Nonprofit Newswire | June 19, 2009 - Non Profit News

Internet Stimulus Grant Givers Want Community Coalitions
Jun 19, 2009; Wall Street Journal | The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce are about to deploy $7.2 billion for high speed internet projects, and they are looking for community-based coalitions involving lots of nonprofits (hospitals, colleges, community centers, housing projects) as desired targets to place the funds. One wonders how geared up the existing nonprofit sector might be for this stimulus largesse versus the entrepreneurial “technology nonprofits” that know the language but might not be all that connected to the communities and constituencies that need the job-creation the stimulus is supposed to engender. —Rick Cohen

Government will not refund charity money lost in Icelandic banking collapse
Jun 19, 2009; ThirdSector.co.uk | The British Government has rejected a call by its own Treasury committee to cover the losses of the country’s charitable sector due to the failure of Iceland’s banks. —Timothy Lyster

Stimulus has done little for Tennessee jobs: Most of money has been spent on TennCare
Jun 19, 2009; The Tennessean | Questions about where the jobs are in the stimulus spending—or if anyone’s counting the jobs accurately—are beginning to emerge. In this piece about stimulus expenditures in Tennessee, the jobs are hard to find, and little of the money seems to be going to nonprofits. The article does mention two small nonprofit pieces of the over $500 million already being spent in the state—$1 million that went to United Neighborhood Health Services that generated 15 jobs in 3 new neighborhood health centers and $99 million for weatherization activities, presumably through a nonprofit too. —Rick Cohen

Nonprofit hiring 30 extra workers: Group using $18M in Stimulus money
Jun 19, 2009; Dayton Business Journal | In Dayton, Ohio, the local community action agency is using $18 million in stimulus funds to hire 30 new employees (to be paid between $10 and $15 an hour) to weatherize 600 homes—the Community Action Partnership received 400 applications for the 30 openings. One hopes that someone in the nonprofit sector is keeping track of the nonprofit job generation from the stimulus. —Rick Cohen

US Govt Buys Twitter, Facebook
Jun 19, 2009; The Agitator | The Obama administration made a bold move to buy out the two major networks, overnight, bolstered by a conviction to “promote democracy abroad”, and inspired by the role the networks have played in recent events in Iran. “I want to assure the social net community,” Obama guaranteed, “that the US Government will interfere in no way with the content published on ~~our~~ your sites.” —James David Morgan

National Leadership Campus: Insurance Philanthropist Peter Lewis’s Grand Development Concept
Jun 17, 2009; Washington City Paper | The philanthropist behind Progressive Insurance, Peter Lewis, who is known for donating to progressive as well as other charitable causes, is apparently backing the creation of a nonprofit office complex in Washington DC. —Rick Cohen

Hope From A Humbler Perch: Post-Scandal, John Edwards Finds a Quieter Purpose
Jun 18, 2009; Washington Post | This story about John Edwards is laden with lots of sadness and is interesting on its own account. But also look for the snippet about his commitment to raise $100,000 for an ACORN-administered fund to make 32 homeowners in New Orleans “whole” after they had been subjected to subprime mortgages administered (and foreclosed on) by Fortress Investment where Edwards was working after leaving the Senate. The homeowners said basically that ACORN didn’t call them or, at best, interactions were inconsistent. ACORN said it had trouble finding and contacting the 32 homeowners and Edwards only delivered $50,000 instead of $100,000. Edwards said that the $50,000 came from his own pocket to jump start the program, “a good faith effort”, he said, but there was no explanation about what happened to his fundraising commitment. Other than the homeowners not getting much or anything from the fund, the Edwards/ACORN story doesn’t leave a good taste. —Rick Cohen

{source}
[[script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://feeds2.feedburner.com/nonprofitquarterly/dailydigest?format=sigpro”]]

[[/script]]
{/source}