Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

So Little Time, So Many Charities to Feed
New York Times, 12/12/07

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

By: Kim Severson

When casting about for ways to spend on others at this time of year, people whose hearts are as big as their appetites turn to food-related charities. But figuring out where to direct help can be complex, especially in an era when tens of thousands of such programs exist.

Charitable groups dedicated to saving farms from bankruptcy or delivering vegetables to poor urban neighborhoods have popped up in recent years. So have groups that build organic gardens in struggling school districts or protect endangered indigenous foods like the O’odham pink bean.

Then there is the question whether to go local and support the food pantry in your neighborhood or get global and become, say, a microlender with kiva.org, where your money might provide a low-interest loan to a yam seller in Ghana.

Sifting the options can be daunting. So philanthropy experts suggest starting with some introspection.

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Charity takes lots of clarity
Los Angeles Times, 12/2/07

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

Give some thought to these tips on how to find the right cause and the most effective way to help.

By: Kathy M. Kristof, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

You know the holiday season has begun when the Salvation Army kettles start appearing at malls and grocery stores. This is the busy time of the year for charities in general, when about half of all donations made by Americans are given out.

“The October-through-December corridor is the big giving time,” said Bennett Weiner, chief operating officer of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. “Charities want to get a donation before the year is out and when the holiday spirit is in. Donors are interested in the same thing — and about being able to claim a tax deduction.”

But giving to charity isn’t just about parting with some money. You also must decide which organizations should get your money. And ideally, you’d like to know that those precious dollars will be well spent. With pressing needs all around and more than 1 million charities to choose from, how can philanthropists ensure that they’re getting a decent bang for their buck? Here are some tips from the experts.

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Everybody Wants to Save the World
Inc., 12/07

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

Everybody Wants to Save the World
But when you start a charity overseas, good intentions often go awry
Inc., 12/07

There was a nasty surprise waiting for Troy Wiseman in Zambia. The founder of InvestLinc, an investment and wealth-management company, flew into that African nation in the summer of 2005. On the agenda: taking Zambia’s first lady on a tour of several institutions financed by his charity, World Orphans. Unfortunately, the orphanages seemed not to exist. Nor could Wiseman locate the supervising pastor, to whom he had wired almost $70,000 over the past year. After half a dozen phone calls failed to clear things up, Wiseman made his apologies to the president’s wife and headed anxiously back to Chicago.

The Zambia debacle was especially troublesome because World Orphans had recently begun soliciting outside donations. What if this wasn’t an isolated situation? Wiseman wondered. How could he pitch his organization to donors if it was beset by fraud? So he hired a veteran philanthropist, Paul Myhill, who visited 53 of the charity’s 400 sponsored orphanages and compiled a detailed report. It painted a grim portrait. Many of the orphanages were poorly maintained or were being used as old-age homes. Some had never been built. Wiseman estimates about half the projects Myhill visited did not fit the mission statement. About 20 turned out to be outright frauds.

Many entrepreneurs reach a point in their lives when, having tackled the problems of customers, employees, and industries, they are tempted to take on the world’s ills. Inspired by the likes of Bill Gates and George Soros, some launch philanthropies aimed at providing aid to developing nations. They assume that the skills responsible for their for-profit successes will translate easily into the nonprofit realm.

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When It Comes to Choosing Charities, Those Who Want to Give Wisely Get Careful
The Washington Post, 11/18/07

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Where Should I Donate?

By Terri Rupar
Washington Post Staff Writer

At a bar in Adams Morgan on a recent Saturday night, Miss D.C. USA was cracking jokes onstage when she was joined by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mike Ditka, Ron Burgundy from “Anchorman” and Milton from “Office Space” — or, at least, their mustachioed look-alikes.

Young revelers had paid a $10 cover to get into the bar for a charity event called the Glorious ManPageant. The evening was organized by the Society of Mature Adults Seeking to Help, Entertain and Donate, known as SMASHED. It raised $3,500 that went to Capital Queen for a Day, a local organization that sends beauty pageant contestants out to hospitals to host special events for pediatric cancer patients.

