Articles about Philanthropy
Ex-Planned Parenthood Clinic Director: PP Doesn’t Need the Komen Money, Anyway
Now that Dallas-based Komen for The Cure’s been beaten down by everyone, left and right, for its clumsy decision-making, a former Employee of the Year at a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic is out with a different view. Abby Johnson, who was the clinic’s director before quitting and becoming a pro-life activist, says Planned Parenthood will use Mafia-style, shakedown tactics against any charity that decides not to fund the group. She also says the Komen dough isn’t really needed for Planned Parenthood’s free breast-cancer screenings, anyway.
Komen Foundation Website Hacked
Late last night for a brief time, as the Atlantic notes, hackers were able to redirect traffic from the Susan G. Komen Foundation website to a dummy site where this ad:
Was replaced by this ad:
Meanwhile Nancy Brinker posted a YouTube defense of the Komen Foundation’s policy change. Though, of course, she doesn’t say a word about Planned Parenthood:
DMA’s New Director Straight Out of Central Casting
Peter may have a complete report on FrontRow about Tuesday’s media luncheon with Maxwell Anderson, the new director of the Dallas Museum of Art. But at first blush Anderson’s a big-time arts guy straight out of central casting: polished, corporate, carefully spoken. Tailor-made for Dallas, in other words. Asked about lessons he’d learned after sometimes rocky stints at the Whitney in New York and the Indianapolis art museum — institutions where he reportedly clashed with board members and big donors — Anderson replied the problem was that too many of those people were not art collectors themselves, in contrast to the situation here.
The new director is married, by the way, to the beautiful, Houston-reared actress/entrepreneur Jacqueline Buckingham Anderson, who’s likely to give Anna-Sophia a run for her money as a head-turner on the social circuit. Just now Jacqueline — who literally does hail from central casting — is said to be overseeing the building of a new home for the Andersons in Preston Hollow. (She’s had practice at such things, having “redecorated” the couple’s 12,000-square-foot, museum-provided residence in Indy with buying trips to California and Europe, according to the NYT). According to John Eagle, president of the DMA board, she may eventually start her own business here putting art into public or corporate spaces like hospitals.
Bash With Bushes Marks a Very Good Year for McKool Smith
George W. Bush and Mike McKool
Dallas’s Belo Mansion may have been a funeral home for 50 years, even hosting the funeral of Clyde Barrow back in the ’30s. But Friday night the old joint was anything but a dead zone, as roughly 1,000 people turned up for a raucous holiday shindig there marking the 20th anniversary of McKool Smith, an IP/commercial litigation law firm.
Think casino games. Exotically clad drink servers (one, pictured after the “jump,” wore a steel “skirt” holding dozens of champagne flutes). Plus multiple live bands — including a group (called Vocal Trash) at the valet entrance that sang and banged out tunes like Footloose using garbage-can lids and drums made out of empty water-cooler bottles.
The Dallas-based firm’s Mike McKool blew out all the stops for this year’s annual holiday party, no doubt. Example: Lawyers from the firm’s other six U.S. offices, including from its newest outpost in L.A., were flown in and put up at a local hotel (presumably not a Super 8). McKool also went above and beyond on the season’s giving side, presenting not one but two $100,000 checks to nonprofit groups during the evening.
Dallas’s Vogel Alcove snagged one of the checks. The other went to Barbara Pierce Bush’s Global Health Corps. The daughter of George W. and Laura Bush was there to accept the dough in person, while her parents sat watching at a table nearby.
The 2011 economy may be continuing to struggle in many ways. If the McKool Smith bash was any indication, though, it’s been a stupendous year for the lawyers. (Photos by Jeanne Prejean)
JFK Nephew to Dallas: Assassination Not Your Fault
While Dallas anguishes over marking the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in
2013, the president’s nephew has a message for the city: Get over the collective angst, already. “The people here loved him,” Anthony Kennedy Shriver, the son of JFK’s sister Eunice and Sargent Shriver, said in Dallas Saturday. “I spoke with a man who saw him 20 minutes before he died, and he said he still gets chills, thinking about that day. It’s not the fault of the people of Dallas.
“What the community did with the [Sixth Floor Museum] was fantastic,” Shriver (pictured in photo by Jeanne Prejean) went on. “I took my daughter and my mom there a couple of years before she died. She was really moved by it. … [The assassination] was not the city’s fault … just as I’m not responsible if one of my family members … is a drug addict; that’s not a reflection on me. Nobody in my family has ever spoken in anything but a loving way about the people of Dallas.”
