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Tag: Nonprofits

  • MacKenzie Scott gives $60 million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy

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    MacKenzie Scott, one of the world’s richest women and most influential philanthropists, has donated $60 million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, according to a Tuesday announcement from the nonprofit.

    The donation is among the largest single gifts Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has made to a nonprofit, and the largest the Center for Disaster Philanthropy has ever received.

    Patricia McIlreavy, CDP president and CEO, called the gift a “transformative investment” that would help the nonprofit “strengthen the ability of communities to withstand and equitably recover from disasters.”

    The gift comes at a time when climate disasters are becoming more frequent and costly and as President Donald Trump stokes uncertainty about how much federal support communities will receive to recover from future emergencies.

    Founded in 2010, CDP offers advice and resources to donors seeking to maximize their impact on communities recovering from climate disasters and other crises. The organization emphasizes medium- and long-term recovery, two oft-neglected phases of disaster response.

    CDP also does its own disaster giving, including through its Atlantic Hurricane Season Recovery Fund which will soon support Hurricane Melissa recovery in the Caribbean, according to the group.

    The $60 million grant would go toward “improving disaster preparedness, addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities to hazards and providing vital resources for the long-term recovery of disaster-affected communities,” according to a CDP statement.

    Scott, 55, amassed most of her wealth through shares of Amazon that she acquired after her divorce from the company’s founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos. Forbes estimates her current wealth to be about $34 billion.

    Soon after her divorce, Scott signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away at least half of her wealth throughout her lifetime. She has donated more than $19 billion since 2019.

    The author of two novels is known for her quiet and trust-based giving. Scott rarely comments on her donations apart from sporadic essays published on her website, Yield Giving.

    Nonprofits are often surprised to learn they are receiving one of her grants, which come without restrictions on how groups can use the money.

    McIlreavy told The Associated Press she found out about the gift in September through a phone call. “There was a disbelief and joy mixed together,” she said.

    The lack of restrictions allows CDP to put some of the money toward general operations like staffing, an aspect of nonprofit work for which it is often difficult to fundraise.

    McIlreavy said nonprofits trying to raise money for administrative costs can sometimes feel like they are running a pizza shop. “People would come in and say ‘I want pizza, but I don’t want to pay for the staff to make it, or the trucks that bring in the cheese.’”

    The support comes as climate disasters continue to grow in frequency and cost, stretching the abilities of both governments and donors to respond.

    The U.S. has experienced at least 14 disasters this year that exceeded $1 billion in damages, according to Climate Central, totaling $101.4 billion. That count does not include the deadly July Texas floods, which are still being assessed.

    President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the federal response to disasters. He has denied major disaster declaration requests to states even when FEMA assessments proved extensive damage. His administration has also cut billions in disaster resilience funding.

    The uncertainty is challenging for survivors, and for donors and philanthropists who can’t anticipate where and when their support will be most needed, said McIlreavy.

    “When people are facing disasters across this country, not knowing what may come, how they may get assistance and from whom, that steals a bit of the hope that is intrinsic in any recovery,” she said.

    Several other groups announced this month that they received grants from Scott, including the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which got $40 million, and the Freedom Fund, which received $60 million. Scott donated $70 million to UNCF, the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships to minority students, last month.

    Scott hinted at a new cycle of donations in an Oct. 15 essay on her website while downplaying her own giving and touting the power of smaller acts of kindness and generosity.

    “What if care is a way for all of us to make a difference in leading and shaping our countries?” Scott wrote. “There are many ways to influence how we move through the world, and where we land.”

    ——

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • MacKenzie Scott Gives $60 Million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy

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    MacKenzie Scott, one of the world’s richest women and most influential philanthropists, has donated $60 million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, according to a Tuesday announcement from the nonprofit.

    The donation is among the largest single gifts Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has made to a nonprofit, and the largest the Center for Disaster Philanthropy has ever received.

    Patricia McIlreavy, CDP president and CEO, called the gift a “transformative investment” that would help the nonprofit “strengthen the ability of communities to withstand and equitably recover from disasters.”

    Founded in 2010, CDP offers advice and resources to donors seeking to maximize their impact on communities recovering from climate disasters and other crises. The organization emphasizes medium- and long-term recovery, two oft-neglected phases of disaster response.

    The $60 million grant would go toward “improving disaster preparedness, addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities to hazards and providing vital resources for the long-term recovery of disaster-affected communities,” according to a CDP statement.

    Scott, 55, amassed most of her wealth through shares of Amazon that she acquired after her divorce from the company’s founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos. Forbes estimates her current wealth to be about $34 billion.

    Soon after her divorce, Scott signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away at least half of her wealth throughout her lifetime. She has donated more than $19 billion since 2019.

    The author of two novels is known for her quiet and trust-based giving. Scott rarely comments on her donations apart from sporadic essays published on her website, Yield Giving.

    Nonprofits are often surprised to learn they are receiving one of her grants, which come without restrictions on how groups can use the money.

    McIlreavy told The Associated Press she found out about the gift in September through a phone call. “There was a disbelief and joy mixed together,” she said.

    The lack of restrictions allows CDP to put some of the money toward general operations like staffing, an aspect of nonprofit work for which it is often difficult to fundraise.

    McIlreavy said nonprofits trying to raise money for administrative costs can sometimes feel like they are running a pizza shop. “People would come in and say ‘I want pizza, but I don’t want to pay for the staff to make it, or the trucks that bring in the cheese.’”

    The support comes as climate disasters continue to grow in frequency and cost, stretching the abilities of both governments and donors to respond.

    The U.S. has experienced at least 14 disasters this year that exceeded $1 billion in damages, according to Climate Central, totaling $101.4 billion. That count does not include the deadly July Texas floods, which are still being assessed.

    The uncertainty is challenging for survivors, and for donors and philanthropists who can’t anticipate where and when their support will be most needed, said McIlreavy.

    “When people are facing disasters across this country, not knowing what may come, how they may get assistance and from whom, that steals a bit of the hope that is intrinsic in any recovery,” she said.

    Several other groups announced this month that they received grants from Scott, including the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which got $40 million, and the Freedom Fund, which received $60 million. Scott donated $70 million to UNCF, the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships to minority students, last month.

    Scott hinted at a new cycle of donations in an Oct. 15 essay on her website while downplaying her own giving and touting the power of smaller acts of kindness and generosity.

    “What if care is a way for all of us to make a difference in leading and shaping our countries?” Scott wrote. “There are many ways to influence how we move through the world, and where we land.”

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Houston neighbors opt for solar-powered ‘hub homes’

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    HOUSTON — Doris Brown was nearly asleep when a neighbor knocked on her door, telling her to look outside. “There were no lights, nowhere,” said Brown, recalling the power outage that summer night in 2023. “I didn’t even know it.”

    Brown’s solar panel and battery system was keeping her power on. She’d prepared for a night like this. “Call everybody,” she told the neighbor.

    Soon around 15 “neighbors and neighbors’ neighbors” were inside Brown’s three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath home in Northeast Houston. They charged phones, cooked, and showered before work and school. Some slept over.

    “There were people sleeping everywhere,” said Brown, 75. She was happy to be “a port in a storm,” despite one downside: “They ate all my snacks.”

    Brown’s house is a “hub home,” one of seven in a Northeast Houston pilot program meant to create emergency safe havens — not at shelters or community centers, but inside neighbors’ houses.

    The idea was a grassroots response to decades of community disinvestment and neglect that got neighbors talking about what they could do to be ready for extreme weather and power outages.

    “It’s us helping us,” said Brown.

    The project was set to reach 30 more homes, until the Environmental Protection Agency in August canceled the $7 billion Solar for All program which would have funded its expansion. Harris County, which includes Houston, is now a plaintiff in one of multiple lawsuits over the cancellation.

    People involved with the program acknowledge hub homes are unconventional — requiring trust and community cooperation and impacting fewer people than a larger resilience center.

    But they also say they’re effective in creating pockets of preparedness in communities confronting more extreme weather but lacking resources to do more.

    “It was a way to increase resilience in those neighborhoods that are often forgotten,” said Sam Silerio, Texas program director at Solar United Neighbors, one of the nonprofits involved with the pilot program which is also suing over the cuts.

    The hub homes idea started after Winter Storm Uri in 2021, when freezing temperatures crippled Texas’ power grid for five days and led to 246 storm-related deaths, according to the Texas Department of Health Services.

    Power loss contributed to many of the deaths, as people with health conditions couldn’t refrigerate medicines or run life-sustaining medical devices. Nineteen people died from carbon monoxide poisoning from improperly using generators and grills to stay warm.

    “We were like, ‘Shoot, power grid failure is a serious thing that we are not prepared for’,” said Becky Selle, co-director of disaster preparedness, organizing, and operations at West Street Recovery, a Northeast Houston nonprofit founded after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

    WSR bought some generators for residents willing to share the resource. Brown, who almost froze to death herself in Uri, stepped up.

    WSR added more supplies to the hubs, like life jackets and kayaks for flood evacuations, and held preparedness trainings for members.

    When the D.C.-based nonprofit Solar United Neighbors approached them with a private grant from the Hive Fund to add free solar panels and batteries to several houses, WSR knew exactly where to install them.

    The pilot had its challenges — some roofs had to be repaired before they could hold solar panels, and hub captains had to learn how to manage their batteries to not deplete them.

    Success also required neighborly connection that modern communities often lack.

    “You have to build that trust,” said David Espinoza, a hub home captain and West Street Recovery’s co-director of community organizing and language access. The 34-year-old went door-to-door on his block, introducing himself to sometimes wary neighbors. “I got to know my neighborhood a lot better,” he said.

    About a dozen people are signed up on Espinoza’s “roster,” but he said the hub is there for anyone in need, prioritizing older neighbors and those with children or medical conditions.

    There are other upsides, too: The solar and battery system reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and cut Espinoza’s utility bill in half.

    Espinoza, who is bilingual, said that for neighborhoods like his with mixed-status, Spanish-speaking, and medically vulnerable households, hub homes are useful even with other shelters nearby.

