The Holidays are always a special time of year to spend with family and loved ones. A few years ago I asked my sister, Michelle Miller who serves as director of recruitment and community involvement for AGAPE Child & Family Services, Inc., if there was anything I could do or purchase for the kids her organizations supports during the Holiday season. She mentioned there was a little boy who wanted a bicycle and fortunately I was able to purchase it for him. Feeling happy I could make a difference to this boy, I causally mentioned this to my director, Frank LeRose, and he agreed to don
In challenging and uncertain economic times like the nation is currently facing, charitable giving is typically one of the first things to decline. In fact, when the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University surveyed fundraisers for its Summer 2008 Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI), 83 percent of respondents said the economy is having a negative effect on giving. Human service charities are likely to be especially hard hit, because demand increases while the funding tends to decline.
Have you ever thought about what a hungry child does over the weekends when she isn't at school to receive Title 1-funded breakfast and lunch? Unfortunately, hunger doesn't disappear over the weekend. Can you imagine how long those weekends must be? How can we possibly expect her to make good grades if she is missing meals? Recently, a story ran on the San Francisco/Oakland CBS affiliate about a great FedEx Backpack program in connection with the Alameda County Food Bank to deliver bags of food to students on
Once again, FedEx delivers! During this very tough economic time, FedEx exceeded their United Way goals both in Memphis, the headquarters of the company, and across the nation! The Memphis goal was $5.2 and we raised $5.4 million. The goal nationwide (from all of our OpCos) was $14.7 million and we raised OVER $15 million!! This is a tremendous accomplishment considering all that our employees and the nation are facing with increased costs and stock market failures.
What on earth is "strategic" philanthropy? Isn't "philanthropy" just helping people and communities out of the "goodness of our hearts"? Sure it is, but with more than a million registered non-profits in the U.S. alone, and with limited resources, how does a global corporation with a commitment to philanthropy go about picking and choosing which charities to support?
