Items of Interest | giving-together

This ten minute video from NPR News Hour is the first in a a series on childhood trauma and ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), which is the focus of the Identity project we funded in our 2020 grant cycle. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/childhood-trauma-impacts-millions-of-americans-and-its-having-devastating-consequences

August 3, 2020 article in The Washington Post, "Nonprofits in trouble: One-third of organizations may not survive pandemic, recession." It has specific reference to the Greater Washington Community Foundation Covid-19 emergency fund, to which we contributed. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/non-profits-coronavirus-fail/2020/08/02/ef486414-d371-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21_story.html

August 1, 2020 Vox article, "MacKenzie Scott is donating her billions much faster than her ex Jeff Bezos" See: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21348052/mackenzie-bezos-scott-donating-billions-ex-jeff-bezos-amazon

Computer CORE's empty classrooms were visited on April 21, 2020 by Tobias Rodriguez of WJLA / ABC 7. Mr. Rodriguez was interested in the story of how Computer CORE (GT grantee, 2015) is helping their students adjust to the pandemic shutdowns and job loss. Watch the newscast and read more: https://wjla.com/news/local/workforce-program-helps-adults-beat-unemployment-with-refurbished-laptops

April 3, 2020 Inside Philanthropy article, "The Hardest Hit: Who is Supporting Communities of Color During COVID-19?" See: https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2020/4/2/the-hardest-hit-who-is-supporting-communities-of-color-during-covid-19

In this May 2019 article, "An Illustrated History of New York City's Playgrounds," Ariel Aberg-Riger explores the creative and political history of the concrete jungle’s 2000+ jungle gyms. This is especially pertinent to us because GT built an elementary school sport court in honor of Giving Together's 10th anniversary.
Read More: www.citylab.com/design/2019/05/playground-design-ideas-history-nyc-parks-healthy-kids/589591

Stephanie Land’s new memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, details her own experiences cleaning houses, and sheds light on the bureaucratic hurdles faced by single mothers living on public assistance. The memoir shows how someone falls into poverty and struggles to get out. The author was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air on January 29, 2019.
Read more: www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/crushing-logistics-raising-family-paycheck-paycheck/581536

This January 2019 article in The Washington Post illustrates the work of our grantee, Healthy Babies Project (GT grantee, 2017), through the personal story of one of its residents. The nonprofit rents a one-level brick house in Northeast Washington which houses young mothers and their babies, and teaches skills to more than 300 young women and girls annually in the District, including pregnancy prevention classes for teenagers and parenting classes for baffled new mothers. The landlord now wants to sell the house, and the organization is trying to raise money to buy it.
www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/in-northeast-washington-a-home-for-young-moms-and-their-babies-tries-to-stay-put/2019/01/01

This Sept 11, 2018 article from the New York Times provides a detailed and compelling account of how employment alone has no longer become the solution to poverty in the US. The author, Matthew Desmond (winner of 2017 Pulitzer Prize for his nonfiction work, Evicted) uses one case study of a family trapped in poverty and homelessness despite the single mother's efforts at a minimum-wage job while struggling to raise teen children. Desmond explains that the myth of the nonworking, idle poor is a persistent influence in today's "reform" of the social safety net. www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/magazine/americans-jobs-poverty-homeless.html

This July 2018 graphic arts-style article provides a very informative (and visually captivating) summary of food poverty and the very modest, but critical, benefits provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, otherwise known as food stamps). These benefits, which the Administration wants to further tighten, amount to only $1.86 per person per meal.

SNAP benefits add up to $1.86 per person, per meal. Here's what that looks like.
Read More: www.citylab.com/design/2018/07/how-the-other-half-eats/566411

This July 2018 blog from the WRAG (Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers) explains that as foundations and corporations strive to have greater impact on social problems, their philanthropic strategies have moved from being responsive to more proactive. No longer is it sufficient to simply support nonprofits doing good work. Today's funders are looking to invest in solutions NOT organizations.
dailywrag.com/2018/07/19/todays-funders-are-looking-to-invest-in-solutions-not-organizations/

Kids are major beneficiaries of most safety-net programs for food, housing, and healthcare (e.g., 44% of food stamp recipients are children). The Administration's plans to cut spending on poverty means cutting spending on kids—a downward trend that is already happening....Children will receive just one cent of every dollar from the projected $1.6 trillion increase in federal spending authorized under the Trump administration, while children’s share of the budget will drop from 9.4 percent to 6.9 percent. See: www.citylab.com/equity/2018/07/the-war-on-poverty-isnt-over-and-kids-are-losing/564902

Moving out of the city used to be the American Dream. Now it can make life harder. See:

This December 2017 blog from Charity Navigator describes alternative modalities of charitable giving - and lists "giving circles" among three relatively new approaches!
blog.charitynavigator.org/2017/12/alternative-giving-tips-dafs-community.html