    “They can access me a little easier,” he said.

    Efforts to bolster local resilience have grown in recent years as extreme weather, power outages, and electricity prices overburden communities.

    Average annual power interruption hours across the U.S. have jumped in the last decade, largely due to extreme weather, according to Sarah Kotwis, senior associate at the clean energy nonprofit RMI.

    “Communities do need to be thinking more strategically about resilience,” said Kotwis.

    That preparedness begins with connections between neighbors, said Renae Hanvin, CEO and founder of Resilient Ready and an expert on “social capital,” or the “connections, trust and cooperation between people.”

    “It’s the missing link in the disaster resilience ecosystem,” said Hanvin. “At the end of the day, the first thing you need (in an emergency) to help you is a person.”

    As disasters worsen, first responders simply can’t help everyone at once, she said, so neighbors must think of themselves as “zero responders.”

    Many communities have also turned to “resilience centers,” or locally trusted institutions like community centers or churches that are outfitted with backup power, emergency supplies, and even year-round social services.

    Ideally, resilience investments aren’t an either-or decision, said Dori Wolfe, SUN senior Texas program associate. “Hub homes are one piece of the web, and there should be a resilience center at the center of each of these nodes,” she said. “We need all of it.”

    Solar United Neighbors and West Street Recovery planned to expand the program this fall as part of a $54 million grant awarded to Harris County by the EPA.

    They intended to grow the number of hub homes to 30, and add more batteries to existing ones to better run heating and air conditioning during outages. The money would have also funded a local resilience center.

    In August, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin canceled the EPA’s Solar for All program, intended to support residential solar for more than 900,000 lower-income households. Zeldin said authority for the “boondoggle” program was eliminated under Trump’s tax-and-spending bill.

    “It’s a huge letdown,” said Silerio. Both Solar United Neighbors and Harris County sued the EPA in separate lawsuits this month over the cuts, as did over a dozen state attorneys general.

    The termination “pulls the rug out from the very people the federal government should be protecting,” Harris County Interim County Administrator Jesse Dickerman said in a statement to The Associated Press.

    West Street Recovery isn’t giving up on more hub homes. The nonprofit intends to fundraise through the community and seek other grants.

    “These programs have been a big help to the community,” said Espinoza. “It’s going to be a lot harder without the funds from the federal government.”

    ————

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Silicon Valley spooks the AI safety advocates | TechCrunch

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    Silicon Valley leaders including White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks and OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon caused a stir online this week for their comments about groups promoting AI safety. In separate instances, they alleged that certain advocates of AI safety are not as virtuous as they appear, and are either acting in the interest of themselves or billionaire puppet masters behind the scenes.

    AI safety groups that spoke with TechCrunch say the allegations from Sacks and OpenAI are Silicon Valley’s latest attempt to intimidate its critics, but certainly not the first. In 2024, some venture capital firms spread rumors that a California AI safety bill, SB 1047, would send startup founders to jail. The Brookings Institution labeled the rumor as one of many “misrepresentations” about the bill, but Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed it anyway.

    Whether or not Sacks and OpenAI intended to intimidate critics, their actions have sufficiently scared several AI safety advocates. Many nonprofit leaders that TechCrunch reached out to in the last week asked to speak on the condition of anonymity to spare their groups from retaliation.

    The controversy underscores Silicon Valley’s growing tension between building AI responsibly and building it to be a massive consumer product — a theme my colleagues Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and I unpack on this week’s Equity podcast. We also dive into a new AI safety law passed in California to regulate chatbots, and OpenAI’s approach to erotica in ChatGPT.

    On Tuesday, Sacks wrote a post on X alleging that Anthropic — which has raised concerns over AI’s ability to contribute to unemployment, cyberattacks, and catastrophic harms to society — is simply fearmongering to get laws passed that will benefit itself and drown out smaller startups in paperwork. Anthropic was the only major AI lab to endorse California’s Senate Bill 53 (SB 53), a bill that sets safety reporting requirements for large AI companies, which was signed into law last month.

    Sacks was responding to a viral essay from Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark about his fears regarding AI. Clark delivered the essay as a speech at the Curve AI safety conference in Berkeley weeks earlier. Sitting in the audience, it certainly felt like a genuine account of a technologist’s reservations about his products, but Sacks didn’t see it that way.

    Sacks said Anthropic is running a “sophisticated regulatory capture strategy,” though it’s worth noting that a truly sophisticated strategy probably wouldn’t involve making an enemy out of the federal government. In a follow up post on X, Sacks noted that Anthropic has positioned “itself consistently as a foe of the Trump administration.”

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    Also this week, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, wrote a post on X explaining why the company was sending subpoenas to AI safety nonprofits, such as Encode, a nonprofit that advocates for responsible AI policy. (A subpoena is a legal order demanding documents or testimony.) Kwon said that after Elon Musk sued OpenAI — over concerns that the ChatGPT-maker has veered away from its nonprofit mission — OpenAI found it suspicious how several organizations also raised opposition to its restructuring. Encode filed an amicus brief in support of Musk’s lawsuit, and other nonprofits spoke out publicly against OpenAI’s restructuring.

    “This raised transparency questions about who was funding them and whether there was any coordination,” said Kwon.

    NBC News reported this week that OpenAI sent broad subpoenas to Encode and six other nonprofits that criticized the company, asking for their communications related to two of OpenAI’s biggest opponents, Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. OpenAI also asked Encode for communications related to its support of SB 53.

    One prominent AI safety leader told TechCrunch that there’s a growing split between OpenAI’s government affairs team and its research organization. While OpenAI’s safety researchers frequently publish reports disclosing the risks of AI systems, OpenAI’s policy unit lobbied against SB 53, saying it would rather have uniform rules at the federal level.

    OpenAI’s head of mission alignment, Joshua Achiam, spoke out about his company sending subpoenas to nonprofits in a post on X this week.

    “At what is possibly a risk to my whole career I will say: this doesn’t seem great,” said Achiam.

    Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of the AI safety nonprofit Alliance for Secure AI (which has not been subpoenaed by OpenAI), told TechCrunch that OpenAI seems convinced its critics are part of a Musk-led conspiracy. However, he argues this is not the case, and that much of the AI safety community is quite critical of xAI’s safety practices, or lack thereof.

    “On OpenAI’s part, this is meant to silence critics, to intimidate them, and to dissuade other nonprofits from doing the same,” said Steinhauser. “For Sacks, I think he’s concerned that [the AI safety] movement is growing and people want to hold these companies accountable.”

    Sriram Krishnan, the White House’s senior policy advisor for AI and a former a16z general partner, chimed in on the conversation this week with a social media post of his own, calling AI safety advocates out of touch. He urged AI safety organizations to talk to “people in the real world using, selling, adopting AI in their homes and organizations.”

    A recent Pew study found that roughly half of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI, but it’s unclear what worries them exactly. Another recent study went into more detail and found that American voters care more about job losses and deepfakes than catastrophic risks caused by AI, which the AI safety movement is largely focused on.

    Addressing these safety concerns could come at the expense of the AI industry’s rapid growth — a trade-off that worries many in Silicon Valley. With AI investment propping up much of America’s economy, the fear of over-regulation is understandable.

    But after years of unregulated AI progress, the AI safety movement appears to be gaining real momentum heading into 2026. Silicon Valley’s attempts to fight back against safety-focused groups may be a sign that they’re working.

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  • Project LEARN launches Lowell Schools Fund

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    LOWELL — Lowell High School senior Cyrus Bridge’s passion for STEM education began in fifth grade at IDEA Camp, a summer partnership between UMass Lowell, Lowell Public Schools, and Project LEARN. The weeklong camp provides hands-on STEM experiences for students in grades 5-12.

    At 17 years old, Bridge is a eight-year IDEA Camp veteran, now serving as counselor.

    “I did robotics, I did computer programming, there were art courses,” Bridge said. “It’s been great exposure and formative for my career choices — showing me that I want to go into STEM education.”

    In a time of uncertain funding, rising costs, and shifting priorities, experiential learning opportunities are at risk.

    Enter the Lowell Schools Fund — a Project LEARN initiative raising private dollars for high-impact programs in Lowell Public Schools. The fund is designed to fill gaps in public funding by soliciting donations from alumni, foundations, and corporate sponsors.

    “Federal funds are drying up; grants that we depend on are being cut back or just stopped midstream,” Superintendent of Schools Liam Skinner said. “The Lowell Schools Fund will help fill these gaps, providing educational opportunities for students that complement the work happening inside LPS classrooms.”

    The fund will invest in programs that empower the whole child: priorities include literacy and early learning, college and career readiness, STEM and arts enrichment, wraparound services, and funds earmarked for teacher innovation. Funding decisions will be made jointly by Project LEARN and LPS leadership, dispensed quarterly to respond to student needs in real time and in tight alignment with district LPS priorities.

    The establishment of the fund, which aims to raise $100,000 by the end of 2025 and $300,000 by the end of the 2025-2026 school year, was announced at the Sept. 30 grand opening of the Nancy L. Donahue Learning Lab, Project LEARN’s new space on Central Street.

    “It’s a hub for curiosity, connection, and possibility,” Project LEARN Executive Director LZ Nunn said of the Learning Lab. “It’s a place where students can see themselves as future scientists, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and professionals — and where our community comes together to make that vision real.

    “We’re closing opportunity gaps. Every student deserves the opportunity to build the skills, confidence, and networks necessary to navigate higher education and the workforce” Nunn said.

    Support for the Fund will allow these pivotal career connected opportunities to thrive. With sustained investment, students can continue to expect access to paid internships with industry leaders, hands-on STEM experiences, immersive art projects, and ongoing opportunities to grow their 21st century skills.

    “This is a good day for Lowell,” said state Rep. Vanna Howard, who had the honor of dedicating the Learning Lab’s spacious conference room to her friend and mentor, Project LEARN co-founder and Chair Emeritus Brian Martin. “His vision and dedication to this city continue to inspire not only me, but generations of young people in Lowell.”

