The Northwestern University Dance Marathon, commonly known as NUDM, is a philanthropic dance marathon held every March at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1975, NUDM is one of the nation's most established and largest entirely student-run philanthropies. NUDM is one of the only annual Dance Marathons in the country to continually change its primary beneficiary. NUDM has raised over $23 million for its beneficiaries in its 50-year history, and involves over 1,000 students participating as dancers and committee members. Since 1997, the Evanston Community Foundation has been NUDM's secondary beneficiary.
In November 2004, voters in the U.S. state of California passed Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), which has been designed to expand and transform California's county mental health service systems. The MHSA is funded by imposing an additional one percent tax on individual, but not corporate, taxable income in excess of one million dollars. In becoming law in January 2005, the MHSA represents the latest in a Californian legislative movement, begun in the 1990s, to provide better coordinated and more comprehensive care to those with serious mental illness, particularly in underserved populations. Its claim of successes thus far, such as with the development of innovative and integrated Full Service Partnerships (FSPs), are not without detractors who highlight many problems but especially a lack of oversight, large amount of unspent funds, poor transparency, lack of engagement in some communities, and a lack of adherence to required reporting as challenges MHSA implementation must overcome to fulfill the law's widely touted potential.
Cindy Chavez is an American politician who serves as the Santa Clara County supervisor representing district two, which is home to nearly 400,000 residents in Downtown, East, and South San Jose. Her public service career began in the 1990s as a policy analyst for health care, public health, human services and transportation for the Board of Supervisors. She served two terms on the San Jose City Council, where she was also Vice Mayor, and also served on the board leadership of public agencies such as the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, and executive director of Working Partnerships USA and the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council. She has unsuccessfully run for Mayor of San Jose twice. She is a graduate of San Jose State University, is married and has a son in college.
Housing First is a policy that offers unconditional, permanent housing as quickly as possible to homeless people, and other supportive services afterward. It was first discussed in the 1990s, and in the following decades became government policy in certain locations within the Western world. There is a substantial base of evidence showing that Housing First is both an effective solution to homelessness and a form of cost savings, as it also reduces the use of public services like hospitals, jails, and emergency shelters. Cities like Helsinki and Vienna in Europe have seen dramatic reductions in homelessness due to the adaptation of Housing First policies, as have the North American cities Columbus, Ohio, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Medicine Hat, Alberta.
Google.org, founded in October 2005, is the charitable arm of Google, a multinational technology company. The organization has committed roughly US$100 million in investments and grants to nonprofits annually.
The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has completed 5,000 park-creation and land conservation projects across the United States, protected over 3 million acres, and helped pass more than 500 ballot measures—creating $70 billion in voter-approved public funding for parks and open spaces. The Trust for Public Land also researches and publishes authoritative data about parks, open space, conservation finance, and urban climate change adaptation. Headquartered in San Francisco, the organization is among the largest U.S. conservation nonprofits, with approximately 30 field offices across the U.S., including a federal affairs function in Washington, D.C.
The Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore (CFES) was established in 1984, and is located in Salisbury, Maryland. Its mission is to "To strengthen our community by connecting people who care with causes that matter to improve quality of life in our region" and its vision is for "...a community where all can live, learn, work, create and prosper". It serves the three lower counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland: Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester.
Third Sector Capital Partners, Inc. is a nonprofit advisory firm with offices in Boston, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California, and Washington, DC. Founded in 2011, Third Sector leads governments, nonprofits, and private funders in building evidence-based initiatives and Pay for Success projects. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Third Sector is supported through philanthropic and government sources.
True Colors United is an American nonprofit organization addressing the issue of youth homelessness in the United States. Founded in 2008 by Cyndi Lauper, the organization focuses on the unique experiences of LGBT youth, who make up 40% of the homeless youth population in America.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains five of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units, it has resulted in an extreme housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage, with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco, 40 percent in Los Angeles, and 38 percent in San Diego, because rents would fall by 55 percent, 41 percent, and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
Community Housing Partnership is a nonprofit organization in San Francisco, California, that provides housing, job training and other services to people formerly living in homelessness. Founded in 1990, it owns and operates 14 residential buildings and collaborates with other organizations in its goals.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetime. The CZI is set up as a limited liability company (LLC) and is an example of philanthrocapitalism. CZI has been deemed likely to be "one of the most well-funded Philanthropies in human history". Chan and Zuckerberg announced its creation on 1 December 2015, to coincide with the birth of their first child. Priscilla Chan has said that her background as a child of immigrant refugees and experience as a teacher and pediatrician for vulnerable children influences how she approaches the philanthropy's work in science, education, immigration reform, housing, criminal justice, and other local issues.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that more than 181,399 people were experiencing homelessness in California in January 2023. This represents more than 27% of the homeless population of the United States even though California has slightly less than 12% of the country's total population, and is one of the highest per capita rates in the nation, with 0.46% of residents being homeless. More than two-thirds of homeless people in California are unsheltered, which is the highest percentage of any state in the United States. During "A single night in Janurary 2023", 49% of the unsheltered homeless people in the United States lived in California: about 123,423 people, which is eight times as many as the state with the second highest total. Even those who are sheltered are so insecurely, with 90% of homeless adults in California reporting that they spent at least one night unsheltered in the past six months.
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is an American family run foundation based in Oakland, California. The foundation funds early childhood education programs in Oakland, various arts programs around the San Francisco Bay Area, and research into inflammatory bowel disease.
SocialWorks is a non-profit organization founded in Chicago in August 2016 by artist Chancelor Bennett, Justin Cunningham, and Essence Smith. SocialWorks was founded in support of Chicago Public Schools (CPS). SocialWorks raises money for social issues that affect Chicago's youth, such as education, homelessness, mental health support, as well as to create spaces and bring visibility to Chicago's artistic community. Bennett founded SocialWorks with the intention of “giving back to his community.”
Daniel Lurie is an American philanthropist who is the founder and former CEO of Tipping Point Community. He is a candidate for the mayor of San Francisco in the 2024 election.
National Life Group is the trade name of National Life Insurance Company and its affiliates that offers life insurance and annuity products for individuals, families, and businesses. National Life Insurance Company was chartered in 1848 by the Vermont General Assembly.
MusiCares' COVID-19 relief effort was a charitable initiative aimed at providing financial and other forms of assistance to musicians and music industry professionals affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative was established by MusiCares, a non-profit organization that was founded in 1989 by the Recording Academy, the organization behind the GRAMMY Awards.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the international and domestic economies. Thus, many organizations, private individuals, religious institutions and governments have created different charitable drives, concerts and other events to lessen the economic impact felt.
Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) was established by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2011 to create public-private partnerships to rapidly re-house homeless Veteran families and prevent homelessness for very low-income Veterans at imminent risk due to a housing crisis. SSVF has been led since its inception by John Kuhn, the previous VA National Director of Homeless Evaluation.
