Nonprofit News Feed Podcast

Train Derailment & Environmental Fallout In East Palestine Leads To Political & Legal Frenzy The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio has led to a frenzy of political activity, criticisms, lawsuits, investigations, advocacy demands, and conspiracy theories as the fallout from the derailment continues to maintain prominence in the national conversation. The derailment has prompted criti...

  Project Veritas CEO Ousted By Board Of Directors   James O’Keefe, founder and CEO of the conservative organization Project Veritas has been ousted by the group’s board of directors, according to reporting from  The Washington Post  and other outlets. O’Keefe was ousted on concerns that his antics threatened the organization’s IRS 501(c)3 tax-deductible status, according to a memo released...

Devastation In Turkey & Syria As Earthquake Exacerbates Ongoing Crises In Region A devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria last Wednesday, in a region already at the center of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises. As of writing, the Associated Press reports a  death toll surpassing 33,000 .  The New Humanitarian  reports that the region has already been torn apart...

  Hot Take Debate: Was Mr. Beast’s Cataract Surgery Video charitable? Adam Faircloth joins the debate.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamfaircloth/     Context:  MR Beast made content around paying for 1k eye surgeries, is this charitable.  the video has 95million views and was sponsored by Experian. At a rate of $2.13 per CPM, the video has generated at least $200k.    does it matter that it...

FDA To Further Ease Restrictions On Gay Men & Blood Donation Eligibility On Friday the FDA proposed new policy revisions that demonstrate a shift toward more inclusive regulations surrounding blood donation for members of the LGBTQ community and those of various sexual orientations,  according to reporting from CNBC and others.  In 2015, the lifetime ban on gay men from donating blood was ease...

  Amazon Sunsets AmazonSmile Amid Cost-Cutting  The AmazonSmile will be ending by February 20th, according to a statement from the company,  as reported by NPR and others.  While the program dispersed nearly $449 million to nonprofits globally, the company says that the donations were spread too thin, minimizing impact. Amazon pointed to other efforts, such as its Housing Equity Fund, which suppor...

Nonprofits Energize & Give Back To Communities On MLK Day Nonprofits across the country worked to engage and give back to communities this MLK Day.  Virginia nonprofit Rise Against Hunger  worked to fill 50,000 bags of food to serve communities in need. The article notes that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke often about hunger, and was a catalyst for this organization to focus on emergency foo...

Thousands of NYC Nurses Go On Strike As Hospital & Union Talks Fall Apart A dramatic, last-ditch effort to avert a strike failed this weekend, leading nurses at two major NYC hospitals to go on strike, according to  reporting from Politico and others . Approximately 7,000 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital went on strike at 6 a.m. Eastern on Monday, demanding increase...

Mastodon Embraces Nonprofit Status As Potential Industry Model Mastodon, an open-source microblogging site, has rejected offers from more than five US-based investors in recent months,  according to reporting from Ars Technica . The platform’s non-profit status is “untouchable,” according to its founder Eugen Rochko. Mastodon has similar features to Twitter but is made up of many decentralized, in...

Nonprofitnewsfeed.com   Scott Releases Comprehensive List Grant Recipients MacKenzie Scott has released a  comprehensive database  of all the nonprofit organizations that have received grants from her over the past several years. Scott has in many ways upended the philanthropy sector with the sheer volume and size of the grants, as well as their “no strings attached” nature.  The database denotes...

CVS Shows “Pledges” Do Not Equal Direct “Donations” In November 2021, US pharmaceutical giant CVS’s social responsibility team announced a $10 million commitment to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to be delivered over three years,  as reported by Quartz . However, what CVS omitted is that the donations collected from customers through in-store fundraising weren’t going to be in addition to...

2022 Giving Tuesday Predictions: Search Is Down, Hope Is Up Whole Whale, the publishers of this newsletter,  predict a record-setting $3.2 billion will be donated for Giving Tuesday this year . The prediction is the result of an analysis based on an adjusted linear regression, trends in Google Search terms around “Giving Tuesday,” and national giving trends. This method predicts an 18% or $500 mil...

Qatar World Cup Centers International Human Rights Issues, Corruption, And Sportswashing The 2022 FIFA World Cup is underway in Qatar in a climate marred by  years of controversies related to human rights issues, corruption, and influence peddling . While this is the first time the games will be held in an Arab country, Qatar’s bid was a remote possibility until it shockingly won the bid back in 2...