    Martin, a former Lowell mayor, city manager, and head of Lowell High School, and his extended family, made the first donation to the Lowell Schools Fund, pledging $10,000.

    In addition to Cyrus, several Lowell High School alumni attended the event, highlighting how programs available through LPS and Project LEARN built their confidence and improved their skills.

    Sebastian Rivera (LHS ’24) participated in the Education Pathway at Lowell High, where he was able to gain hands-on experience in a third-grade classroom at the Bailey Elementary School. While reading to a group, he noticed a student struggling to comprehend. Initially Rivera thought he was speaking too quickly or the visuals were unclear. But by the end of the lesson, he realized the student’s primary language was Spanish — just like his.

    “I was so eager to connect with this student and show him the representation that was in front of him,” Rivera said. “We were able to speak in Spanish at the end of the lesson and to see his face light up with joy because he felt seen is something that I reflect back to all the time.”

    Following that rewarding teaching experience, Rivera joined Community Teamwork’s school-age program as a group leader, teaching the same student.

    “It was a full circle moment where I was like, yeah, I’m definitely in the right spot, and it solidified that I’m on the right path,” he said.

    Today, Rivera is a junior at UMass Lowell, majoring in sociology with a concentration in policy and social problems, and dual minors in education and English.

    For more information and to support the Lowell Schools Fund, visit lowellschoolsfund.org.

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  • The Airlift Operation That Has Transformed Pet Adoption

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    When Wright first reached out to Hall, Hall was nervous about working with the shelter. “A place that was managing eight hundred dogs with twelve kennels and one employee?” she said. “I was afraid that I was going to be super fucking sad.” Hall lives off the grid on a dirt road in Terlingua, at the edge of Big Bend National Park, around two hundred miles south of Pecos—a place so remote that she sometimes calls it “the worst place in the world to run a dog rescue.” At the time, she was working for a public-defense association and saving dogs in her spare time. “I used to, like, throw twenty-five dogs in my car and drive them to Colorado,” she said. In 2019, Hall began working with a shelter in Presidio, Texas, which is just across the border from Mexico. Hall sent dogs to two rescues she’d come to know over the years, One Tail at a Time PDX and One Tail at a Time Chicago. They shared a commitment to keeping animals in foster homes instead of in kennels; there they’d be socialized and happier, and therefore more adoptable. Previously, the Presidio shelter had euthanized around eighty per cent of dogs that came in; that year, it didn’t euthanize a single healthy pet.

    Hall has an understated manner that belies her ability to catch people up in the gravitational pull of her mission. Last year, she left her job in public defense, started a West Texas branch of One Tail at a Time with seed funding from the other locations, and devoted herself to dog rescue full time. Last year, thanks, in part, to funding from Best Friends, OTAT – West Texas formalized partnerships with six shelters spread across an area the size of South Carolina. Many were even worse off than the one in Pecos. In Van Horn, ninety miles southwest of Pecos, the shelter consisted of four outdoor cages bolted to a concrete pad. In most municipalities, the shelter was run by the police department; Van Horn was too small for a police department, so the public-works department was in charge.

    Rescue organizations sometimes position themselves as the good guys, swooping in to save animals from certain doom in shelters. But the moral accounting is not quite so clear, according to Cathy Bissell, the founder of the Bissell Pet Foundation, a nonprofit that supports shelters and rescues. For one, as municipal services, shelters have some level of public accountability, while rescues do not. “Just because it says it’s a rescue doesn’t mean it’s going to save that animal’s life, or that animal is going to be better off, because I can tell you what I’ve seen and it’s not great,” Bissell said. “We have moved so many dogs out of failed rescue operations that, for a while, I was, like, That’s all we do. People start with good intentions, they want to save lives, and then they get overwhelmed.”

    Some rescues focus on finding homes for a shelter’s most adoptable dogs—“young dogs, cute dogs, small-breed dogs, different-looking dogs,” according to Hall. “But, when you go into a shelter and you pull out all their Chihuahuas and poodles and you leave them all their pit bulls and German shepherds, you’re actually hurting the shelter.” As Hall saw it, her job was to build capacity in the regional-shelter system, not just to save individual animals. OTAT – West Texas provided shelters with staff, medications, veterinary supplies, microchips, and animal-tracking software. It taught them how to list animals on the OTAT adoption portal and facilitated transportations. Within a year, all six shelters qualified as no-kill. “If you throw resources and effort at it, you can change everything quickly. You don’t have to plod along for a generation like public defense—man, I did that for twenty-five years, and I don’t even know if we ended up in a better place than we were when we started, to be honest. But to be able to go into these shelters and just change things . . .” Hall said. “I think we all want to live in communities where we don’t have to see a lot of suffering.”

    In Pecos, a shelter employee named Luis gave me a tour while Wright was waylaid by a man in a black pickup truck who wanted to surrender four pit bulls. The facility was basic but clean, and dogs pressed themselves against the metal grates at the front of the kennels, eager for attention. The former euthanasia room is now a space for medical treatment; a small fridge full of vaccines sits in the corner. Feral cats used to be immediately euthanized, because the shelter had no space for them; now there’s a dedicated cat room, where Wright joined us. “We flew eleven cats last week,” she said.

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  • Troops to miss paychecks without action on the government shutdown

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    The federal government shutdown is raising anxiety levels among service members and their families because those in uniform are working without pay. While they would receive back pay once the impasse ends, many military families live paycheck to paycheck. During…

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  • Troops Will Miss Paychecks Next Week Without Action on the Government Shutdown

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Heather Campbell lost her job working for a food bank over the summer because of federal funding cuts. Her husband serves as an officer in the Air Force, but now he’s facing the prospect of missing his next paycheck because of the government shutdown.

    If lawmakers in Washington don’t step in, Campbell’s husband won’t get paid on Wednesday. Because the couple lacks the savings to cover all their expenses, they expect to survive on credit cards to pay the mortgage and feed their three children, racking up debt as the political stalemate drags on.

    “You’re asking us to put our lives on the line or the people we love to put their lives on the line,” said Campbell, 39, who lives outside Montgomery, Alabama, near Maxwell Air Force Base. “And you’re not even going to give us our paycheck. What? There is a lot of broken trust there.”

    The nation’s third shutdown in 12 years is once again raising anxiety levels among service members and their families because those in uniform are working without pay. While they would receive back pay once the impasse ends, many military families live paycheck to paycheck. During previous shutdowns, Congress passed legislation to ensure that troops kept earning their salaries, but time is running out before they miss their first paycheck in less than a week.

    “There are so many things that Congress can’t agree on right now,” said Kate Horrell, the wife of a Navy veteran whose Washington, D.C., company provides financial advice to military families. “I don’t want to assume that they’re going to be able to agree on this.”


    Paying the troops has support, but it’s unclear when a deal might pass

    When asked if he would support a bill to pay the troops, President Donald Trump said, “that probably will happen.”

    “We’ll take care of it,” Trump said Wednesday. “Our military is always going to be taken care of.”

    Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican and former Navy helicopter pilot, has introduced a measure to maintain military and Coast Guard salaries, and it has bipartisan co-sponsors.

    Amanda Scott, whose husband is an Air Force officer in Colorado, said the uncertainty goes beyond the stress of just getting by — it chips away at the military’s ability to retain the best people and their readiness to fight.

    “How ready and lethal are you if you don’t know if you can feed your family?” said Scott, 33, of Colorado Springs, who works for a defense contractor and volunteers as an advocate for military families. “A lot of these service members are highly skilled and can go out and make much more money in the civilian sector.”


    Aid is available for service members, but it’s not enough for some families

    Support is available for military families through nonprofits and charities. For example, some financial institutions are offering zero-interest loans, while each military branch has a relief organization.

    But Campbell said she and her husband in Alabama can’t apply for a payday loan because they’re refinancing their house. They lack a substantial emergency fund because they were paying off student loans and moved several times in the last few years to military posts. It was often challenging for her to find steady work and child care.

    “The opportunity to build up savings is really difficult on just one income,” Campbell said. “I don’t know many military families that have a month’s worth of income set aside just in case, let alone multiple months’ worth.”

    Jen Cluff, whose husband recently left the Air Force, said her family was on a food aid program during the 2019 shutdown. But even the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC, which helps more than 6 million low-income mothers and young children, would run out of federal money within two weeks unless the shutdown ends, experts say.

    “We made so little and had three young children,” said Cluff, 42, of San Antonio. “We were definitely a family that had very little buffer.”

    If Congress had not passed legislation to pay troops during the last shutdown, missing more than two paychecks “would have been catastrophic for us,” she said.

    “Resentment can grow quickly,” Cluff said of the shutdown, adding that “the general public, and many in government, truly don’t understand the daily sacrifices our military members and their families make for our country.”


    Wider effects feared in military-heavy areas

    The economic impact will ripple through regions with large military footprints, like coastal Virginia, home to the nation’s largest Navy base and several other installations. The area’s 88,000 active duty service members and their families likely have pulled back significantly on spending, said Rick Dwyer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, an advocacy group.

    “Think about service members who are deployed right now around the world,” said Dwyer, who served in the Air Force during previous shutdowns. “They’re having to wonder if their families are going to be able to pay the rent, the child care bills, the car payments.”

    A shutdown contingency plan posted on the Pentagon’s website cites the use of funds to continue military operations from Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill. The Congressional Budget Office has said money appropriated to the Defense Department under the new law could be used to pay active duty personnel.

    It was not clear if the funding would be used for that. The Pentagon said Thursday that it could not provide information “at this time.”

    Its contingency plan says it will “continue to defend the nation and conduct ongoing military operations” as well as activities “necessary for the safety of human life and the protection of property.”

    Listed among the highest priorities are securing the U.S.-Mexico border, operations in the Middle East and the future Golden Dome missile defense program. The plan also noted that “child care activities required for readiness” would continue.

