NASA extends research program with $2.8 million grant to Texas State

Texas State University

March 28, 2021 | Giving Around Texas

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has extended the NASA Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Engagement and Educator Professional Development Collaborative (NASA STEM EPDC) at Texas State University through 2022 with a $2.8 million grant. Leslie Huling, interim director of the LBJ Institute for STEM Education and Research and professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, will oversee the grant as principal… Read more »

Certified Nonprofit Accounting Professional (CNAP): Sign up for Spring Training! March & April & May & June!

FMA - Fiscal Management Associates

March 5, 2021 | Classes & Training

For accounting and finance professionals working in a nonprofit organization, the Certified Nonprofit Accounting Professional (CNAP) training provides a crash course in every aspect of nonprofit financial management. Program graduates leave with the know-how and action plans they need to make an impact in their organizations right away.

San Antonio Museum of Art is starting a Book Club

San Antonio Museum of Art

March 28, 2021 | Events

  StART a Conversation with SAMA’s Book Club For SAMA’s third book club, we invite you to read Lion Island: Cuba’s Warrior of Words by award-winning author Margarita Engle.   This short book tells the story of Antonio—a young man of African, Chinese, and Cuban descent—growing up in Cuba in the nineteenth century when the country is fighting for freedom from Spain. He becomes… Read more »

New Report Finds That More Than $20 Billion Went to COVID-19 Philanthropy in 2020

Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy

March 21, 2021 | Funders and Foundations

Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP)released a new report, Philanthropy and COVID-19: Measuring one year of giving, that examines COVID-19-related philanthropic funding in 2020. It is the second of two reports assessing COVID-19 philanthropic data. The first report, released in August 2020, examined COVID-19 philanthropy in the first half of 2020. Today’s report provides updates and looks at the global philanthropic response… Read more »

$1.2 million award moves Texas Biomed closer to groundbreaking on critical new building

Texas Biomedical Research Institute

March 21, 2021 | Giving Around Texas

A $1.2. million challenge grant from the Mabee Foundation brings Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed)closer to its goal of $10 million to fund the construction of its Nonhuman Primate Animal Facility (NHP ALFA) on its campus. The Institute is more than halfway to its goal. This project will accommodate the critical need of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) to provide innovative,… Read more »

My 10 commandments for successful donor communications

Tom Ahern

March 21, 2021 | Communications

OK, commandment #1 (by far): You build your sales’ success (i.e., your fundraising comm’s success) backwards from your target audience. “What the heck does that mean?” might be your challenge. ——So … let’s get basic. You, fundraiser, are trying to sell my brain something. You want my brain to make a purchase decision … a purchase decision that will benefit your charity’s mission-cause-movement-ideal-belief-invention-initiative-program-plans for… Read more »

How a Study on Giving Circles Led to the Launch of Philanthropy Together

Dorothy A. Johnson Center - Isis Krause

March 21, 2021 | Funders and Foundations

The idea of a giving circle is as simple as it is powerful: a group of individuals pool their resources and decide how to channel their generosity collectively. Too often, when people think of philanthropists, they picture a group that is primarily rich, primarily white, primarily men, and primarily American. However, giving circles, one form of collective giving, bring together a widely diverse group… Read more »

The preeminent happiness researcher shares some surprising results on connecting well-being, mental health, and how employers can play a role in improving our lives at work

McKinsey & Company - Tera Allas, Lord Richard Layard

March 21, 2021 | Leadership

What makes an employee happy at work? According to Lord Richard Layard, it’s the same things that make people happy in their lives: a sense of belonging, social connections, and a purpose or meaning. Tera Allas, director of research and economics at the McKinsey Center for Government, asks Lord Layard what role employers can have in improving their workers’ lives in the face of present-day… Read more »

Cactus Pear Music Festival Matching Grant Opportunity with Russell Hill Rogers Fund

Cactus Pear Music Festival

March 21, 2021 | Appeal

  WE’LL KEEP THIS SHORT AND SWEET   There’s nothing like a personal testimony to sing the praises of people and organizations that have made a positive impact on that individual. Former Young Artist Program scholarship recipient Terri Landez does just that. Please take a listen—less than a minute of your time—and hear how CPMF’s educational opportunity made a difference to Terri. Over 100… Read more »

Banks Provide $750K Subsidy to Build 76 Homes for Homeless Individuals

Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas and Frost Bank

March 21, 2021 | Giving Around Texas

A $750,000 Affordable Housing Program subsidy from Frost Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas will help an Austin community called Community First! Village expand to build 76 more affordable homes for people coming out of chronic homelessness situations.