While many of the patrons showed up mostly for the mustaches and beers, SMASHED was quite serious about where their contributions would go. It takes a careful look at the groups it singles out for donations. Kate Larned, 29, a charity coordinator for SMASHED, said the organization compiles as much information as possible on each charity it chooses.

With about 1 million charities worldwide, it’s important to carefully vet the organizations you select for your donations. Matching your heart to the right group can be complicated and time-consuming. And giving to a charity that turns out not to satisfy your goals or, worse, makes off with your money can sour the experience.

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For Chinese-Americans, Schools Earn the Prize
The New York Times, 11/12/07

Monday, November 12th, 2007

For Chinese-Americans, Schools Earn the Prize
The New York Times, 11/12/07

Last February, Jerry Yang and his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, pledged $75 million to Stanford University for a variety of programs. Two-thirds of their gift will go to build a new environment and energy site. The balance will go to the medical school.

Like other prominent Chinese-Americans, Mr. Yang, who is the chief executive of Yahoo, is loyal to his and his wife’s alma mater and enthusiastic in its aid. The fact that the beneficiary is a university is emblematic of what Chinese-Americans have accomplished as they have moved into the realm of multimillionaires and billionaires. Influenced by the Confucian respect for the importance of study, they have viewed American universities as the way up the ladder to success.

And now second- and third-generation Chinese, and even some of the newer immigrants, are broadening their reach beyond education and the arts to social services. Or they try to wrap both agendas together — like helping poor Chinese get a better education in the United States.

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Getting Emissions on the Books: Project Promotes Carbon Accounting By Biggest Companies
The Wall Street Journal, 11/6/07

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

Getting Emissions on the Books: Project Promotes Carbon Accounting By Biggest Companies
The Wall Street Journal, 11/6/07

By: Mike Foster

Paul Dickinson, chief executive of the London-based Carbon Disclosure Project, has spent seven years persuading institutional investors to back his efforts to convince companies to disclose carbon-emission levels. Today, institutions managing assets valued at a total $41 trillion are backing the project.

The not-for-profit initiative has been financed by family endowments, led by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and won the support of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who said at its September conference that you can never get a handle on the way companies cut emissions without measuring what they produce at the outset.

The Carbon Disclosure Project is an independent lobbying organization that works with 315 institutional investors and 2,400 of the world’s largest companies to focus on reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption.

It surveys participating corporations about emissions accounting and management, regulation and changes in technology. It also keeps a database on corporate greenhouse-gas emissions. In its most recent survey, for instance, the initiative found that total greenhouse-gas emissions reached nearly seven billion tons of carbon dioxide, more than 50% of which is accounted for by FTSE 500 publicly traded companies.

Mr. Dickinson says he is encouraged by the European Union’s decision to put tough second-round emissions standards in place after being too generous with permits in the past.

As carbon taxes and regulation are introduced, accounting bodies will start to audit corporate emissions, and Mr. Dickinson is preparing for the change. “The authorities, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have started to pick up on our work,” he says. “It will only be a matter of time before accounting bodies realize we are measuring issues that will affect future profitability.”

Accounting scrutiny for carbon emissions is likely to mimic recent events in the pensions sector. When schemes were relatively small and liabilities stretched into the future, accountants could overlook their economic impact.

When liabilities started maturing, making a material impact on near-term profits, accounting standards boards started telling companies to report on their funding positions in a disciplined fashion.

When the initiative started in 2000, Mr. Dickinson had strong support from Chairman Tessa Tennant, who started Jupiter Asset Management’s socially responsible investment initiative. Ms. Tennant is now chair of the ICE Organization, which aims to encourage individuals to grasp the importance of limiting emissions.

Kicking off with Legal & General Group PLC, Mr. Dickinson and Ms. Tennant persuaded a growing number of institutions to back emissions disclosure. Companies were asked how many tons of carbon dioxide they either produced or bought through energy purchase. They were also asked to calculate the amount produced by other activities, such as business travel.