    Raleigh Smith Duttweiler, chief impact officer for the National Military Family Association, said most child development centers on military bases are still operating. But she said most service members pay for child care off base.

    “Last I checked, my kids’ babysitter doesn’t take an IOU from the federal government,” said Duttweiler, whose husband is a Marine.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • West Philly tool lending library is seeking donations for a new home

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    A lending library that specializes in tools, not books, is asking the public to help it relocate.

    West Philly Tool Library has started a crowdfunding campaign to support its move from its home in Squirrel Hill. The nonprofit, which loans out over 4,5000 tools and other equipment to its members, says its lease was not renewed and it must leave by the end of 2025. It has operated out of a building at 1314 S. 47th St. for almost 15 years.

    MORE: New mural celebrating films set and shot in Philly features these 11 movies

    The library is now aiming to raise $20,000 to help cover “the significant costs associated with repairs and interior build-out at the new space as well as moving costs.” Staffers estimate they will need closer to $50,000 in total.

    As of Friday morning, the campaign has generated a little over $5,000. Jason Sanders, the library’s executive director, said via email that the nonprofit has not received any other monetary donations yet. But several businesses, he wrote, have already pledged raffle items or food and drink donations for the West Philly Tool Library’s fundraiser on Saturday, Oct. 25.

    “This is such a critical moment for the Tool Library and we are looking for support from the community,” Sanders said in a statement. “We are the only tool library in Philadelphia and it’s such an important resource to preserve — everyone deserves to have affordable and equitable access to tools and skills.”

    The library’s inventory includes power and mechanical tools as well as ladders, drop cloths, gardening equipment, pressure washers, carpet cleaners and even a few books (mostly manuals). These items are available to all members, who pay annual dues. The library offers several membership tiers based on income, ranging from $20 a year to $1,000 for lifetime access.

    The West Philly Tool Library also offers DIY classes on sewing, woodworking and painting, among other topics.

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  • Progressive Nonprofits Condemn Trump’s Targeting of George Soros and His Foundations

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of progressive nonprofits condemned President Donald Trump’s general attacks on his political opponents and a specific report of a potential investigation into billionaire George Soros’ philanthropy, Open Society Foundations.

    “Targeting those you disagree with is a threat to the democratic values our organizations work tirelessly to defend, and is an attempt to silence those who disagree with President Trump,” the groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Oxfam America — said in a statement Monday. “It is a continuation of the attacks on law firms, universities and the media. It is an attack on our most sacred value of free speech.”

    The comments follow a report in the New York Times that the U.S. Department of Justice had directed prosecutors to consider possible charges against Open Society Foundations, echoing accusations Trump made in August that Soros and his foundations were funding violent protests.

    Soros’ office sent a letter to “friends and colleagues” on Monday, stating, “Allegations that George or OSF are in any way engaged in unlawful activity or in fomenting or promoting violence are 100% false.” The letter also asked supporters to “make your voice heard” for the values they stand for, as well as signing a petition from the People for the American Way looking to “stop the weaponization of the Justice Department.”

    In a statement Thursday, Open Society Foundations said they “unequivocally condemn terrorism and do not fund terrorism,” and that their work in the U.S. is dedicated to strengthening democracy. The foundations have not been contacted about any potential investigations or had any direct contact from the federal government, a spokesperson said.

    Later on Thursday, Trump ordered a crackdown on “left-wing terrorism,” specifically naming Soros and billionaire Reid Hoffman, who helped start PayPal and the networking site LinkedIn. Hoffman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In response, the nonprofits said they stood in solidarity with Open Society Foundations. Soros has also been a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes in the U.S.

    The groups supporting OSF Monday include both tax-exempt charitable nonprofits, social welfare groups, which are allowed to do more political lobbying, and the Working Families Party, which supports progressive political candidates.

    Interfaith Alliance, which advocates for religious freedom and social justice, was one of the groups that signed onto condemn the targeting of the Open Society Foundations. Its president and CEO, Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, said nonprofits and especially religious groups need to stand up for people and groups that the administration targets.

    “I think people on all sides of the political spectrum should be showing up right now, recognizing the danger of what this is,” he said. “Just as they showed up, for instance, around Jimmy Kimmel from very different parts of the political spectrum, recognizing the danger of the suppression of free speech. This is another example of that.”

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Home Bakers Donate Fresh Bread to Food Banks Thanks to This Seattle Nonprofit

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    On a recent Saturday near Seattle, Cheryl Ewaldsen pulled three golden loaves of wheat bread out of her kitchen oven.

    The fragrant, oat-topped bread was destined not for her table, but for a local food bank, to be distributed to families increasingly struggling with hunger and the high cost of groceries.

    “I just get really excited about it knowing that it’s going to someone and they’re going to make, like, 10 sandwiches,” said Ewaldsen, 75, a retired university human resources director.

    Ewaldsen is a volunteer with Community Loaves, a Seattle-area nonprofit that started pairing home bakers with food pantries during the COVID-19 pandemic — and hasn’t stopped.

    Since 2020, the organization headed by Katherine Kehrli, the former dean of a culinary school, has donated more than 200,000 loaves of fresh bread and some 220,000 energy cookies to food banks. They come from a network of nearly 900 bakers in four states — Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho — and represent one of the largest such efforts in the country.

    “Most of our food banks do not get any kind of whole-grain sandwich bread donation,” she said. “When we ask what we could do better, they just say, ‘Bring us more.’”


    Anti-hunger experts expect to see more need

    Ewaldsen’s bread goes to the nearby Edmonds Food Bank, where the client list has swelled from 350 households to nearly 1,000 in the past three years, according to program manager Lester Almanza.

    Nationwide, more than 50 million people a year receive charitable food assistance, according to Feeding America, a hunger relief organization.

    Gauging the impact, however, could soon be more difficult after the U.S. Agriculture Department recently said it would halt an annual report on hunger in America, saying it was redundant, costly and politicized “subjective liberal fodder.” After 30 years, the 2024 report, to be released on Oct. 22, will be the last, the agency said.

    “Ending data collection will not end hunger, it will only make it a hidden crisis that is easier to ignore and more difficult to address,” Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

    Almanza said federal funding for his food bank has dropped at least 10% this year, meaning that every donation helps.

    “It’s something that a lot of people rely on,” he said.


    Food bank breads are often highly processed

    That includes people like Chris Redfearn, 42, and his wife, Melanie Rodriguez-Redfearn, 43, who turned to a food bank in Everett, Washington, last spring after moving to the area to find work. They had to stretch their savings until she began a new position this month teaching history at a local college. Chris Redfearn, who has worked for decades in business, is still looking.

    “The food pantry assists with anywhere from $40 to $80 worth of savings weekly,” he said. “We’ve been able to keep ourselves afloat.”

    Finding homemade bread from Community Loaves at a food pantry was a surprise, the couple said. Often, surplus bread sent by grocery stores includes highly processed white breads or sweets donated near their expiration or sell-by dates.

    The breads come in three varieties — honey oat, whole wheat and sunflower rye — all made with whole grains and minimally processed ingredients.

    “They make it really wholesome and fibrous,” Chris Redfearn said. “It mimics most of the health-conscious breads that are out there.”


    Many food banks don’t accept donated baked goods

    The notion of donating home-baked bread came to Kehrli, 61, during the pandemic, when she was displaced from her job at the busy Seattle Culinary Academy.

    “I love to bake and just an idea sparked: Would it be possible for us to help from our home and get important valuable nutrition to our food banks?” she recalled.

    Many food pantries don’t accept or distribute donations of homemade baked goods. Feeding America warns individual bakers against the practice, saying “since food banks can’t confirm how your baked goods were made or their ingredients, they can’t be donated.”

    But health department rules vary by state, Kehrli learned. In Washington and the other three states where Community Loaves now operates, bread is one of the few foods allowed to be donated from a home kitchen through a program like theirs.

    “We wouldn’t be able to donate custard pies. We wouldn’t be able to donate lasagna,” Kehrli said. “But bread is deemed safe. Anything that is fully baked and does not require refrigeration.”

    Still, Community Loaves bakers must follow approved recipes for the bread and two types of energy cookies. They obtain flour from common sources, and bake and deliver on a shared schedule twice a month.

    The bakers buy their own supplies, donating the cost of the ingredients as well as their time. Most make a few loaves per baking session before delivering them to local “hubs,” where other volunteers collect the bread and transport it to the food banks.

    Bakers range from former professionals to beginners. A robust website with recipes and how-to videos backstops every step, Kehrli said.

    Baking the bread is satisfying on several levels, said Ewaldsen, who has donated nearly 800 loaves in less than two years. Part of it is addressing the physical need for food, but part is also addressing the spiritual hunger for connection with neighbors.

    “It’s the opportunity for me to bake something and to share something with others in the community, where they don’t necessarily need to know who I am, but they know that there’s a community that loves and cares for them,” she said.

    While such sentiments are sincere and admirable, anti-hunger experts stress that individual donations can’t take the place of adequately funded government services for struggling Americans.

    “It’s beautiful that our communities act this way,” said Gina Plata-Nino of the Food Research & Action Center. “But it is a loaf of bread. That is going to feed one person — and there are millions in line.”

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • After global aid cuts, nonprofits seek new energy and new partners on the UN sidelines

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    NEW YORK — A passing comment in a hotel hallway at one of the many conferences on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual high-level meetings this past week may have turned into a solution.

    A global antipoverty nonprofit executive, recently returned from Zambia, mentioned that a hospital there had just one incubator, warmer and resuscitator for the fifty-some babies born daily.

    The conversation could’ve ended there with an empathetic response. But in this case, leaders of a corporate-nonprofit alliance providing medical equipment to those in need heard the story. And in this case, Children International President Susana Eshleman said help may come by year’s end.

    “It’s very encouraging and inspiring to be here,” she said. “It feels like a shot in the arm sometimes when the work that we’re doing is hard and the global situation, given all the recent developments, is particularly hard.”

    In a year marked by significant foreign aid pullbacks from the U.S. and other wealthy countries, the exchange provides a glimpse into the unique connective tissue that still draws foundations, nonprofits, corporations and international actors to what attendees call UNGA week.

