Tomes can and have been filled about the problems underpinning Cameron's Big Society. One issue among many is that the charitable giving of the very wealthy is an inconsistent resource. As new findings by the Chronicle of Philanthropy show, major charitable gifts in the U.S. dropped by 30 percent in 2012:

The largest gifts announced by American philanthropists in 2012 totaled nearly $5.1-billion, but $3-billion of that was from Warren Buffett’s promise in August to give stock valued at $1-billion to each of three foundations run by his children.

Without Mr. Buffett’s pledges, the biggest gifts announced in 2012 would have totaled only $2-billion—far less than 2011’s $2.6-billion.

Continue Reading...

Enter: Radi-Aid, a campaign to send radiators to frostbitten Norwegians. Watch as a rapper called Breezy V explains the perils of sub-zero temperatures, and let's Africans know that they have the power to help:

In Norway kids are freezing / It's time for us to care / There's heat enough for Norway / If Africans would share

Continue Reading...

She said the bell ringing starts in the morning, clangs all day long, then continues into the night. According to her calculations, she listens to 40 hours of Salvation Army bell ringing every week, for five weeks a year, or 200 hours a year.

“I don't get a break,” she said. “It makes my blood pressure go sky high.”

Continue Reading...

Camfed helps fight poverty by educating and empowering girls in rural communities throughout Africa.

Fred's Team participates in marathons and allows members to create events all over the world to support lifesaving cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The Lower East Side Girls' Club provides a place where girls and young women can grow, learn, have fun and develop confidence in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the world.

North Shore Animal League is the world’s largest no-kill animal rescue and adoption organization.

Continue Reading...

"There were a range options.

"We discussed the book burning while getting the message across that this book is a dangerous trend.

"I think we've got a culture now which has completely sexualised women and in which women feel obligated to take part in that culture. We want to draw a line under that.

"We will be cutting them up, using them for toilet roll and sticking them on our compost heap and they will go back into the ground... although the ideas they represent will continue."

 

Continue Reading...

Romney reportedly took advantage of a loophole, called a charitable remainder unitrust or CRUT, which allows someone to park money or securities in a tax-deferred trust marked for his or her favorite charity, but which often doesn’t pay out much to the nonprofit. The donor pays taxes on the fixed yearly income from the trust, but the principal remains untaxed. Congress outlawed the practice in 1997, but Romney slid in under the wire when his trust, created in June 1996, was grandfathered in.

Continue Reading...

“This will be a large, costly relief response and we need help now,” said Charley Shimanski, senior vice president of Disaster Services for the Red Cross, in a release. Shimanksi urged that people donate funds to the relief efforts. More information about giving money and donating blood to the Red Cross can be found here. According to the organization, "nearly 100 Red Cross blood drives have already been canceled due to the storm, and there could be more as the week goes on. This means a loss of as many as 3,200 blood and platelet products." The charity noted, "If anyone is eligible, especially in places not affected by the storm, they are asked to please schedule a blood donation now." The New York Blood Center is also asking for blood donations to prevent shortages.

Continue Reading...

The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was the largest Muslim charity in the United States until three months after 9/11, when the Bush administration shut it down following reports that the group had donated a portion of their foundation funds to schools and hospitals in Gaza through a "Zakat" (charity-giving) Committee that allegedly had connections to Hamas. After subsequent raids on the charity leaders' homes and offices, arrests, and two trials (the first in 2007 ending in a hung jury), the Holy Land Five were convicted of conspiracy under the Material Support to Terrorists statute and received sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years in federal prison.

Continue Reading...

Usada last week published a 1,000-page report which concluded the Texan and his United States Postal Service team ran "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen".

Armstrong announced he would not contest charges handed down by Usada in August.

Usada promptly stripped the 41-year-old of all results since 1 August, 1998, including his record run of seven Tour de France triumphs from 1999 to 2005, and banned him for life.

Usada sent the UCI its reasoned decision last week and published an abbreviated 200-page version on its website, revealing the scale of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Much of the detail came from testimony of 11 of Armstrong's former team-mates, who were given six-month bans.

