WaPo: “The District is ready to hit the ground running on needle-exchange programs.” But first the Senate needs to pass legislation ending the ban on public funding and the President needs to sign it. (11/30)
Nov. 28, 2007 - Parents, young people, medical
professionals, and local HIV/health/youth advocacy groups expressed strong
support for the draft Health Learning Standards. (Photo: Fight HIV in DC)
Yesterday, Washington Grantmakers and the Washington AIDS Partnership signed a letter supporting the permanent adoption of the D.C. State Board of Education’s draft academic standards for health education. These standards—which include comprehensive information on nutrition, sexual health, and HIV prevention—will determine the scope of health education in all of D.C.’s Public Schools. The letter was written by the D.C. Healthy Youth Coalition, which includes over 25 local organizations, and presented to the D.C. State Board of Education at a public hearing last night.
Over 100 supporters attended, and, of the 32 people who testified, a strong majority favored making the draft standards permanent. The hearing opened with testimony from the D.C. chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association, Children’s National Medical Center and a national health education expert. All supported the new health education standards. Two youth (including a young man from the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council) also testified in favor.
Your turn to testify
Nov. 30 (tomorrow) is the last day D.C. residents may voice their recommendations on the draft guidelines. Health education is an excellent way to promote healthy behaviors among the 50,000 students in the District’s public schools. The standards specify what students should know and be able to do to improve and maintain their health by the end of each grade level.
Why are standards urgently needed?
D.C. has high HIV rates among youth and one of the highest adolescent obesity rates in the country. While the poor health outcomes for D.C. young people are well-documented, the quality of health education in our public schools, including topics such as nutrition and reproductive health, is inconsistent and often quite poor. Lacking crucial information to protect themselves, many young people in D.C. engage in risky behavior.
According to the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey, over half of D.C. public high school students and 30 percent of middle school students report being sexually active, yet roughly 15 percent of high school students and over 20 percent of middle school students report that they have never been taught anything about AIDS or HIV in school.
EDUCATION Report:Foundations and the School Privatization Movement. “[Y]ou might be surprised at how much money from private foundations has been poured into building the school choice movement in the past few years.” The Walton Family Foundation gave $25 million in 2005 alone. (wire, 11/27)
FOSTER CARE
[Md.] “Fixing foster care in Maryland” - by Douglas W. Nelson, president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation (WG member) (Baltimore Sun, 11/29)
ENVIRONMENT Meet Google’s (hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars) new initiative:“Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal”- ”a quest to lower the cost of producing electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun.” (AP, 11/29)
…[Google] initially hopes to harvest cleaner-burning electricity to meet its own needs and sell power to other users or license the technology that emerges from its initiative…
…”If we achieve these goals, we are going to be in the (electricity) business in a very big way,” Page said. “We should be able to make a lot of money from this.”
…Google.org will invest “hundreds of millions” in companies specializing in renewable energy, Page said. The philanthropic arm, which sits under the umbrella of the Google Foundation, will draw upon its holdings of nearly $2 billion worth Google’s stock.
There’s no telling when it will happen, but eventually the planet will run out of fossil fuels. And when it does, the country that has led the way on renewable energy will be sitting pretty. And it’s looking like that country will be the United States of Google.
Just an FYI for members that the Nov. 28 Children, Youth, and Families Working Group meeting has been postponed. Watch the member Update newsletter for the rescheduled date.
HIV/AIDS Mayor Fenty pledges to triple the number of free condoms being distributed and to help the city’s hospitals do more emergency room HIV testing (WaPo, 11/27).
Read the latest about grantmakers’ efforts to end HIV/AIDS in our region in the Washington AIDS Partnership’s call to action “A Fight We Can Win.” (pdf)
IMMIGRATION [Va.] A Fairfax County report finds that it’s hard to quantify the cost of delivering services to undocumented immigrants because…they’re undocumented. Fairfax is the third Virginia county (after Loudoun and Prince William) to produce such a report. (WaPo, 11/27)
PHILANTHROPY
Linking some of the world’s wealthiest families, the Global Philanthropists Circle is grantmaker collaboration on a global scale. “[W]ith so many big new gifts, there’s more waste as philanthropists struggle up a learning curve. Dulany saw a need for an organization that would allow givers around the world to meet, exchange ideas and strategies, and work together to take on increasingly complex issues.”
“Starting a New Chapter After Foundation Jobs End” (NYTimes, 11/26) - Interesting in our world, but can anyone figure out why the Times might have decided to cover this? “LAFF’s periodic gatherings and newsletters are a chance for Ford veterans to swap war stories, exchange news and keep in touch.” [Developing!]
- Nonprofits contribute at least $9.6 billion to the region’s economy and “often deliver services in more fiscally prudent ways than the government.”
- “In 2005, private and community foundations in the area gave more than $655.5 million, a 7.3 percent increase from 2004, according to a study by the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers.”
- Article quotes Viki Betancourt of WG member World Bank: “No one goes out and buys a car and doesn’t take care of it for five years. So why would you put your money in a nonprofit and not follow it, not know where it’s going? You always want to invest your money wisely.”
HOUSING/HOMELESSNESS
[Va.] Loudoun County takes over the operation of homeless shelter from the Good Sheppard Alliance, a nonprofit faithbased group (WaPo, 11/21). (Residents of Ashburn are furious that the “drop in” homeless shelter almost ended up in their community.)
HUNGER/NUTRITION “Feeding a Misimpression” - George Jones (Bread for the City) responds to the author of an op-ed that asked “what would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead?” (WaPo, 11/20)
The Christian Science Monitor’s annual philanthropy guide (everybody’s got one!) notes that ”two-thirds of Americans give to charities in their lifetimes while only eight percent do so in their wills.” Another article explores how much of charitable giving is actually benefitting the neediest people in society (11/19). That latter issue is a tricky one. As Joel Fleishman noted at Washington Grantmakers’ conference last week, a donation to a higher education institution may turn into a scholarship for a low-income student. And, as the article notes, a donation to a museum helps the museum serve people of all income levels.
“The Smithsonian Institution is preparing to launch its first broad appeal for private donations to help fill a funding gap that could be as high as $2 billion…” (AP, 11/20). The institution has vowed to vet donors faster after API withdrawal of a $5 million gift (Bloomberg, 11/20).
City officials detail how school system would allocate $81 million in unanticipated tax revenue. The plan includes expanded art, music, and foreign language instruction, and $16 million for teacher raises. (WaPo, 11/20)
Washington Grantmakers and the Prince George’s Community Foundation put out the call: Who wants to maximize the effectiveness of philanthropy in Prince George’s County, Maryland? Five standing-room-only sessions. Funders, nonprofits, government leaders, community activists. Together at last, they spoke about opportunities and lessons learned. Unrealized potential. They agreed that something had to change.
Launching in early 2008, The Partnership for Prince George’s County will connect the people who live, work, learn, and play in Prince George’s County to each other and to the region. The network will build strategic alliances among County stakeholders, and the region’s grantmakers will pool their funds to strengthen the County’s nonprofit community.
"a powerful network of funders, partnering with nonprofits and governments, that is committed to improving the National Capital Region by touching lives and changing communities ... one grant at a time."
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