    The meetings at Manhattan ballrooms and intimate townhouse dinners solidify relationships and hasten coordination, made even more impactful by the sheer number of parties. This year, attendees described more pragmatic, focused and galvanizing discussions than before, placing a greater emphasis on the roles companies and philanthropies must play in shaping an uncertain future.

    Conversations, in private and on stages, would generally open with the impact of aid cuts on a particular organization, but quickly move to the group’s pivots and current needs. Former President Bill Clinton began the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting with a list of the world’s issues currently worrying him. But he ended it with the message: “Be caught trying.”

    Philanthropists’ interest in engaging with the private sector was evident in some of the heaviest hitters’ announcements.

    At his global forum on Wednesday in The Plaza Hotel, billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg unveiled a new partnership with the African Development Bank Group to bring more investment to the continent.

    “There’s certainly no shortage of challenges to discuss over there,” said Bloomberg, referencing the U.N. headquarters. “But the truth is, in a world that’s more interconnected and fast-moving than ever, the biggest problems can’t be solved by national governments alone.”

    At the Clinton Global Initiative, which retooled this year’s meeting to focus on working groups, ballrooms across the New York Hilton Midtown were packed with hundreds of front line workers, policy experts, foundation donors and NGO representatives divided into groups of 10 to discuss specific problems and potential solutions.

    The working groups yielded numerous new initiatives, ranging from a social enterprise fund from Kiva Microfunds alongside corporate foundations to a new Global Network for National Service.

    At Rockefeller Foundation headquarters, former heads of state, major foundations’ leaders and global health experts gathered around a table Monday to reimagine international development systems weakened by foreign aid cuts.

    The Rockefeller Foundation committed $50 million to the effort. Rajiv Shah, the foundation’s president, said that includes upgrading a critical famine early warning system, created by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and diversifying its financing so no one political party can take it away.

    The Clinton Health Access Initiative announced its partnership with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Unitaid, and Wits RHI to provide Gilead Sciences’ HIV prevention drug lenacapavir in 120 low- and middle-income countries. The Gates Foundation announced a similar deal with Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer Hetero Labs.

    Bill Gates also announced the foundation would pledge $912 million to the Global Fund’s replenishment campaign to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

    But, for all the talk of non-governmental funders’ importance, philanthropic leaders emphasized they cannot do it alone. Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said he hopes their commitment to the Global Fund spurs the U.S. and other countries to step up.

    “There is no possible way any philanthropy, any combination of philanthropies, can fill the gap,” Suzman said Wednesday.

    International Rescue Committee CEO David Miliband, who reported losing $600 million in U.S. grants, said aid is being spread too thin. He called on his sector to more effectively deliver assistance with new technologies and find alternative financing streams.

    “We’ve got to embrace innovation. And we’ve got to persuade newly wealthy countries — like those in the Gulf would be one example — that there’s a real potential to have lifelong impact on the people we’re helping,” Miliband said. “And we also have to appeal to philanthropy in the countries where we’re working.”

    Whether they work in health, climate, migration or any other issue facing funding setbacks, nonprofit leaders reported a different feel to this year’s programming.

    Conversations carried a heightened urgency and like-minded groups were forced to better coordinate their goals. Some advocates trod lightly between rallying their cause and avoiding any missteps that might suggest opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Concerns about obtaining visas prompted some to travel with fewer staff than usual.

    There was real worry that “we wouldn’t have UNGA,” according to USA for UNHCR Executive Director Suzanne Ehlers.

    Her nonprofit had already begun developing a $15 million campaign to fund refugee women’s scholarships. But with everything “thrown up in the air,” she said, many questioned the point of coming.

    “And here we are,” said Ehlers, who announced the campaign this week. “It’s actually more consequential than ever, I would say.”

    The challenge is identifying who has financial resources in this new aid landscape, said Charity Wallace, a past adviser to former first lady Laura Bush. Her consulting firm, Wallace Global Impact, focuses on cross-sector solutions to world problems.

    “Frankly, some people bemoan, as if it was still February and we wish that USAID still existed,” said Wallace, adding that many now see “they have to step up in a different way” in this different reality.

    Matt Freeman, executive director of Stronger Foundations for Nutrition, said previous UNGA weeks have been filled with concurrent events where advocates fight for the same limited audience. He sensed a stronger spirit of collective action this year.

    “That’s been really heartwarming,” he said. “Because you could imagine in a moment of scarcity that everyone’s elbows become sharper and they’re fighting for the pie.”

    Kitty van der Heijden, the deputy executive director of partnerships at the United Nations Children’s Fund, said her week on the sidelines had been a mix of disappointment and excitement. She said UNICEF, which faces at least a 20% cut in revenue next year, will cut staff and look for other ways to save money.

    On one hand, she said there was both “withdrawal from governments” and “depression” the state of the multilateral system. On the other hand, she said she saw many philanthropic and private sector actors “really trying to lead now in difficult times.”

    “I have no time for depression,” she added. “I only have time to build more partnerships, to be out there, to deliver, because I know that we can. And we cannot do it alone.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Thalia Beaty and Glenn Gamboa contributed to this report.

    ___

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Unversed in UNGA? Here’s your handy guide to UN General Assembly meeting lingo

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    UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly’s yearly meeting of world leaders is here — and with it, an array of acronyms, abbreviations, titles and terms. Here is some key vocabulary, decoded.

    UNGA: Shorthand (often pronounced “UN’-gah”) for the U.N. General Assembly’s “High-level Week,” when presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and other top leaders of all 193 U.N. member countries are invited to speak to the world and each other. New Yorkers sometimes just use “General Assembly” to describe what many experience mainly as a week of street closures and whizzing motorcades, but the assembly isn’t just this meeting. It’s a body that discusses many global issues and votes on resolutions throughout the year.

    GENERAL DEBATE: The centerpiece of the week, it gives each country’s leader (or a designee) the mic for a state-of-the-world speech. This year’s theme is “Better Together,” emphasizing unity, solidarity and working collectively. But speakers use their 15 minutes — or more, since the time limit is ”voluntary” — to opine on the planet’s biggest issues and hotspots, spotlight domestic accomplishments and needs, air grievances, and project statesmanship. While the “debate” is more a series of speeches than an interactive discussion, rebuttals are allowed at the end of each long day, and some embittered neighbor nations routinely go multiple rounds.

    BILATERAL (or “bilat,” for short): Private meetings between high-ranking officials of two countries. Many UNGA veterans argue that the gathering’s real value lies in these tête-à-têtes and other personal, off-camera encounters among decision-makers.

    MINISTERIAL: Applies to meetings of cabinet-level officials, such as foreign ministers, from different countries.

    SECURITY COUNCIL: The U.N.’s most powerful component, charged with maintaining international peace and security. The 15-member council can enact binding (though sometimes ignored) resolutions, impose sanctions and deploy peacekeeping troops. While this week is the Assembly’s show, the council generally also holds a high-wattage meeting or two. This year features a session on artificial intelligence.

    P5: The Security Council’s five permanent members with veto power. Under a structure set up in 1945, they are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

    E10: The Security Council’s 10 elected, non-permanent members. The General Assembly elects them for two-year terms in seats allocated by region. Calls for council reform are an UNGA staple. One major complaint is the lack of permanent members from Africa and the Latin America-Caribbean region, though some other nations also have angled for years for a permanent presence.

    G77: Stands for the “Group of 77 and China,” a developing-countries interest group that formed within the U.N. in 1964. Despite its name, it actually now has 134 members.

    COP30: A major U.N. climate conference coming up in November in Belem, Brazil.

    1.5 DEGREES: A crucial climate threshold. Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, countries agreed to work to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times. The earth already has warmed 1.3 degrees (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1800s, according to the U.N.

    SDGs: The U.N.’s “ sustainable development goals,” which range from combating climate change to eliminating hunger and poverty to achieving gender equality. The U.N.’s member countries adopted the goals in 2015 as a 15-year action plan, but the pace is seriously lagging.

    SIDS: At the U.N., this stands for some 39 “small island developing states.” UNGA is an important platform for them to elevate concerns such as climate change and the existential threat they face from projections of rising seas and intensifying storms, often a painfully timely subject at a meeting that falls in the thick of the Atlantic hurricane season.

    BRICS: A developing-economies coalition that initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It has since added others, including Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. There are many international groups centered around regional, economic, defense or other ties, but BRICS has gotten attention as a growing venue for Chinese-Russian influence as those powers have increasingly tangled with the West.

    NGO: “Non-governmental organization,” such as an advocacy group, charitable foundation or nonprofit relief organization.

    LDCs: Very poor nations that are known at the U.N. as “ least-developed countries.” Forty-four nations currently meet the criteria, which include a gross national income of $1,088 or less per person per year.

    IFIs: International financial institutions, including the so-called Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which were established at a 1944 U.N. conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Critics see the Bretton Woods duo as sclerotic entities that have badly failed poor and developing countries. The institutions have defended their work while saying they are trying to evolve.

    MULTILATERALISM: Global or near-global partnership that is united and collectively develops enduring rules and shared norms. The idea undergirds the U.N. itself, though many warn it’s under threat.

    MULTIPOLAR: A scenario in which there are several different and sometimes competing centers of power, not a single superpower or two.

    MULTISTAKEHOLDER: An approach to big projects and problem-solving that incorporates not only governments but businesses, NGOs and possibly others. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is a fan, seeing this concept as key to the future of world cooperation. But some progressive groups view it as a sell-out to big corporations and other powers that be.

    TWO-STATE SOLUTION: A concept for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing an independent Palestinian nation living in peace alongside Israel. The framework was set down in the 1993 Oslo Accords and embraced by the U.N., but progress toward implementing it stalled long before the nearly two-year-old war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

    SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: Collaboration among countries, organizations and people in what’s known as the Global South — a term that refers to developing nations that are largely, though not exclusively, in the Southern Hemisphere. Its aims include amplifying their voice in their own development and in international affairs.