What The FTX Collapse Does & Does Not Mean For Crypto Philanthropy & Effective Altruism  Crypto-exchange FTX, one of the largest such exchanges,  collapsed last week , leaving the cryptocurrency world in disbelief as stakeholders try to piece together what happened and what comes next. The company’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried (known by the moniker SBF) was a visible proponent and donor to t...

Reality of Recycling Comes To Forefront As Environmental Concerns Peak  Nonprofit Greenpeace has  released a new report  acknowledging the gross inefficiencies and near futility of recycling, as  reported by Grist . The report highlights that even while the use of plastics across the world surges, the amount of plastic that gets recycled has decreased, a symptom of a solution no match for the scal...

Reactions, And Worries, As Musk Twitter’s Takeover Is Finalized Elon Musk’s $44 Billion takeover of Twitter was completed last week, with Musk officially becoming the owner and de-facto CEO of the influential social media platform. The drawn-out saga of the acquisition, which at times seemed like it would fall through, marks the beginning of a new chapter for a platform now run by one of its most...

  Girl Scouts Get $85 Million Donation From MacKenzie Scott MacKenzie Scott, known for historic billion-dollar donations continues to change nonprofits’ fortunes, this time with an $85 million donation to the Girl Scouts of USA. The donation is the single largest donation in the organization’s history since its founding in 1912, and will help the organization recoup a loss of programming and membe...

“Big Lie” -Affiliated Nonprofits Scrutinized By Authorities On Eve of Midterm General Election Two organizations associated with the “Big Lie,” the disproved conspiracy that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, face scrutiny for financial impropriety. The Arizona Attorney General (a Republican who as recently as 2020 courted Trump’s endorsement) has asked the FBI and IRS to probe the n...

Weekly Nonprofit News summaries.   In Win For Criminal Justice Advocates, Biden Pardons Marijuana Charges & Orders Evaluation of Cannabis Scheduling The Biden Administration announced last week a series of pardons for those charged on federal, simple marijuana possession charges, in a win for criminal justice reform advocates. The legacy of the Nixon Administration’s “War On Drugs” is still fe...

Discussions of Corporate ESG Ratings Should Be Monitored By Nonprofit Industry More and more, discussions about the efficacy, morality, and financial benefit of ESG-rated publicly-traded companies on the stock market are becoming commonplace. At  nonprofitnewsfeed.com , we think that nonprofits need to be equipped with the context needed to engage both prospective donors and the public at large wi...

Nonprofits Respond To Hurricane In Puerto Rico Puerto Rico felt the brunt of hurricane Fiona last week, shutting power to the island and devastating everything from homes to agriculture as severe flooding uprooted life yet again in communities. Puerto Rico, still recovering from hurricane Maria which landed back in 2017, again finds itself in need of assistance and as yet a path towards a resilien...

Patagonia Goes All-in Transferring Ownership to Nonprofit The private B Corp company Patagonia, known for outdoor gear and its outspoken position on the environment has transferred  its ownership to a nonprofit (reported by The NonProfit Times).  The company, worth an estimated $3 Billion, is transferring 98% of non-voting stock to the Holdfast Collective a 501(c)(4), and 2% of the stock (all voti...

Nonprofits Recognize Anniversary of September 11th Attacks With National Day of Service & Remembrance This Sunday marked the 21st anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. As Americans across the country reflect on the day, nonprofit and volunteer organizations stepped up to honor victims and families, as well as to pay forward the heroic acts of bravery and charitable acts of community...

GOP-Tied NRSC Mismanaged Fundraising In Lead-Up To Crucial Midterm Elections The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the fundraising and campaign arm of the Senate Republicans, is facing backlash from its own party as details of how it lost millions on an ill-concieved fundraising strategy emerge. The NRSC, chaired by Rick Scott, managed to take in nearly $181.5 million in donation re...

Biden Announces $10k, $20k Student Loan Forgiveness For Most Borrowers The Biden administration  announced last week  that up to $10k of federal student loan debt would be forgiven for eligible borrowers, including up to $20k for Pell Grant recipients. The sweeping announcement was a controversial policy move but nonetheless a major one, with tens of millions of borrowers affected. ...