Shriver, who was in town raising money for his Best Buddies nonprofit for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has often been mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, where he lives. He said he prays every day and is “open” to the possibility of running in 2014, if that turns out to be God’s plan for him.
Despite Economy, Dallas Opera Raises $20M For Endowment Fund
In the October edition of D Magazine, Willard Spiegelman wrote that times were tough at the Dallas Opera. Well, things just got a little brighter. The opera announced today that they have raised $20 million for their “Cultural Renaissance Endowment Fund.” The details are over on FrontRow.
Johnny Bush: Producers Stifling True Country Music
Traditional-country-music icon Johnny Bush, who penned the Willie Nelson anthem “Whiskey ![IMG_6181[1]](http://c0415030.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IMG_61811-300x200.jpg "IMG_6181[1]")
River,” says today’s Nashville producers have “tied the hands” of C&W songwriters. “You can’t say anything bad about the woman. You can’t talk about drinking anymore,” Bush said. And that’s a problem because true country music has traditionally been about such “real-life situations,” he added.
The Houston-born, longtime resident of San Antonio (pictured) was in Dallas Saturday to play a private fundraising party for Dallas’ Museum of Biblical Art. During the party the art museum unveiled a series of 14 planned, life-sized religious sculptures by artist Gib Singleton. Bush said the backyard bash for 275 guests–held at the spectacular, Desco Drive mansion of charity benefactor Faye Briggs–was “probably the biggest private party I ever worked, of this stature. … This is a pretty high-class soiree.” Read more in the Q&A with Bush that follows.
Do Some Good Today with Crowdtilt
After all the name calling and angry words on the blog yesterday, I thought we might need something to make us all feel a little better. So I present an opportunity. I know a guy who started a great crowd-funding site called Crowdtilt. The idea behind Crowdtilt is that you start a campaign, set an amount of money you need raised, and then set the number at which the campaign “tilts.” No credit cards are charged unless the campaign gets to that tilt amount.
So here’s where you can do good. The Deep Ellum Urban Garden group needs about $25,000 in order to transform the lot into a garden. They have set the campaign to tilt at $10,000. Yesterday, the campaign was around $4,700. The people at Crowdtilt gave of their own money and did a match campaign. Today, it’s at $6,795. Make yourself feel better, donate a few dollars. And then get your friends to donate a few dollars. See, don’t you feel a little better?
Down and Out at the Rachofsky House
Everybody knows that each year around this time, the international arty set descends on Cindy and Howard Rachofsky’s Dallas show house for the 2X2 fundraiser. Celebrities like Stanley Tucci, big-buck auction sales, major air-smooching, ascots and high-water pants with no socks–you know the drill. But Saturday night, passing by the art hoedown off Preston Road, one could see a guy lying face-down in the roadside greenery while cellphone-camera-wielding onlookers snapped away, capturing the scene for posterity. Was he high on goofballs, and decided to take a nap? Maybe he was a dead-drunk still life? Then again, maybe he just fainted away after realizing how much his Platinum card got dinged for that “Portrait of a Lady With Five Eyes.”
Karl Rove, Comedian, Emcees a Dinner in Dallas
Who knew Karl Rove was such a comedian? That’s what about 700 people were asking
last night when the worlds of Texas oil and gas, Republican politics, and philanthropy came together in one big decked-out room at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. The occasion: the Methodist Health System Foundation’s presentation of its 2011 Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award to Barnett Shale billionaire Trevor Rees-Jones. Organized by mega-GOP operative Jim Francis, the dinner event wound up raising more than $1 million for Methodist and was emceed by Rove, aka “The Architect,” who was a “surprise” guest.
The “surprise” made sense. Rees-Jones has donated a reported $2 million, at least, to Rove’s American Crossroads, a 527 political group. And Rove’s pal former President George W. and his wife Laura Bush served as the shindig’s honorary chairs. The Bushes were no-shows, though, which Rove acknowledged right off the bat: “I have heard the ugly rumor, and I want to deny it. 43 is not here tonight out of personal pique over not getting this award,” Rove (pictured in photo by Jeanne Prejean) told the crowd. “… The true reason is because of mountain biking. [Bush and Rees-Jones are both biking enthusiasts and have ridden together]. The president is a little irritated that Trevor didn’t lay back. Instead, he rides the president’s sorry ass into the ground every time.”