    UNILATERAL COERCIVE MEASURES: A usually critical way of describing sanctions imposed by one country in hopes of spurring some action in another.

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  • Robert Redford’s Biggest Hollywood Innovation Was to Make Helping Others Seem Cool

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    In 2012, Robert Redford was meeting with a reporter about a movie he did with Shia LaBeouf when the question of how to do good in Hollywood came up. The actor-director had two answers. The first, he said, was not to take celebrity too seriously. The second was not to live there.

    “By coming and going, by doing the work and leaving, by dropping bombs in enemy territory and getting out,” he said.

    Such an attitude might seem strange for someone who was the quintessential celebrity, an actor with leading-man good looks who was at times such a box office draw that the only release that could unseat a Redford movie was another Redford movie (e.g., The Sting and The Way We Were, c. 1973)

    But Redford’s power to entertain was lapped by — and more importantly often served as a means to the end of — a larger sense of giving. Many tributes since his death Tuesday have been written about his film legacy, and from Sundance to his dozens of polished hits that legacy is boundless. But his greatest gift may have been his most subtle: he made helping people seem cool.

    By now we’re used to seeing George Clooney stand up for human rights, Angelina Jolie advocate for the Global South and Leonardo DiCaprio agitate for the environment, larger-than-life movie stars putting their celebrity to altruistic end. We seldom stop to think how, long before all of them, Redford was casually embracing causes, leveraging his power to help creatures and ecosystems via the NRDC and the Redford Center; protecting Native American rights; and, with his son James, helping to raise awareness for organ transplants.

    His celebrity wasn’t a distinct enterprise from these causes — his celebrity is what made us want to pursue them. After all, if the Sundance Kid was engaged in such efforts, shouldn’t we want to be too? The artist-as-activist is now so common as to be a type. But it became that way in part because Redford demonstrated the relationship — showed that the two realms could not only be blended but each serve the other.

    Sure, before him you had high-profile moments, of Dalton Trumbo not testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, or Marlon Brando having Sacheen Littlefeather decline the Oscar. But very few Hollywood creatives before Redford ever made doing good such a part of his brand, made advocacy and acting so entwined we could forget where one ended and the other began. He didn’t performatively support causes. He just performed, and it caused so many to feel supported.

    What’s more, he did so not only on a large media-platform-y scale but in small, one-on-one, unheralded ways, expending his effort for the trampled and unknown to be given their shot. Read the homages to Redford and you’ll see one word appear again and again: mentoring.

    Like when he mentored a young Brad Pitt on A River Runs Through It, or when he did the same for people who worked with him on his charities.

    “He was deeply involved with our campaigns to stop the development of Pebble Mine in Alaska, to save huge parts of the American West from fossil fuel development, to address really pressing water issues,” the NRDC’s Daniel Hinerfeld said in an ABC 7 story about Redford’s role as a trustee of the organization. “He really mentored us as media makers, as filmmakers, and he marshaled resources for us to tell our stories,” added Hinerfeld.

    At a moment in American political culture when selfishness abides — when giving is seen as weakness and costly — Redford’s lesson feels timelier than ever. He evenly showed how helping those in need didn’t mean you lost, who effortlessly negated the idea of life as a zero-sum game. The most glamorous act, Redford conveyed over and over, was the one you did for others.

    Even his film work could have this uplifting effect. Doggedly pursuing the truth suddenly became more appealing when Redford’s Bob Woodward was doing it; to watch directorial efforts like Ordinary People, The Milagro Beanfield War and 2011’s slept-on The Conspirator (and even that wobblier 2012 Shia movie The Company You Keep) was to bring on a healthy self-questioning about whether we were listening to our better angels.

    Heck, even when his character was notably indifferent we found ourselves wanting to do more. What was Out of Africa or The Candidate or The Way We Were but a means for Redford to draw us magnetically to the screen so we could realize we could do a lot better than he did (and, often, should be a lot more like the female lead)?

    When actors have been around a long while we can go snowblind to their effects, we can cease to imagine a world that they never entered. But pull Redford out of the last half-century of filmmaking and you have a gaping void of characters and causes that all call on us to do more to help everyone and everything around us. Every actor who wants to use their celebrity to further a charity owes a debt of gratitude to Redford; every activist who ever called a boldfaced name to platform their cause can thank the man who provided the road map.

    Asked how he remembered Redford, Darren Aronofsky — who premiered his debut Pi at Sundance more than a quarter-century ago — emailed this response:

    “I remember so clearly the first time I met him at Sundance ’98, when he spoke to you he completely locked in and focused deep into your soul. He taught me so much in those moments about being present that I still think about often. A few years later he was my advisor at the Institute when I workshopped Requiem for a Dream. I was wondering what his rural, cowboy perspective might be for my inner city drug nightmare. And he surprised me. His main note was to find a way that Harry and Marion could connect in the third act. And it was this inspiration that led to the phone call between the doomed lovers that is one of the most quoted scenes we shot. It would be impossible to quantify the amount of generosity he gave to the filmmaking world.”

    Aronofsky had one last thought. “I’d argue there is no greater mentor in the world of filmmaking.”

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    Steven Zeitchik

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  • Nonprofits face a tough funding landscape. They hope better storytelling will bring more donations

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    MIAMI — Cindy Eggleton has always believed in the power of a story.

    But the CEO and co-founder of Brilliant Cities, a Detroit-based early childhood development nonprofit that supports learning in underserved communities, never expected someone to tell hers. And definitely not in a sleek documentary with a slick soundtrack and plenty of images of other Detroit institutions, such as General Motors, Diana Ross, and the historic Fox Theatre.

    “It’s never been about me,” said Eggleton, adding that participating in the “Nevertheless: The Women Changing the World” documentary series on YouTube was her way of honoring her late mother, Geraldine, who inspired her to speak out and help others in their community.

    However, as they face an increasingly uncertain funding landscape, nonprofits are focusing more on storytelling in outreach to donors – both big and small – and raising production values for videos and podcasts.

    “Storytelling is how we’re able to draw people in and get them to connect to a deeper truth about themselves or about the world or a problem that needs to be solved,” said Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Jayaram Garcia. “It’s connecting those issues back to you as a human and not saying, ‘Well, that’s their problem. That’s all the way over there.’ The story allows it to be human.”

    The foundation launched the production house Elevate Studios earlier this year to tell more of those stories, Jayaram Garcia said. “Nevertheless: The Women Changing the World,” Elevate Studios’ first series, has already generated more than 3 million views on YouTube and will debut its second season in the summer of 2026.

    “It’s been incredible to see the growth we’ve had on YouTube and how it’s resonated so quickly with so many people,” Jayaram Garcia said. “We know we’re on to something here.”

    Philanthropic support of storytelling has been ongoing for decades, mostly through donors funding documentary projects. Open Society Foundations created the Soros Documentary Fund in 1996 before the Sundance Institute took it over in 2002, with the George Soros-backed nonprofit’s continued monetary support. The Ford Foundation formalized its funding plans in 2011, creating its JustFilms program that still supports 25-30 documentary films annually. Earlier this month, Firelight Media, a New York-based nonprofit supporting documentary filmmakers of color, launched the Firelight Fund, which will offer directors $50,000 grants for their projects.

    But Lance Gould, founder and CEO of media strategy firm Brooklyn Story Lab, says what Elevate Prize Foundation and others are doing is different. He says it reflects both technological improvements that have lowered the cost of documentary storytelling and the rise of social media, which allows nonprofits to interact with donors directly.

    “Being able to tell your story well is paramount,” said Gould, whose firm works with nonprofits to help them produce their own story-driven content. “But storytelling is not only about reaching viewers, it’s also about having the right message for the right viewers.”

    He suggests that nonprofits connect their work to larger initiatives like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — an ambitious list of 17 efforts from eliminating extreme poverty and hunger to guaranteeing every child a quality secondary education by 2030 — to attract more attention and support.

    Gould, who was previously executive editor of The Huffington Post and editor in chief of The Boston Phoenix, said “everyone can be their own media company at this point.”

    That’s a point Nicole Bronzan, vice president of communications and content for the Council on Foundations, hopes is not lost in the push for more storytelling.

    “We don’t want people to feel that they have to make big technological investments in order to tell better stories,” Bronzan said. “We wouldn’t want anyone to feel like they have to have a big fancy studio, but certainly the news that folks are investing in storytelling is great for us and for the whole sector.”

    In a Council on Foundations report released last year, “ A New Voice for Philanthropy: How Deeper Stories and Clearer Language Can Build Trust,” researchers, including Bronzan, reported that people had positive attitudes toward foundations, but most didn’t really understand how foundations worked. Bronzan said stories that provide more transparency about how donations are used and how those decisions are made help connect people to a nonprofit and its work.

    “If you’re telling those stories,” she said, “I can only imagine that people will be more inclined to open up their pocketbooks and say, ‘Oh, OK, these are causes that need my support.’”

    So far, that has been the case for Brilliant Cities, which saw an increase in donations after Eggleton’s episode debuted on YouTube.

    “We have a funder who wants to increase his gift from $7,000 to $100,000,” said Eggleton, whose nonprofit turns a neighborhood’s vacant homes into community centers with family services ranging from tutoring to mental health support groups. She said new donors have also reached out. “It’s kind of incredible.”

    Though Brilliant Cities doesn’t rely on federal funding for its services, Eggleton said government aid cuts have made a tough funding environment even tougher because the competition for non-governmental donations becomes even tougher.

    “Everybody’s being told what’s being taken away,” she said. “People are pulling at grant officers and individuals with stock market gains. I think it’s more than the funding, though. I think it’s about really recognizing how the world already feels so disconnected and now feels even more so.”

    Storytelling, Eggleton said, helps reduce that. By focusing on female changemakers, Elevate Studios makes an even stronger point, she said, adding she’s been quoting Spanish poet Antonio Machado — “There is no path/We make the path by walking” — as she explains the power of the series.

