Charities Hit by Madoff: They Need Us Now

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2008-12-24 14:03:00 UTC
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The Madoff scandal has devastated foundations and nonprofits across sectors. Many (if not most) of them hadn't even heard the name "Madoff" until his Ponzi scheme was brought down a little over a week ago. Foundations (especially a number of Jewish institutions) have been particularly hard hit, with huge portions of their assets evaporating, dramatically changing their ability to provide funds.

Enter "They Need Us Now," a site that just launched to catalog and encourage donations to nonprofits hardest hit by the scandal. Lucy at Philanthropy 2173 picked this up this afternoon, and I agree that while the site builders need to identify themselves, it looks legit: the "donate" buttons take you straight to the different nonprofits Convio-powered donation portals.

If you know of other groups impacted, you can use the site to add them to the list. Nothing like a financial crisis and a ripoff to lose the holiday spirit; nothing like citizen powered donations to help get it back. Check out their list of organizations here.

Here are links to more articles about how charities have been hit by the scandal:

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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