Charities Hit by Madoff: They Need Us Now

Published December 24, 2008 @ 02:03PM PT

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:

NY Times: Wall St. Fraud Leaves Charities Reeling

Boston Globe: Major Foundation Falls to Madoff Fraud

Huffington Post: The Ripple Effects of the Madoff Scandal -- and What We Can do to Help

Wall Street Journal: After Madoff, Donors Grow Wary of Giving

Detroit News: Madoff case spells foundations' end

Washington Post: Keep on giving: times are even tighter for others

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Comments (1)

Hi Nathaniel,
My name's Matt Stempeck and I'm the one that put They Need Us Now.org up. I attributed the site to my name at the bottom of every page, but left it at that because I really didn't want to be the focus of the website. After hearing that people want to know who's behind it, I'm planning on putting up an "About" page, but as you mentioned, every link goes directly to the individual non-profits. All I'm doing is trying to raise awareness and funds for these struggling groups with the best site I could throw together in a couple of days.
Thanks very much for the link and post, and Happy New Year.
Matt

Posted by matt s on 12/29/2008 @ 09:52PM PT
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Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.