This may come as a shock, but when Congress passed the $700 billion financial bailout bill and the other special interest add-ons, it forgot the part about helping volunteers who do lots of charity driving.

Real estate pro warns nonprofits: Beware Trojan House

A federal review of Hennepin County's child protection system shows troubling results, and given the 2009 county budget outlook things likely will get worse.

Even with a fragile economy and human services nonprofits bracing for cuts, here comes Open Arms of Minnesota planning to build a new facility and to double a roughly $1.5 million operating budget in two years.

In late July, an advocate of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center (MIWRC) went with a client to the Hennepin County's Domestic Abuse Service Center to help her file an order for protection. (The client had been a childhood sexual-abuse victim, and as an adult now was involved in a physically abusive relationship.)

Amid a year of bleak financial news, nonprofit and public community developers still can point to a few bright spots. Some working in economically challenged areas have tapped capital for small business loans.

Washburn Center for Children http://www.washburn.org/ is one of several nonprofits feeling the hit of Hennepin County funding cuts that appear to be falling disproportionately on programs serving troubled children and troubled families.

Nonprofits looking to stretch their dollars should check out the U.S. Communities National Buying Program, a purchasing pool that helps state and local governments save money on printers, paper, furniture and more. Nonprofits that provide a public benefit also are eligible to use the program.

Local and national foundations are pooling money and sharing information to help coordinate redevelopment efforts along the planned Central Corridor light-rail transit line.

My childhood friend Rev. Dale Kuehne, director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics http://www.anselm.edu/nhiop/ at St. Anselm College, is in town for the Republican National Convention and I tagged along to hear him speak at a New Hampshire delegation breakfast meeting.

When the 2001 economic recession hit, Minnesota had a 7.8 percent poverty rate. After six years of economic recovery, the poverty rate is even higher: 9.5 percent.

Nonprofit hospitals appear to be increasingly reliant on wealthy individuals and foundations for major building projects. As these big institutions look for large sums of money, that’s probably not great news for other nonprofits trying to get in line for a philanthropic booster shot.

Memo to St. Paul boosters: If you want to keep the city's only art museum, you'd better get out your wallets. The Minnesota Museum of American Art is looking at another move, a leadership change and recurring deficits, a triple whammy of organizational stress. Its reserves have dropped 40 percent in four years, from more than $2.9 million in mid-2003 to less than $1.8 million in mid-2007, according to nonprofit tax returns on the Minnesota Attorney General's website.

The Internal Revenue Service is taking a closer look at how nonprofit organizations are run. It will soon be asking for more disclosure about non-cash donations, decisions on executive pay, partnerships with for-profit organizations, and whether officers, directors and trustees annually disclose potential conflicts of interest.

The Bush Foundation has announced new priorities and a new way of doing business, and the move is sure to send nonprofits leaders scrambling for more information. Read more...

By Scott Russell

Jan Berry, president of the MACC Alliance of Connected Communities, is floating the idea of using the health maintenance organization (HMO) model to provide human services. Read more...

By Scott Russell

The Friends in Need Food Shelf is seeing a lot of middle-class families from St. Paul Park, Cottage Grove and Newport. They're "people who say they have given to us for years, and now they are needing us," said director Michelle Rageth. "They have mortgages and car payments. We are seeing a lot of people who are not your typical food-shelf person." Read more...

By Scott Russell

As nonprofits face increased pressure from funders to show results, the latest buzzword is "return on investment." Read more...

By Scott Russell

Last May, I bumped into former state Rep. John Clawson, now executive director of Minneapolis-based House of Charity. Its halfway house was closing July 1, he said, replaced by an expanded treatment program. Later, I spoke to Pat Dale, chief executive officer of Richfield-based The Storefront Group. Its Way 12 halfway house was closing after 34 years, effective July 1. Read more...

By Scott Russell