At first, Mr. Dickinson was infuriated by the lack of response, but as concern about climate change grew, more companies started filling in its surveys, vetted by third-party environmental groups.

By 2003, Ms. Tennant said, more companies started to respond. “There’s nothing like peer-group pressure. For companies to see what their competitors are doing is a great spur to action,” she said.

The latest Carbon Disclosure Report issued in September on the world’s 500 largest publicly traded companies revealed that 77% of them had answered the questionnaire, up from 72% last year. Of these, 76% had initiated an emissions-reduction program, up from 48% in 2006.

Mr. Dickinson believes corporate initiatives will multiply following the decision of some of the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers to ask their suppliers to provide data for the Carbon Disclosure Project. “We have just signed Wal-Mart, and it has agreed to write to 68,000 suppliers,” he said.

How to add brains to generosity
Financial Times, 10/20/07

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

How to add brains to generosity
Financial Times, 10/20/07

Four years ago, when Pfizer bought Roger Newton’s company Esperion Therapeutics for $1.3bn, the pharmacologist and co-discoverer of the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor was deciding how to use his share of the windfall. “My wife and I had always been philanthropic, but we’d never had the ability to do so many things,” Newton says.

His private wealth adviser introduced him to Foundation Source, the Connecticut-based philanthropic advisory firm. With its help, Newton created the Esperance Family Foundation, using 25 per cent of gross proceeds from the company’s sale.

Newton, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, credits Foundation Source with providing the knowledge and administrative ease he needed to run a family foundation. “It was the link between Lehman Brothers and Foundation Source that allowed us to make astute investments,” he says. “I learnt I could work with a central organisation that would do all the accounting and reporting, cut all the checks, collaborate with my bankers and introduce me to a network of foundations with mutual interests.”

Everyone from Aristotle to Andrew Carnegie has bemoaned the challenge of giving away money wisely, and the recent proliferation of specialised non-profit organisations both nationally and abroad presents untold complexity for the more than 75,000 private foundations in the US. With $455bn total assets under management and annual giving of $25.2bn, results-oriented foundations are turning increasingly to philanthropic advisers to help define and implement their charitable goals. Many donors say these advisers allow them to indulge in the joy of giving without getting mired in the minutiae of administration.

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Grants Made to Advance Giving Among Emerging Donor Communities
PNN Online, 10/8/07

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

Grants Made to Advance Giving Among Emerging Donor Communities
PNN Online, 10/8/07

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has announced the inaugural grantees of the Cultures of Giving Fund, an innovative initiative created by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to empower emerging donor communities – notably the African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American and underserved immigrant communities – to lead, develop and grow philanthropic resources that address community causes.

Grants totaling $1.59 million were awarded to 14 non-profit organizations across the United States and include six challenge grants to stimulate and increase the impact of giving from donors from the targeted communities. The remaining eight grants support the development and dissemination of training tools and other services to help community-based organizations engage these donors and strengthen their connections to social change issues.

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Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Opens Doors in Los Angeles, 9/27/07

Friday, September 28th, 2007

Second California location extends activities of thriving San Francisco office and expands team of professionals serving California donors

Los Angeles, September 27, 2007 – In a move that will address the growing demand from donors in the greater Southern California area for expert guidance on giving matters, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has announced the opening of a Los Angeles office. This expansion builds on the establishment of a San Francisco office in 2004, which has served donors throughout the West Coast, and brings to 27 the number of philanthropy professionals available to donors through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the largest independent nonprofit advisory service of its kind.

“Interest in philanthropy continues to grow in the Southern California area and we have had the privilege to work with numerous foundations, individuals and corporations in the region through our San Francisco office,” said Melissa A. Berman, President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which is headquartered in New York City. “Our mission is to help donors – no matter where they are located – put more thoughtful strategic dollars into communities. With a fully staffed dedicated Los Angeles location we believe we can bring the most value and support to philanthropists from Santa Barbara to San Diego.”

