An article on yesterday’s E-Jewish Philanthropy caught our eye because the authors did a really interesting bit of research into the top givers in US in this calendar year. The study by Robert I. Evans and Avrum D. Lapin demonstrates how useful a careful parsing of statistics can be for fundraisers, and how that parsing […]
#COMMUNICATIONS: NFC Means More Than Paying By Mobile Phone
Near Field Communication has been around for a few years now, though the most popular mobile device, the iPhone, does not (yet?) carry the necessary transmitters to take advantage of it. The technology requires its own dedicated chip to send and receive data. Thus far, Google’s Android phones have been taking the lead in the […]
#ProAging: GAP Index Highlights Global Challenges Of Care For Aging
http://vimeo.com/18687471
The fact of the aging of the global population is something our readers are likely at least acquainted with. The phenomenon has arisen as life expectancy has lengthened even in developing countries and populations in developed countries often are not having enough children even to replace themselves. The result is that most national populations whose […]
#Fundraising: How To Apply For A Grant From Intel
This week in our ongoing periodic series on grant providers and how to apply for their support, we look at the tech company that helps build Microsoft and Apple computers: Intel. The corporation is best known for its processors and motherboards and for its 5-note jingle – but its stand on corporate social responsibility is truly impressive. […]
#ProAging: AARP Busts Some Social Security Myths
As we enter ‘crazy time’ in the electoral calendar (a calendar that now runs from the Friday after the last election to the day of the next one), we will hear ever more about the desperate need to balance the federal budget and pay down the national debt. Few will strongly argue against these budget-balancing […]
#ProAging: Social Security Recipients Enjoy COLA For First Time In Two Years
Social Security has built into its law and budgets a ‘Cost of Living Adjustment‘ (COLA) tied to inflation and/or rising prices. Those prices have, if anything, fallen during The Great Recession, so recipients have not seen a COLA since 2009. But the Social Security Administration published its formula this week to account for a 3.6% […]
#SocialMedia: Going To An #OWS Rally? Grab Your Android Phone!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ05rWx1pig”
Social networking has been the pivotal influence that has allowed the Occupy Wall Street movement (search #OWS on Twitter) to gain momentum and go global. Social-media platforms helped the first organizers get the word out, and these platforms have allowed millions around the world both to watch developments in New York City and to organize their […]
#SocialMedia: Turns Out, Twitter Can Start Revolutions Mr. Gladwell
What a difference a year can make – not always for the better, mind you. But in today’s post we see grounds for optimism when it comes to the development of social networks and of social movements through those networks as they force political and economic change. Last fall we wrote about the incisive and […]
#Philanthropy: President’s Jobs Bill & Tax Proposal Not Warmly Welcomed By Charities
As arguments over what to do with and about the US economy and the federal deficit continue to shed more heat than light, President Obama sought to take the fight back to the Republicans with the ‘American Jobs Act’ announced last week. The act contains a mix of tax realignments likely to gain some Republican […]
#Tech: Near-Field Communication (NFC) Could Turn Smartphones Into Donation Engines
Near-Field Technology (NFC) allows short-range communications between an NFC antenna or engineered SIM card and a receiver. The communication is good only up to a couple of feet, which might help make it a secure connection because eavesdroppers need to be next to the users. It is a technology that first appeared in Taiwan in 2007, […]
#Philanthropy: Could Text Messages Circumvent Apple’s Restrictions On Donation Apps?
Apple Inc. has been unwilling to allow fundraising/donation-soliciting software for the iPhone to be developed and sold through The App Store because Apple’s contract expects a cut of the profit and expects some control of the money flow. Apple claims (not without cause) that its iTunes/iPhone success is built on consistent user experience and unified expectations […]
#Economy: The Loss Of A Functional Middle Class
The oft-discussed possibility of a double-dip recession still looms darkly on the near horizon. Sure, the Stock Market is more often up than down, but those numbers represent only about 40% of the economy. Unfortunately, some 1% of the people in the economy control and profit from the 40% takings from that particular casino. For […]
#Philanthropy: How to Find and Solicit the Biggest Corporate Donors
In the midst of the present economic crisis, the debate about whether corporations should have social responsibility to give to philanthropic causes has grown heated. Some argue that CR (Corporate Responsibility) departments actually diffuse problems rather than solve them and corporations should put their resources to better, profit-driven, uses for the betterment of all. Others counter […]
#Aging: Likely Further Medicare Cuts Hurt Stocks Of Numerous Care Companies
While the ‘compromise’ over the debt ceiling was being shouted over, many analysts noted that the world’s stock markets were, at most, simply unnerved. They were not panicked because investors were confident that some kind of deal would be found and default was not really going to happen. What kind of deal drawn up to […]
Finance: Tales of New York & Baltimore Budget Shortfalls
Much news has been published concerning the debate over the federal budget for the rest of FY2011 (through October), but the city budgets are the ones that have the most impact for most citizens. While Congresspeople pretend to debate over whether or not Death Panels are in the health-care reform act, urban dwellers want to […]
Fundraising: Resources and Seminars
One of the services we periodically try to provide our readers is a timely compendium of resources about fundraising and the skills thereof. In this installment have some online resources to find and to apply for grants from the federal government and from private sources. To start off your spring drive, get some tips and […]
#Sustainability: Keeping Families In Homes Keeps Neighborhoods Alive
We welcome Bernell Grier, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City, Inc. to the growing list of Contributors to the MKCREATIVEnonprofit Blog. Ms. Grier was appointed CEO in May of last year, having been COO of the housing organization since 2004. She is writing about proposed cuts in government funding to community-development […]
Sustainability: Corporate Responsibility = Sustainability?
