (the median almost doubled, to 7.97 from 4.33).
The most popular causes were education, children and youth, humanitarian, and medical, with a more engaged and involved approach being reflected in the predominantly self-made male and female donors.
Alastair McCall, Editor of the Giving List, says, “Entrepreneurial confidence has fueled unprecedented levels of giving”, with business entrepreneurs and financiers still dominating the top ten.
The dramatic growth in giving over the last three years is cause for optimism despite the current financial climate, according to McCall. “The philanthropy boom will not turn to bust as quickly as the economy.”
The Brit List
The Jewish Chronicle reveals the top spots in their second annual list of those who wield the greatest influence on British Jewry, as chosen by their readers and an independent panel representing all strands of their community.