“This region is home to a vibrant nonprofit community and donors who have a pioneering spirit as well as the desire and ability to address the global “big picture” and critical local issues at the same time,” said Judy Belk, a senior vice president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, who leads all West Coast activities. “That’s a wonderful combination, and our team looks forward to deeper involvement with donors in the dynamic Southern California area through direct relationships, in partnership with wealth and legal advisors, and as we assist nonprofit and academic institutions in initiatives to educate donors more broadly.”

Ms. Belk has more than 20 years of experience in strategic philanthropy, community relations, corporate citizenship and non-profit management. Before joining Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, she served as vice president of global public affairs for Levi Strauss & Co. During her tenure at the company, Ms. Belk also led the Levi Strauss Foundation, with assets totaling over $120 million. Under her direction, the foundation and company developed a global reputation for international work in the fight against AIDS, economic development, and anti-racism initiatives. She currently serves on the boards of the Southern California Association of Grantmakers, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Marlborough School, and was until recently a board member for The Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Ms. Belk, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and master’s degree from California State University, East Bay, has written and lectured extensively on organizational ethics, race, and social change.

Ms. Belk is joined in Los Angeles by philanthropic advisor Melissa Downey, who was most recently a Donor Engagement Officer for Silicon Valley Community Foundation, where she managed a portfolio of 150 donor advisors providing grantmaking, research, due diligence and site visits. During her tenure at the foundation, Ms. Downey held a range of positions in the program, marketing and communications and strategic planning areas. She has had direct experience supporting a diverse portfolio of donors including developing and managing a $1 million arts initiative and the foundation’s Neighborhood Grants Program. Ms. Downey also worked in Los Angeles providing support to the Barbra Streisand Foundation and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Kimberly Myers Hewlett will provide overall administrative support to the office, joining Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors with a strong track record in administration and management operations and a deep personal and family interest in philanthropy. Previously, Ms. Hewlett served as Alumni Relations Director for the Stanford University Medical School and held various administrative and project management positions throughout the private sector. She is an alumna of The Philanthropy Workshop West Program, a well respected “boot camp” for emerging philanthropists. Ms. Hewlett is actively involved in her families’ foundations and is a member of the Global Philanthropy Circle, sponsored by the Synergos Institute. She is a graduate of Stanford University.

Ms. Belk and her Los Angeles-based team will work closely with Rae Richman and Erica Sanchez in the San Francisco office as well as other New York-based professionals, all of whom have extensive experience in a broad cross section of global philanthropic issues, including the environment, education, healthcare, community development and the arts.
The new office is located at 6300 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 820, Los Angeles, CA 90048 (213) 226-0250, email info@rockpa.org.

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About Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is an independent, nonprofit service that develops and manages effective giving programs for individuals, families, foundations and trusts. In 2006, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors advised on more than 130 million in giving in 30 countries. Headquartered in New York City, it traces its antecedents to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., who in 1891 began to professionally manage philanthropy “as if it were a business.” He set the style of family giving by specifying that grants would be used “for the well-being of people throughout the world.” Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors also includes The Philanthropic Collaborative, a special donor-advised fund vehicle managed solely as a service to clients.

Charities Brace for Challenges From Jittery Stock Market
Chronicle of Philanthropy, 9/6/07

Monday, September 10th, 2007

Charities Brace for Challenges From Jittery Stock Market
Chronicle of Philanthropy, 9/6/07

The volatile stock market has not yet caused any major problems for charity fund raising, but experts warn that continued ups and downs or a sharp drop in stock values this fall could hurt nonprofit groups — especially since some charities raise the bulk of their donations in the last quarter of the year.

“A big market downturn would certainly pose problems for both capital campaigns and big grant requests,” says Melissa A. Berman, president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, a New York nonprofit group that helps foundations and wealthy donors manage their giving.

What’s more, she says, “there could be trouble ahead for charities even without a sharp dip in stock values. The real challenge is intense market volatility, which creates a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty makes many people hesitate to make a commitment.”

Problems in the housing market, including an increase in the number of home foreclosures have caused jitters in the stock market, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging by 1,000 points or more on a single day in August and stock prices declining by as much as 10 percent.

Some fund raisers are bracing for the possible impact of an economic downturn.

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