    “This is the time that we really do need to figure out how we build empathy through stories and not necessarily saying, ‘You’re wrong or you’re right,” she said. “You just show the world what can be and what should be.”

    _____

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Trump wants to ax an affordable housing grant that’s a lifeline for many rural communities

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    Heather Colley and her two children moved four times over five years as they fled high rents in eastern Tennessee, which, like much of rural America, hasn’t been spared from soaring housing costs.

    A family gift in 2021 of a small plot of land offered a shot at homeownership, but building a house was beyond reach for the 45-year-old single mother and manicurist making $18.50 an hour.

    That changed when she qualified for $272,000 from a nonprofit to build a three-bedroom home because of a grant program that has helped make affordable housing possible in rural areas for decades. She moved in last June.

    “Every time I pull into my garage, I pinch myself,” Colley said.

    Now, President Donald Trump wants to eliminate that grant, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and House Republicans overseeing federal budget negotiations did not include funding for it in their budget proposal. Experts and state housing agencies say that would set back tens of thousands of future affordable housing developments nationwide, particularly hurting Appalachian towns and rural counties where government aid is sparse and investors are few.

    The program has helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes in the last three decades, of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.

    “Maybe they don’t realize how far-reaching these programs are,” said Colley, who voted for Trump in 2024. Among those half a million homes that HOME helped build, 84% were in districts that voted for him last year, the AP analysis found.

    “I understand we don’t want excessive spending and wasting taxpayer dollars,” Colley said, “but these proposed budget cuts across the board make me rethink the next time I go to the polls.”

    The HOME program, started under President George H. W. Bush in the 1990s, survived years of budget battles but has been stretched thin by years of rising construction costs and stagnant funding. That’s meant fewer units, including in some rural areas where home prices have grown faster than in cities.

    The program has spent more than $38 billion nationwide since it began filling in funding gaps and attracting more investment to acquire, build and repair affordable homes, HUD data shows. Additional funding has gone toward projects that have yet to be finished and rental assistance.

    To account for the gap left by the proposed cuts, House Republicans want to draw on nearly $5 billion from a related pandemic-era fund that gave states until 2030 to spend on projects supporting people who are unhoused or facing homelessness.

    That $5 billion, however, may be far less, since many projects haven’t yet been logged into the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s tracking system, according to state housing agencies and associations representing them.

    A spokesperson for HUD, which administers the program, said HOME isn’t as effective as other programs where the money would be better spent.

    In opposition to Trump, Senate Republicans have still included funding for HOME in their draft budget. In the coming negotiations, both chambers may compromise and reduce but not terminate HOME’s funding, or extend last years’ overall budget.

    White House spokesperson Davis Ingle didn’t respond to specific questions from the AP. Instead, Ingle said that Trump’s commitment to cutting red tape is making housing more affordable.

    A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is working to reduce HOME’s notorious red tape that even proponents say slows construction.

    In Owsley County — one of the nation’s poorest, located in the rural Kentucky hills — residents struggle in an economy blighted by coal mine closures and declining tobacco crop revenues.

    Affordable homes are needed there, but tough to build in a region that doesn’t attract larger-scale rental developments that federal dollars typically go toward.

    That’s where HOME comes in, said Cassie Hudson, who runs Partnership Housing in Owsley, which has relied on the program to build the majority of its affordable homes for at least a dozen years.

    A lack of additional funding for HOME has already made it hard to keep up with construction costs, Hudson said, and the organization builds a quarter of the single-family homes it used to.

    “Particularly for deeply rural places and persistent poverty counties, local housing developers are the only way homes and new rental housing gets built,” said Joshua Stewart of Fahe, a coalition of Appalachian nonprofits.

    That’s in part because investment is scant and HOME steps in when construction costs exceed what a home can be sold for — a common barrier in poor areas of Appalachia. Some developers use the profits to build more affordable units. Its loss would erode those nonprofits’ ability to build affordable homes in years to come, Stewart said.

    One of those nonprofits, Housing Development Alliance, helped Tiffany Mullins in Hazard, Kentucky, which was ravaged by floods. Mullins, a single mother of four who makes $14.30 an hour at Walmart, bought a house there thanks to HOME funding and moved in August.

    Mullins sees the program as preserving a rural way of life, recalling when folks owned homes and land “with gardens, we had chickens, cows. Now you don’t see much of that.”

    In congressional budget negotiations, HOME is an easier target than programs such as vouchers because most people would not immediately lose their housing, said Tess Hembree, executive director of the Council of State Community Development Agencies.

    The effect of any reduction would instead be felt in a fizzling of new affordable housing supply. When HOME funding was temporarily reduced to $900 million in 2015, “10 to 15 years later, we’re seeing the ramifications,” Hembree said.

    That includes affordable units built in cities. The biggest program that funds affordable rental housing nationwide, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, uses HOME grants for 12% of units, totaling 324,000 current individual units, according to soon-to-be-published Urban Institute research.

    Trump’s spending bill that Republicans passed this summer increased LITHC, but experts say further reducing or cutting HOME would make those credits less usable.

    “It’s LITHC plus HOME, usually,” said Tim Thrasher, CEO of Community Action Partnership of North Alabama, which builds affordable apartments for some of the nation’s poorest.

    In the lush mountains of eastern West Virginia, Woodlands Development Group relies on HOME for its smaller rural projects. Because it helps people with a wider range of incomes, HOME is “one of the only programs available to us that allows us to develop true workforce housing,” said executive director Dave Clark.

    It’s those workers — nurses, first responders, teachers — that nonprofits like east Tennessee’s Creative Compassion use HOME to build for. With the program in jeopardy, grant administrator Sarah Halcott said she fears for her clients battling rising housing costs.

    “This is just another nail in the coffin for rural areas,” Halcott said.

    ___

    Kramon reported from Atlanta. Bedayn reported from Denver. Herbst contributed from New York City, and Kessler reported from Washington, D.C.

    ___

    Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • This Company Gives Away 100% of Its Profits — And Its Thriving | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Even the staunchest capitalists acknowledge the tension between profit and social good. In a consumer-driven society, money often overshadows morals.

    Many founders claim their companies exist to make a difference, but in a system that prioritizes profits, good intentions are easily squeezed out. The Green brothers stand out as rare exceptions.

    Award-winning authors and YouTube trailblazers Hank and John Green have a storied history of supporting global health causes. At first, they did so by raising awareness with their platform. Now, the always innovative brothers are trying a more active form of philanthropy.

    Their latest venture, Good Store, is taking social justice to a new level, selling sustainable, quality products and donating 100% — yes, 100% — of profits to charity.

    Related: This Keepsake Reminds Me of My First Dream — And Why I’m Grateful It Never Came True

    Image Credit: Good Store

    The Fault in Our Systems

    While the Green brothers are best known for their bestselling novels and educational YouTube videos that have guided countless high school students, philanthropy is quite literally in their DNA. They grew up in a family deeply rooted in nonprofit work: their father worked at The Nature Conservancy, while their mother was a community activist.

    “Our parents are never proud of us when we accomplish anything other than giving money away,” John jokes.

    Early in his career, John worked at a tertiary care children’s hospital as a student chaplain — an experience that proved to be immeasurably formative.

    “Every kid who came into that place received excellent care,” he recalls. “It wasn’t perfect, and the outcomes weren’t always what people wanted, but everyone had a chance.”

    In 2011, brothers John and Hank Green launched the educational YouTube channel Crash Course. During that period, they became increasingly interested in global health equity, often brainstorming ways to support what John describes as “long-term interventions.”

    “I think I was probably a little more passive in my early activism,” John recalls. “But around the time of the success of The Fault in Our Stars, I realized I now had time — not just money, but also other resources — that I could use.”

    One of those resources was the small online merch store the brothers had started in 2008. They decided to direct its revenue toward improving healthcare in Sierra Leone, one of the world’s most impoverished nations.

    “It’s easy to feel paralyzed when trying to address the world’s problems — they’re endless, and horrors abound in every direction,” John says. “For us, the goal was to make a long-term investment in one community, so we could see the kind of positive change that unfolds over time.”

    Their first step was to consult trusted peers, asking who was doing the most effective work in these communities. Again and again, one name came up: Partners In Health, an organization they had already supported through their annual charity event, Project for Awesome.

    The brothers called them up, asking if they were interested in a more formal partnership, and the rest is history.

    “When we started providing support to the maternal healthcare system in Sierra Leone, about one in 17 women were dying during pregnancy or childbirth,” John says. “Today, it’s closer to one in 53. Our contribution is only a tiny part of that progress — most of the credit goes to the Sierra Leonean government and the Sierra Leonean people — but being able to play even a small role is a reminder that life doesn’t merely suck.”

    Related: Do You Give Discounts To Your Nonprofit Clients? I Don’t

    From Paper Towns to real impact

    In addition to material health in Sierra Leone, Good Store also supports causes like TB treatment in Lesotho, and coral reef restoration — all powered by the sales of everyday products like socks, underwear and soap.

    “We’re trying to create more ethical ways to consume the things you have to consume,” John says. “People need these essentials, so we want to offer them at a fair price, but with a different business model.”

    Shockingly, this model doesn’t exactly have investors tripping over themselves to join on. After all, the economic ROI of a company that donates all of its profits after breaking even isn’t exactly enticing to traditional capitalists.

    That means the brothers rely on their own money and investments from a few close friends to fund the business.

    “The deal is that we break even, and the rest of the money goes to charity,” John explains. “In the narrow sense, is that a good investment? No. But like, I’ve had investments that didn’t break even.”

    While he admits to hearing out “socially conscious” venture capitalists over the years, John believes the company doesn’t require outside money to be successful.

    “We’ve been growing steadily for the last 15 years, and I’m comfortable with that pace,” he says. “Having capital to accelerate growth would be exciting, but it would also come with strings I’m not comfortable with.”

    Conclusion

    Success for Good Store means more than just a positive profit margin. It means funding treatment for the 1.5 million people who die of tuberculosis each year, and helping lower maternal mortality rates in Sierra Leone.