Although Armstrong had been active on Twitter, he had not commented in public until Friday night when he appeared at the 15th anniversary celebration of his charity Livestrong.

Continue Reading...

Perry tells Atlanta station WSB-TV he decided to give Alicia Day a brand new van after he saw a news report about the theft this week.

Authorities say Day's 2000 Chrysler Town and Country van was stolen from her Decatur driveway sometime Sunday night.

Day, who uses a wheelchair, told WSB she prides herself on being independent and works part-time as a greeter at Home Depot. Her mother relied on the van to take Day to work and to doctor appointments.

Day said "my mouth just dropped to the floor" when she learned Perry would give her a new van.

---

Information from: WSB-TV

Continue Reading...

The initiative has received broad praise in the media, but little focus has gone into the pledge's consequences. Light digging into the details, however, shows the pledge to be a very open-ended promise indeed.

First, there is nothing binding in the pledge, described on its website as a "moral commitment to give, not a legal contract." No doubt the public and social pressure could shame someone with a spare half-billion to follow through, but where this money goes is another question entirely. Giving Pledge guidelines note:

The pledge asks only that the individual give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charitable organizations after their death … Each person who takes the Giving Pledge makes an individual decision about which particular causes or organizations they wish to support.

Continue Reading...

Check out our slide show introducing some the Buffett-Gates pledges.

[slide_show id=13016062]

Continue Reading...

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced Tuesday that Putin had sent a letter about withdrawing the agency to Washington last week. Reuters reported that analysts see the Kremlin's decision as reflective of "Moscow's hostility toward U.S.-funded groups that seek to promote democracy and the rule of law in Russia."

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who is now at the Brookings Institution, told Reuters:

They [the Russian government] see Aid's efforts in Russia as being a prime funder of the NGOs that are concerned about their elections and concerned about the regression of democracy in Russia.

According to the Washington Post, since 1992, USAID has provided $2.6 billion to Russia. The appropriation in 2012 included $34.6 million for democracy, human rights and governance, $15.8 million for health and $2.1 million for education.

Continue Reading...

The lyrics are based on interviews with a cute group of kids from Wellington, New Zealand. McKenzie and Clement asked them questions about what it means to be sick, how to raise money and what they think of  "The Muppets" (for which McKenzie wrote an Oscar-winning song, solo).

On being sick after drinking bubble mixture:

Jemaine: What were you thinking, drinking bubble mixture?
Girl: I wanted to turn into a bubble.

One boy's conception of the financial system:

Continue Reading...

On one hand, the act of gathering around a dinner table with loved ones, taking stock of our lives and giving thanks, isn't just one of our nation's most staid traditions; it's also a fundamentally humble act that harks back to the collectivist underpinnings of America's founding myth. Consistent with that ethos, giving has become the order of the day; and each November, millions of Americans do.

It's no small irony, then, that this modest yearly ritual is followed by Black Friday -- the high holiday of conspicuous consumption.

Economists may quibble over whether we're still in an official recession, but for millions of jobless Americans the answer is clear. Occupy Wall Street has drawn much-needed attention to the specter of income inequality and helped to reinvigorate the national dialogue about social safety nets. But whatever future improvements the movement might yield, there remain many, many people across the country who need help now. Forty-six million Americans currently live below the poverty line, the largest number in a half-century.

Continue Reading...

But the up-all-night marathon, hosted by one bleary-eyed trouper with an undone bow tie, is now all but extinct. In May, Jerry Lewis announced that after giving it one more go in September, he'd be stepping down as host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Labor Day telethon. But on Wednesday evening, the MDA confirmed that Lewis is no longer the organization's national chairman, and that he won't be doing this year's broadcast. It'll be the first Jerry Lewis-free Labor Day since 1966.

The chairman of the MDA's board, R. Rodney Howell, called Lewis a "world-class humanitarian" in a statement Wednesday, adding "we're forever grateful to him for his more than half-century of generous service to MDA." The organization says that Lewis' telethons have raised a staggering $2 billion since their inception. Last year alone, it raised nearly $60 million.

Continue Reading...