The MKCREATIVE blog welcomes Maria Lilly, principal of MJLilly Associates LLC, to our blog. She is a communications strategist who develops positioning programs that unite corporate, marketing and financial messages to create and support a company’s brand. As I canvas the business marketplace, I am thrilled to see the ongoing emergence of corporate responsibility and […]
#Aging: Will the Social Security Earnings Penalty Affect Me?
AARP published a useful Q&A as part of a series on tax-issue for those approaching retirement age. This particular article helps the reader identify which payments are classified as “Special Payments” under the current tax code and how they must be reported to the IRS. Here’s a definition of “Special Payments” from AARP: Special payments […]
Microdonation At Each Transaction?
Given the state of the world’s economy, charities have been struggling to keep up a steady flow of donations. Yet, much of the good work of those donations means the difference between survival or failure for millions of people caught in the economic fallout. The mega-donations in 2010 largely went to institutions that both were […]
End-Of-Year Giving And How It Might Change
Many of us give all through the year, which is to say, we are conscious of giving periodically to specific organizations or through special events. Nevertheless, the last week or two of December sees a great spike in giving. The motivation being a heady mix of holiday good will and thankfulness, as well as a […]
HAMP, or ‘Extend and Pretend,’ Continues To Hurt Troubled Mortgage Holders
We drew up a report about the Obama Administration’s ‘Home Affordable Modifications Program‘ (HAMP) in early August this year, in which we looked at news stories and even the government’s own figures that demonstrated the slow start, and middle stretch, the program was having. The program was meant to offer those who were behind on […]
Harsh Op-Ed On ‘Charitable Scrooges’
Debates about social media as catalyst, about political responses to economic crises, about open internets, about the care of our health… can help us sharpen our own positions and/or encourage us to take on ideas that we had avoided. This particular blog outlet tends to focus on the nexus of nonprofits, politics, and communications technologies, […]
Baltimore/Washington Area Expanding Multi-Use and Green Housing
The housing market remains in the doldrums and the legal ramifications of the market’s bubble and collapse remain in the news. Nevertheless, the Baltimore-Washington metro region has seen an ongoing commitment from lenders, investors, and construction firms within both the private and public sectors to expand green multi-family housing. Multi-Housing News Online (MHN) has recently […]
Obama Administration Cuts Tax On Small-Business Property Investments
Even as the dust continues to settle over this week’s midterm elections, the IRS has been reminding small- and medium-business owners that changes in the tax code could mean appreciable tax savings over the next few years. These saving are not part of the soon-to-expire Bush Administration tax cuts, whose continuance and in what form […]
The Foreclosure Crisis: The Same, But Different
The economic news relayed via our blog this week has not been much for confidence building, and we close the week with reports of a bleak twist in the ongoing foreclosure crisis. The news of the past couple of weeks has been that reporters and most of the fifty states’ attorneys general have been pursuing […]
Foreclosures Slowly Start Moving Again, Though Distrust Remains
A week or so ago, Bank of America announced it would put a hold on its foreclosure proceedings while it reviewed the processes that moved the foreclosure claims past lawyers, whose signatures were required. Other financial institutes followed suit. The decision came in the midst of growing fears that the foreclosures on tens of thousands […]
A Compendium Of Recent News About (The Effects Of) Unemployment
Perhaps rainy days and Mondays can get us down, but so can recent economic news. And we have had a fair amount of that in the last few days. For example, the last jobs report before the midterm elections shows a notable reduction in public-sector jobs (mostly caused by the ending of the last of […]
#Fundraising: What Is Next For Philanthropy? Acting Bigger And Adapting Better
Earlier this summer The Monitor Institute released a significant white paper penned by Katherine Fulton, Gabriel Kasper, and Barbara Kibbe that wants to challenge philanthropic organizations to see beyond the present fundraising doldrums toward the structural changes that requires such organizations to behave differently, whatever the economic environment. Their answers challenge some of the standard […]
Is Your Organization’s Status With The IRS Up-To-Date?
In our final follow-up/ announcement concerning a subject we (and many others) have periodically discussed over the last year, the IRS has established 15 October (in but one week!) as the deadline for all tax-exempt nonprofits and charitiable organizations to re-assert their status via the Form 990. Tax-exempt organizations are likely to keep their status […]
TARP: Unpopularity Of Program Belies Its Success
In the interests of full disclosure and blogospheric transparency, I should admit I was against the TARP program when proposed by the flailing George W. Bush administration in 2008. It seemed a rush job and a chance for the administration’s friends to get painlessly out of an operation they had botched themselves with absurdly risky […]
#Philanthropy: Baltimore’s Long Tradition Of Civic Philanthropy Unbroken By Great Recession
Baltimore likes to call itself the ‘City of Firsts,’ which has given it a proud heritage of innovation, civic uplift, and educational creativity. The city has struggled, like so many others on the eastern seaboard and in the upper midwest, with declining industrialization and population shifts to exurbs and to the Sun Belt. And yet, […]