A Year Into the Pandemic, Long-Term Financial Impact Weighs Heavily on Many Americans

Pew Research Center

March 21, 2021 | How tos

About a year since the coronavirus recession began, there are some signs of improvement in the U.S. labor market, and Americans are feeling somewhat better about their personal finances than they were early in the pandemic. Still, about half of non-retired adults say the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak will make it harder for them to achieve their long-term financial goals, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Among… Read more »

Effective leadership, successful fundraising

Lilly. Family School of Philanthropy - Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D.

March 21, 2021 | Events, How tos, Leadership

Fundraisers are managers utilizing a fundraising plan as a management document to achieve goals and meet metrics. However, even though fundraisers rarely hold a nonprofit’s top staff position, fundraisers are also leaders. Knowing the difference between fundraising management and fundraising leadership is essential for fundraising success. While management is focused on today’s details, leadership is focused on tomorrow’s possibilities. Those possibilities are rooted not… Read more »

To innovate your way out of this downturn, you need to change behaviors and mindsets—starting at the very top.

McKinsey & Co - Laura Furstenthal, Martin Hirt, and Erik Roth

March 21, 2021 | Corporate Responsibility

My readers know that I believe that business provides so many great ideas for the nonprofit world. This article by McKinsey is an awesome example of how we can rise up out of the crisis that has plagued us for some time now, and fly high with new ideas and methods for success. And example, “Too much of most organizations’ time is spent on tracking and managing processes instead of the outcomes of those activities.” This is a must read for nonprofits with foresight.

Rainwater Charitable Foundation Announces Second-Annual Rainwater Prize Winners for Brain Research

Rainwater Charitable Foundation

March 7, 2021 | Giving Around Texas

The Rainwater Charitable Foundation, one of the largest independent funders of neurodegenerative disease research, today announced Dr. David M. Holtzman (the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and Chair of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis) and Dr. Celeste Karch (Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Washington UniversitySchool of Medicine in St. Louis) as this year’s recipients of the Rainwater Annual Prize… Read more »

Increasing Attention to How Much and Where Money Flows — or Doesn’t

Dorothy A. Johnson Center - Teri Behrens and Michael Layton

March 7, 2021 | Funders and Foundations

Who is giving — and who isn’t? How much, or how little? Who is receiving, and how is the money spent? Many of the forces we examine in this year’s 11 Trends report, and in previous years’ reports — such as the global concentration of wealth and the marginalization of BIPOC communities — are driving crucial conversations about the haves and have-nots. For decades,… Read more »

Call For Papers: FOR VOLUME 14, ISSUE 1

The Foundation Review

March 7, 2021 | Communications

Abstracts of up to 250 words are being solicited for Volume 14, Issue 1 of The Foundation Review. This issue will be an open (unthemed) issue. Papers on any topic relevant to organized philanthropy are invited. Submit abstracts to submissions@foundationreview.org by March 31, 2021. If a full paper is invited, it will be due August 31, 2021, for consideration for publication in March 2022.… Read more »

Chia-Chia Lin wins 2020 Clark Fiction Prize for ‘The Unpassing’

Texas State University

March 7, 2021 | Awards

Chia-Chia Lin’s novel, “The Unpassing,” has won the 2020 L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize. The prize of $25,000 is one of the largest literary awards in the United States.  Established at Texas State University in 2016 and administered by the Department of English, the prize is designed to recognize an exceptional, recently-published book-length work of fiction in celebration of the Clarks’ lifelong… Read more »

$1.5 million grant aims to help former students return to college to complete degrees

Texas State University

March 7, 2021 | Giving Around Texas

Texas State University has been awarded a $1.5 million reskilling grant to help up to 1,000 former students with some college credit return to school and complete their degrees. Texas State received the pass-through grant is from the United States Department of Education’s Education Stabilization Fund Program via the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund. Reskilling grants to institutions will support displaced Texas workers… Read more »

International Women’s Day: Essential reads for 2021

McKinsey & Company

March 7, 2021 | Corporate Responsibility

The COVID-19 crisis and ensuing uncertainty has had an undeniable effect on women. Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, revisit highlights from our publishing as many #ChooseToChallenge issues that drive gender inequality. For even more on what matters, explore our special collection on diversity and inclusion, and stay tuned tomorrow for new perspectives on how to build a more equitable, inclusive workplace… Read more »

Best News Ever! The People Prevailed: Citizens Triumph Over TCEQ and Vulcan Quarry in District Court

Preserve Our Hill Country Environment | Stop 3009 Vulcan Quarry | Friends of Dry Comal Creek

March 7, 2021 | Strong Communities

The determined alliance of Comal County citizens, community groups, and Comal ISD prevailed on Friday in a monumental victory over the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Vulcan Construction Materials, LLC. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, 459th District Court, Travis County, ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the plaintiffs, who have, since 2017, been fighting a proposed 1500‐acre limestone quarry between New Braunfels and Bulverde.