    The world may not be a wish-granting factory, but for countless people around the globe, Good Store comes remarkably close.

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    Leo Zevin

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  • Colorado, UCHealth reach deal to avoid clawback of $60 million from public hospitals

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    Colorado won’t have to claw back nearly $60 million it paid to public hospitals, including Denver Health and more than two dozen rural facilities, under a deal announced Tuesday to end the state’s court battles with UCHealth.

    “We thank UCHealth for working with us to resolve this issue in a manner that protects all Colorado hospitals,” Kim Bimestefer, executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, said in a news release.

    UCHealth sued the department, alleging it had incorrectly labeled two of its hospitals as public, rather than private nonprofits. A Denver District Court judge agreed, and ordered the state to reclassify Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs and Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. The department filed an appeal in July.

    Their classification matters because of the state’s provider tax.

    Hospitals pay about $1.3 billion each year, gaining about $500 million in federal matching funds. Most come out ahead, though those with relatively few patients covered by Medicaid lose out. In future years, the state will have to reduce its tax rate under provisions of H.R. 1, colloquially known as President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”

    The state pools the money by hospital type, and distributes it based on how each facility’s Medicaid share compares to the others in their group.

    Moving Memorial and Poudre Valley from the public to the private bucket means that less money remains for all public hospitals to divide up, and that Memorial and Poudre Valley likely will get more back from the provider tax, because they’re being compared against hospitals that generally see fewer Medicaid patients.

    The state said that to retrospectively reclassify the UCHealth hospitals and distribute the funds accordingly, it would have to take back $59.7 million paid last year to 29 publicly owned hospitals.

    Denver Health didn’t comment on the possibility, but a group representing 13 Eastern Plains hospitals said some wouldn’t be able to hand over a significant chunk of cash, because they already used their share of the provider tax to pay employees and cover other expenses.

    Under the agreement, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing will drop its appeal, and UCHealth won’t demand redistribution of provider taxes it paid in previous years.

    UCHealth president and CEO Elizabeth Concordia said the system supports the provider tax program, and thanked the state for working together on a solution.

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    Meg Wingerter

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  • UTEC reunion celebrates 25 years of transforming lives and unity

    UTEC reunion celebrates 25 years of transforming lives and unity

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    LOWELL — Standing at the entrance of UTEC on Warren Street on Friday evening, CEO Gregg Croteau reflects on the nonprofit’s 25th anniversary. What began in 1999 as a space for teens at St. Anne’s Church on Kirk Street, envisioned by a few young adults seeking refuge from gang violence, has now become a cornerstone of Lowell’s identity, transforming countless young lives.

    Croteau, who was hired by the original young adults in early 2000, smiles as he recalls their humble beginnings with just a $40,000 city grant. Today, UTEC boasts an $18 million budget, a testament to the organization’s profound impact and growth.

    “Twenty-five years is a huge milestone for us,” Croteau said. Before he can continue, his thoughts are momentarily interrupted as he affectionately greets a familiar face walking through the door.

    “How are you?” Croteau asks, beaming. “You look the same.”

    “Living my best life,” the individual responds.

    Croteau continues to greet several more familiar faces, all arriving on this Friday evening to celebrate UTEC’s 25-year milestone with a reunion of former young adults who became part of the nonprofit. A press release highlights the organization’s dedication to developing life skills, emphasizing that the event is a celebration of growth, community, and the powerful journey that began at UTEC over the past quarter-century.

    Croteau said he expected about 150 people to attend Friday’s celebration.

    “This reunion is not just about celebrating where we’ve been, but also recognizing where we’re going,” Croteau said.

    The event, filled with music from UTEC alumnus DJ Money, plenty of food and laughs, showcased the attendees as one big family.

    Among those in the crowd was Jocelyn Rosado, who was 14 years old in 2004 and a student at Lowell High School when she began attending UTEC. She recalled facing challenges at home, having been placed with her grandparents after her mother went away. It was a life-changing event.

    “I was so close to my mom,” Rosado said. “I was a really quiet individual, really shy, so being separated from my mom changed my whole world. I felt so alone.”

    This feeling of isolation sparked a desire to become more social. She found solace at UTEC, where she met people who she discovered could relate to her situation.

    “I kinda felt like I was the only one until I was with young adults from UTEC,” she said. “We all related to each other, we all understood each other, we mirrored each other.”

    Rosado now serves as a transitional coach for UTEC, a role dedicated to helping young people access essential resources. Rosado points out, “I’m giving them what I found here.”

    Melinda Tejeda, who also joined UTEC at the age of 14 during its inaugural year, found the same sense of unity she had been searching for at UTEC.

    Tejeda was just 11 years old when her mother passed away. Placed with a family member who she said was more interested in the financial benefits of raising her, Tejeda felt anger toward the world, often lashing out and getting into trouble at school.

    “I think coming here gave me that sense of unity, the sense of family I was looking for,” Tejeda said. “It was a pivotal moment in my life where I could have taken the wrong path.”

    UTEC also opened doors to experiences Rosado might not have pursued otherwise. She recalled a memorable visit to Lowell City Hall, where she helped advocate for a grant and delivered her first public speech. UTEC additionally introduced her to creative writing and what she said was the Young Women’s Group Project, which helped her forge connections with other females.

    Now at 40 years old, Tejeda states, “I have a good life.” She has been a general manager for a storage company for the past eight years, a testament to the positive impact UTEC had on her life, said Tejada, a mother of a 19-year-old daughter.

    Among the original young adults who set the wheels in motion in creating UTEC all those years ago, JuanCarlos Rivera, now the vice president of the organization’s Board of Directors, stands with a sense of pride 25 years later. When asked if he expected the organization to achieve such growth, he said, “I always hoped it would.”

    “The idea for us is to ensure that after I’m gone and Gregg is gone, there’s always a place for young people to go,” Rivera added. “It’s important to remember that every decade, young people have continued to make this happen.”

    Next on UTEC’s agenda is the 25th Anniversary Gala, set to take place on Nov. 20 at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. For more details about the event, visit utecinc.org/25thgala.

    Follow Aaron Curtis on X, formerly known as Twitter, @aselahcurtis

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    Aaron Curtis

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  • Takeaways from AP’s report on affordable housing disappearing across the U.S.

    Takeaways from AP’s report on affordable housing disappearing across the U.S.

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    LOS ANGELES — While Americans continue to struggle under unrelentingly high rents, as many as 223,000 affordable housing units across the U.S. could disappear in the next five years alone.

    It leaves low-income tenants facing protracted eviction battles, scrambling to pay a two-fold rent increase or more, or shunted back into a housing market where costs can easily eat half a paycheck.

    Those affordable housing units were built with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC, a federal program launched in 1987 that provides tax credits to developers in exchange for keeping rents low.

    It has pumped out 3.6 million units nationwide, and its expansion is now central to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ housing plan to build 3 million new homes.

    The catch? The buildings typically only need to be kept affordable for a minimum of 30 years. For the wave of LIHTC construction in the 1990s, those deadlines are arriving now, threatening to hemorrhage affordable housing supply when Americans need it most.

    Data on LIHTC units that will lose their affordability nationally remains a rough estimate.

    The best nationwide analysis estimated that by 2030 roughly 350,000 LIHTC units are at risk of losing affordability. That’s 1 million units by 2040, according to the National Housing Preservation Database.

    Not all units that lose LIHTC’s affordability protections become market rate. Some are kept affordable by other government subsidies, by merciful landlords or by states, including California, Colorado and New York, that have worked to keep costs low.

    Still, it’s a sizeable loss to a housing market already in dire need of new units.

    “If we are losing the homes that are currently affordable and available to households, then we’re losing ground on the crisis,” said Sarah Saadian, vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

    “It’s sort of like having a boat with a hole at the bottom,” she said.

    Local governments and nonprofits can purchase expiring apartments, new tax credits or other subsidies can be applied that extend the affordability, or tenants can organize to try to force action from landlords and city officials.

    California now requires all new LIHTC properties to be affordable for 55 years. Expiring developments built before that rule are also prioritized for new tax credits, and the state essentially requires that all LIHTC applicants have experience owning and managing affordable housing.

    California and Colorado require landlords to notify local governments and tenants before their building expires. Cities and nonprofits then have first shot at buying the property to keep it affordable.

    However, unlike California many states haven’t extended LIHTC agreements beyond 30 years, let alone taken other measures to keep expiring housing affordable.

    Still, local governments or nonprofits scraping together the funds to buy apartment buildings is far from a guarantee. And while new tax credits can reup a lapsing LIHTC affordability, they are limited, doled out to states by the Internal Revenue Service based on population.

    For more than two decades, the low rent on Marina Maalouf’s LIHTC apartment in Los Angeles’ Chinatown was a saving grace for her family, including a granddaughter who has autism.

    When that grace expired, the landlord, no longer legally obligated to keep the building affordable, hiked rent from $1,100 to $2,660 in 2021 — out of reach for Maalouf and her family. Tenant protests, a rent strike and eviction filings followed.

    The eviction case is ongoing, haunting Maalouf’s nights with fears of her family ending up in sleeping bags on a friend’s floor or worse. Mornings she repeats a mantra: “We still here. We still here.” But fighting day after day to make it true is exhausting.

    Still, Maalouf’s tenant activism has helped move the needle. The City of Los Angeles has offered the landlord $15 million to keep her building affordable through 2034, but that deal wouldn’t get rid of over 30 eviction cases still proceeding, including Maalouf’s, or the $25,000 in back rent she owes.

    On a recent day in the courtyard of Maalouf’s apartment, her granddaughter shuffled up with a glass of water. She is 5 years old, but with special needs, her speech is more disconnected words than sentences.

    “That’s why I’ve been hoping everything becomes normal again, and she can be safe,” said Maalouf, her voice shaking with emotion. She has urged her son to start saving money for the worst.

    “We’ll keep fighting,” she said, “but day by day it’s hard. … I’m tired already.”

    ___

    Bedayn is a corps member of The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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