Trevor Rees-Jones and “Heather Be Thy Name”
A lot of guys including Garth and Wayne have had crushes on Heather Locklear. Trevor Rees-Jones of Dallas’s’ Chief Oil & Gas is one of them. But few are energy billionaires with enough, well, pull, to summon the blonde actress to party with them on their birthday. That’s just what happened recently, when Rees-Jones celebrated his 60th with a big bash at his ranch out in Eastland County. It was actually his wife, Jan, who arranged for Locklear to fly in for the party (talk about a good spouse), where the entertainment was provided by the Blues Brothers and the Eagles.
Rees-Jones, who’s on the cover of the current D CEO, is sort of used to heady company, though. The other night there was a “sponsor party” at the home of Lisa and Kenny Troutt for the upcoming Robert S. Folsom Leadership Award Dinner honoring Rees-Jones. Among the guests was former President George W. Bush; W and his wife Laura are serving as honorary chairs of the dinner. The uber-connected Jim Francis, who’s chairing the Oct. 5 event, warned the Troutts’ guests to expect a “few surprises” on Wednesday. They probably shouldn’t look for Richie Sambora to be one of them.
Leading Off (9/19/11)
What a 1976 Trial Tells Us About John Wiley Price: The latest investigative brouhaha surrounding County Commissioner John Wiley Price isn’t the first time the politician has been backed into a legal corner. But what does an acquittal in 1976 tell us about how Price will handle the latest trouble? In short, don’t expect him to be eager to cooperate with the prosecution.
North Texas Economy Strengthens Guanajuato Ties: Most urban areas in the United States tend to draw migrants from specific regions of Mexico, and in the case of Dallas, it is the mountainous Guanajuato (which is one reason why someone needs to launch a new MLS team, Club León USA, and stick them in the Cotton Bowl, but that’s besides the point). In the current economy, in which the North Texas economy is outpacing other parts of the country, the labor-pool network remains entrenched and stronger than ever (sub req).
Bush Raises More Than $300 Million for Library: George W. Bush still has some serious fundraising swagger.
DonorBridge: Why You Should Donate Money Today, Ctd.
Good news from the DonorBridge folks. The deadline for giving has been extended:
As of 3 p.m. today, more than 5,400 donations totaling more than $4 million have been donated to DonorBridge nonprofits. The donation deadline is being extended to 12 a.m. midnight tonight to ensure more donations can qualify for matching funds and to handle the large volume of donations. Check www.facebook.com/donorbridge or www.twitter.com/donorbridge for up-to-the-minute updates. Donors may donate online or via phone at 214-346-5500.
DonorBridge: Why You Should Donate Money Today
Today is the third-annual North Texas Giving Day. What that means is, an outfit called DonorBridge has a $1 million pool that it uses to partially match every donation larger than $25 made to some 700 North Texas nonprofits. Donations have to be made before 7 tonight. And they have to be made through the DonorBridge site, www.donorbridgetx.org. Go there to see if your favorite nonprofit is included (I bet it is). But here’s the thing: you need to be patient. The DonorBridge website is having trouble keeping up with traffic this morning.
Update (1:15): From DonorBridge: “Due to overwhelmingly positive response to DonorBridge’s North Texas Giving Day, donor are experiencing longer-than-anticipated wait times on the website. The website is working, but volunteers and staff are also standing by and ready to process donations via phone. Please call 214-346-5500. Be advised wait times for phone donations fluctuate as well.”
Dallas Opera Will Be Dialing for Dollars
If you’re the type who donates to nonprofits like the Dallas Opera, don’t be surprised to receive
an urgent phone call or two in the next few weeks. The reason: the deficit-plagued opera company, which recently had to deep-six one of its main-stage productions for the 2011-’12 season, is nearing an Oct. 31 deadline to match an anonymous, $10 million, dollar-for-dollar challenge grant for its endowment fund not with pledges but with cold, hard cash.
So far, DO chairman Dr. Kern Wildenthal disclosed last night, the opera has raised around $8 million of the needed $10 million. “It’s looking a lot better than it was six months ago,” said Wildenthal (shown in photo by Jeanne Prejean). And while the challenge grant is not an all-or-nothing proposition, he explained, “you hate to leave anything on the table. So, there will be a lot of phone calls going out soon.” A number of people have asked, “Well, should we give for the endowment fund or for the [Dallas Opera's] operating funds?,” Wildenthal added, “and I tell them: Ideally, both!”
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