Nonprofit ethics presentation (audio) sponsored by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. When I bookmarked this, there wasn't an option to download - streaming only. Less

The turmoil on Wall Street has more than banks and businesses on alert. Foundations and nonprofits here in Louisville are bracing themselves for the fallout. WFPL’s Elizabeth Kramer reports. It was just days after Lehman Brothers filed for the biggest bankruptcy case in U.S. history when the Association of Small Foundations held its annual conference. The association’s Tim Walter took a survey of the attendees. “Ninety-four percent of them said that they felt that the recent turmoil was more serious than previous shocks such as the collapse of Enron, the bursting of the dot-com bubble or the decline following the nine eleven attacks,” Walter says. “And actually eighty-four percent of the respondents said that their endowments were down this year, some dramatically.” Louisville’s foundations are considered small, but, each year, they give away millions of dollars to local nonprofit organizations. The current financial crisis has local foundations thinking about their investments and how nonprofits they support will weather the storm. Mason Rummel is paying close attention. She’s with the area’s largest foundation, the James Graham Brown Foundation. “We’re going to sit and watch it and we’re going to keep talking to our managers about their strategies and why they’re staying where they are,” Rummel. Rummel and other local foundation leaders say these days they have conservative and highly diversified investment portfolios they hope can counter market shocks. But they point out that any sharp downturn will surely affect future grants. The news comes at a time when many arts and social service organizations are already dealing with substantial cuts in government funding. The Humana Foundation’s Virginia Judd says that has implications for foundations. “There’s been a reduction in state funding and national resources are more limited and so I think there’s an expectation that foundations need to step up to the plate,” Judd says. So, how much money do local foundations give away? In 2007, the Brown Foundation gave more then $20 million, and The Humana Foundation gave more than $8 million. Actors Theatre of Louisville and Brooklawn Child & Family Services both got money. Brooklawn has programs for emotionally troubled boys, and here Humana Foundation money underwrites drumming classes. Staff member Dennis Roach. “It helps teach discipline and they enjoy coming in and doing it,” Roach says. “And so they work hard and they work on that level of working on themselves.” Brooklawn’s president, David Graves, says that the agency has had to scale back because of cuts in government funding and it’s been a clarion call. “We’ve got to be more efficient,” Graves says. “We’ve got to combine our resources to meet the growing needs. So, we will be in dialogue with other agencies, a way of sharing operations, a way to collaborate.” In recent years, Brooklawn and other nonprofits have merged staff and programs. It’s a strategy local foundations find encouraging, says the Brown Foundation’s Mason Rummel. “The pressure’s on now and so the nonprofits are going to have to get very creative, because, while we recognize what’s happened in the whole philanthropic world, we can’t make up for it, even as large as we are,” Rummel says. Leaders of local foundations and arts and social services say they will be working to tap into that creativity to deal with any future decreases in government and foundation funding that could cut into the bone of their core missions. Less

