A survey of volunteers, offenders, and prison personnel in a volunteer mentoring program in Oklahoma prisons uncovered problems caused by inadequate mentor training due to lack of resources. Lack of funds forces correctional agencies to use volunteers, but it also prevents them from using them effectively. (SK)

Explores prevalent assumptions about what religious organizations are and do, how they fit into the independent or nonprofit sector, and what is reasonable to expect of or for them. Reviews basic facts about the nature, scope, operations, and support of religious organizations, examining their levels of independence. Focuses on the basic…

Briefly describes history of public-school funding, including tuition and charity-support schools and flat grants. Discusses contemporary school-funding approaches from the perspective of educational equity and educational adequacy: the foundation method, extra funding for poor children, and funding tied to student learning. (Contains 12…

Spending a fixed fraction of endowment, under plausible assumptions about returns, produces endowment levels in the far future that are lognormally distributed. Mean endowment grows more rapidly than median endowment. If a university wants median endowment to grow at a particular target rate, it must set a certain spending fraction explained in…

Discusses a revision of the Act for Better Child Care (ABC) bill cosponsored by Senators Christopher Dodd and Orrin Hatch. Major opponents of the ABC bill remain unmoved. The Child Development and Education Act of 1989 and Smart Start legislation are also discussed. (RJC)

Used nationally representative sample of ever-divorced mothers eligible for child support from 1979, 1982, 1984, and 1986 to predict probability of remarriage. Found that, for mothers who remarried within five years of divorce, child support payments appeared to have no adverse impact on remarriage. Other findings confirm previous evidence for…

Conducted case study of philanthropic giving among 29 companies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Found that most corporations used informal rather than formal process for making funding decisions, with many firms relying on tradition, social contacts, and intuition to guide allocations. Findings suggest ways that social services administrators can…

Notes the prevailing notion about the superfluous nature of poetry, art, and starving artists, and the difficulty of educators in obtaining funds for the arts. Suggests that poetry teaches essential communication skills in small, digestible segments which are readily accessible to even young students. (RS)

Discusses the increasing use of multiple-year capital fund raising campaigns to help colleges and universities defray the costs of attracting new students and quality faculty. An example details one university's changing goal structure to adjust to early success in its capital fund raising campaign. (GR)

Describes how some universities are opting for a single, large payment for patent royalties, rather than the potential of a long-term revenue stream. Provides examples of such deals and the reasons for their adoption. (EV)

A $10 million gift will help the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), begin construction next year on a new $66 million "Knowledge Center." The donation comes in $5 million gifts from Reno-based International Game Technology (IGT), a slot machine manufacturer, and from former IGT chair Chuck Mathewson and his wife, Ann. UNR's current…

In this article, the author offers her thoughts on the emerging "practices" of REA and the association's sponsorship of "convergences," and offers specific recommendations on how best to foster such convergences in light of the organizational vision.

Four skits depicting the difficulties faced by famous men and women in science for seeking fund for their research are described. It is a spoof on the History of Science.

The revolutionary Feynman vision of a powerful and general nanotechnology, based on nanomachines that build with atom-by-atom control, promises great opportunities and, if abused, great dangers. This vision made nanotechnology a buzzword and launched the global nanotechnology race. Along the way, however, the meaning of the word has shifted. A…

When foundations reduce their support to a field, they generally offer brief explanations for their actions, citing a record of past achievement, a new constellation of social needs, and a consequent reconfiguration of priorities. Other rationales for the foundations' recent rift with higher education include friction between foundation agendas…