One man donated a pig “of an uncommonly fine breed.” Another donated an Egyptian mummy. The founders of the state’s first hospital needed any gift they could get. In 1817, hospitals served patients too poor to afford a doctor’s house call, so the wealthy had little incentive to support them. To cut costs, the Legislature ordered prison inmates to quarry the gray granite blocks that went into Massachusetts General Hospital’s walls.

To continue reading this article, please follow the link to the Boston Globe page.

 LED lights are certainly within our future. Savings of electricity, decreasing in carbon admissions, and the length of life for the LED lights prove that they are  more efficient then your basic bulb . Only problem is that their much weaker in light strength. But thats nothing a few million dollars in research cant fix, right? The only question now is how can we get them into every single house across the globe within the next five years?

Click here to read more on this article.

pic via Humor on Flickr

Where is the sanity of utilizing components that already exist that represent national health care.  Community Health Care Centers, Medicard and Medicare already represent a form of national health care providers and health insurance programs.

Why not just build off of it?  It is called profit.  Nonprofits as one of the largest employers in the country should seriously look to the Community Health Care Centers for the health plan and services of their employees.  Congress just needs to continue to promote equitable access to health care with the expansion of the community health centers to the medically under-served census tracks. 

pic by reslifephoto

Have you conducted this easy task with your organizations volunteers?

Taking time to relax and have hours of conversation has been the catalyst to the beginning of many nonprofit organizations.    Those burning ideas require time to strategically lay the ground work of the next steps and bring the ideas to reality. 

pic by HandmadeSay Debbie

Making the most of your strengths.

Many foundations give out the approximately 5% of their assets each year.  If one was to review the purpose of the foundation set by its founder to its mission of today in most cases it has changed if the organization is older than 25 years. 

So there are two question to ask yourself when deciding to establish a foundation.

• Do I want to make the impact while as the donor I am alive or leave the impact to others to make on my behalf?
• Do I want to set a family legacy of philanthropic giving that lasts forever? 

Depending on your answer preserving cash or giving cash will be the key objective of the foundation that is established. 

According to the Foundation Center 2004 study limited-life foundations represent just over 10 % of the family foundations and has been growing.  I would agree with the likes of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates that today’s pressing issues should be ones focus.  Each year new family foundations are created with their own mission, vision and priorities that meet the concerns of the time. 

Is letting the Philanthropists of tomorrow resolve the problems of tomorrow and have the Philanthropists of today resolve the problems of today such a bad idea?

The economic crises of today has caused many foundations to cut back their issuing of grants or stop giving any grants to conserve cash.  This action provides clear evidence that a foundation is more interested in preserving itself than resolving the problems of today.  I would suggest that a Family Foundation close and move its funds to a Community Foundation.  Community Foundations are much better at keeping in touch with the pressing issues of the day and bringing new Philanthropist to the act of giving. 

It does not have to be new to be valuable.

From Papa;

Nonprofits will find that the purchase of store returns, recondition items and used items are great ways to stretch each dollar.  

Pic by WNYC

Public Policy that is outcome driven is the only way to accurately reduce drug use and drug crime.   I sometimes wonder what Turkey comes up with the laws and programs that are not evidence based.  Thus, wasting billions for years until new policies and programs are change the bad practices.  Thousands of individuals are left untrained and placed back into society saddled with labels that prevents them from gainful employment for the rest of their life.

• Minimum sentencing

• Disparity of penalties between drugs

• Sentencing for violent crimes vs drug crimes

• There is a need for laborers for park, road, and building improvements.

• There is a need for laborers for creating affordable housing stock, reconstruction after disasters and building maintenance.

Public Policy needs change to address the fact that prison for non violent drug crimes has shown for decades to not result in effective outcomes.  The billions spent could be better spent on managing and creating a workforce from these offenders that is better prepared and that pays back to society through their labor. Call it Public Works Projects Crew or whatever but just maybe the answer is implementing a sentencing of hard labor community service for non violent cases for drug crimes.

Nonprofits have consistently shown to be successful in coordinating programs where outcomes have to be measurable.  Therefore, the federal and state government should focus on identifying those outcomes they wish to obtain and implement a procurement from nonprofits to accomplish such.

pic by hunter

The Stimulus bill has $300,000,000 to be spent for replacing part of the federal fleet vehicles that meet a much higher fuel standard.

President Obama has a goal to put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon on the road by 2015, with the cars built in America.

I would propose that the federal government partner with Zipcar or like programs to purchase their vehicles and have them available to both employees and the general public.  If the federal government allows the cars be available to the public as well for the evenings and weekends then costs will be lowered.

Some people may have concerns about the cars being secured or targeted.  Unless point to point the car is always going to be in a government secured setting then the point on security is flawed.  Most government cars have government license plates and/or signage but get parked wherever a meeting happens to be.

When using a Zipcar type system gas, insurance and mileage (up to 180 miles) is included in the hourly cost.  It is simple and is the most efficient car pool service one can find.

Nonprofits should consider partnering with Zipcar type services for their fleets of cars and vans.  It just might provide a cost savings and increase the organization’s ability to obtain new vehicles at no additional cost to the nonprofit.

pic by Chloe John

Ford Foundation Focus Supplements Federal Foreclosure Purchases

Wall Street Journal reported that the Ford Foundation is providing an initial $50 million to help municipalities buy foreclose property.  The Foundation will provide an additional $100 million over the next five years.

Check out the article with this link.

Nonprofits whom are working with local and state agencies should keep this funding source in mind.