Biotech, Global Health, PATH Luke Timmerman wrote: A tiny nonprofit organization in Richland, WA, has developed a simple, elegant fix for one of the big health problems in the developing world. A group that calls itself Sign has found a way to properly treat broken bones that people suffer in car accidents—like how it’s done in the U.S.—but without any of the expensive equipment we take for granted in emergency rooms. The organization, formally called Surgical Implant Generation Network, has developed an “incredible device” that few people are aware of, says Paul Labarre, a technical officer with Seattle-based PATH, a nonprofit developer of global health technologies. Sign has an FDA-approved surgical nail that stabilizes broken bones, and can be fastened into place with bone screws by any physician with a little training. This sort of procedure happens all the time in U.S. emergency rooms, so we barely stop to think about it. Such a pin placement usually costs $1,200, and holes need to be drilled for screws to anchor it in place—a procedure that requires an X-ray imaging machine that costs $150,000, says Jeanne Dillner, Sign’s CEO. The nonprofit has a different idea. Its system is designed so doctors can place the nails inside the bone just like in the U.S., and drill holes to properly align the stabilizing screws based on feel, without the help of an expensive machine that doesn’t exist in many parts of the developing world. The organization makes the nails at a cost of about $100 apiece, and donates them all, Dillner says. “It doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of other global health issues,” says Labarre. “But it’s a big challenge.” This is already making a big impact, Labarre says. Sign, founded in 1998 by Lewis Zirkle Jr., a Richland-based orthopedic surgeon, has already trained about 3,000 doctors in 49 countries in how to use its patented nails, and the procedures have been performed more than 40,000 times. And that only represents a tiny slice of the problem. As many as 50 million people in the developing world suffer traumatic injuries in automobile or work accidents each year, according to World Health Organization estimates. Usually, those patients end up laying in a hospital bed for months while the break never properly heals, Labarre says. Even more eye-popping is this stat: road traffic accidents alone kill more people between the prime ages of 15 to 44 than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. I wouldn’t actually be too surprised. I recently got back from a mountain climbing trip to Mexico with two college friends, and without a doubt, the most harrowing experience of all was having to drive on that country’s back roads and even the major highways. Maybe that’s why PATH’s stats on car accidents grabbed my attention. (For the record, our rental car made it back to the Mexico City airport unscathed.) PATH is well-known for its efforts to implement high-tech and low-tech solutions to global health problems. It gets more money and attention for its efforts to develop novel vaccines, or solve malnutrition problems with things like fortified rice. Even though PATH hasn’t gotten any funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or government sources to improve trauma care, it is exploring ways to help amplify what groups like Sign are doing, Labarre says. The inspiration behind Sign came when Zirkle was traveling in Indonesia in the late ’80s to train physicians there on bone-fixing techniques, Dillner says. He found a patient who was lying in traction for three years with a broken bone, because he couldn’t afford a modern implant, and the hospital couldn’t afford it either. Zirkle, the son of the founder of Spokane, WA-based Key Tronic (NASDAQ: [[ticker: KTCC]]), obviously has some entrepreneurial blood, and he decided to go on a business mission. He aimed to persuade big medical device companies that make modern bone pins, like Stryker (NYSE: SYK) and Smith & Nephew (NYSE: SNN), to help him make low-cost implants for broken bones. “The light bulb really went on for Dr. Zirkle,” says Dillner. “Everything he did for training wasn’t going to be effective unless he could produce a low-cost supply of implants.” It turned out that none of the big companies were interested, Dillner says. So in 1999 he Zirkle decided to develop the implants himself, in a nonprofit organization. Since the start, Sign has been heavily bankrolled by Zirkle himself, and other orthopedic surgeons in his network, who now support 20 employees and an annual budget of $2 million, she says. Sign has grown to the point that its devices helped 15,000 people recover from trauma last year, and it wants to triple that annual number in the next three to five years, Dillner says. “Our goal is that a doctor in Nairobi can provide the same quality of care for a fracture patient as a doctor can at Harborview,” she says. (Harborview is the main trauma center in Seattle.) Sign is now branching out with a second kind of simple device that can help patients with hip fractures in the developing world, Dillner says. Her organization is getting help here from PATH, which has bioengineers that are doing repeated stress tests that mimic the gait of a person walking with one of the implants. This could be the difference between being crippled and being able to walk for huge numbers of patients, Dillner says. PATH’s Labarre was charged with starting up this trauma program about six months ago, and he sounds fired up. The organization is brainstorming now about ways to get Sign’s devices more broadly used, and to set up sustainable business models for companies in developing countries to run with other promising ideas. A couple examples include encouraging greater use of motorcycle helmets, and prosthetic devices for people who lose limbs. “We really want a small portfolio of projects here because we see a dire need,” Labarre says. “This has been largely ignored, and if it continues to be, we’re going to continue to see an increase in traumatic injuries.” Comments | Permalink | Share |  E-mail Less

DadLabs Ep. 325 The Lab - With young kids in the house, how can busy families find time for giving back? In this weeks lab, brought to you by Charitywater.org, the guys discuss some possible methods for teaching charity and community service. What's the best way to teach philanthropy? Special thanks to Charity: Water. Less

Audio recording of the panel, moderated by Rik Panganiban of non-profit experts talking about “Best Practices for Non-profits in Second Life,” held at the Plush Nonprofit Commons in SL. The jumping off point for the discussion was the white paper on “Best Practices,” which was prepared for Global Kids as a direct outgrowth of the non-profit track at the 2007 Second Life Community Convention. Speakers who presented were: Lori Bell, Alliance Library System Rafi Santo, Global Kids Jade Lily, SL Relay for Life Jimbo Hoyer, YearlyKos in SL Rik Panganiban, Global Kids and Glitteractica Cookie, TechSoup Less

Paul Lamb Interviews social entrepreneur and venture philanthropy expert Jed Emerson about his ideas, interests, and life. Less

Part 1 of 2 In the inaugural NTEN podcast, NTEN’s Holly Ross interviewed Greg Goldman of Wireless Philadelphia and Karen Archer Perry of Karacomm on their experiences in Philadelphia and their thoughts on the potential for municipal wireless. Less

Part 2 of 2 In the inaugural NTEN podcast, NTEN’s Holly Ross interviewed Greg Goldman of Wireless Philadelphia and Karen Archer Perry of Karacomm on their experiences in Philadelphia and their thoughts on wireless’ potential. Less

Mike Linksvayer, Chief Technology Officer for the Creative Commons, talks about why Creative Commons (CC) licenses are important for preserving an open culture and the services CC provides to make licensing work for creators and users. Less

David Collin interviews Mike Linksvayer, Chief Technology Officer for Coreative Commons, about how the organization supports the “some rights reserved” approach to creative material. Less

A few quick updates about what’s happening at NetSquared followed by Eddie Codel’s interviews with David Collin of the American Cancer Society, Amira Diamond of Circle of Life and Jesse Salinas of the Hands On Network Less