By Bill Bishop

Philanthropic Divide Continues to Grow

editor — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:38:06 -0700

These were the ten states with the fewest foundation assets in 2005. They are largely rural.

Rural states continue to have low levels of philanthropic support, according to a report just released by the Big Sky Institute in Helena, Montana. And the philanthropic gap between big, urban states and smaller, rural states continues to grow, according to the Big Sky report.

The Montana research group describes a "philanthropic divide" between rural and urban America. Over the last several years, Montana Sen. Mac Baucus has argued that small, rural states have been ignored by the philanthropic community. Baucus in 2006 urged the foundation community to "double foundation grants to rural areas in five years."

The Big Sky report shows that this hasn't happened — that, in fact, the gap between rural and urban states is growing wider. Baucus, meanwhile, as Chair of the Senate Finance Committee has continued to jawbone foundations into increasing their giving in rural states, but hasn't taken any concrete action that would require them to change the way grants are awarded. "To date, Senator Baucus has used the bully pulpit of encouragement," wrote Big Sky executive director Michael D. Schechtman. "He has proposed no policy changes, giving the national foundation community ample room and opportunity to respond to the challenges and opportunities he has put forward."

Grand Ole Opry, Food Stocks and Family Dollar Lead Strong Yonder 40

editor — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:36:57 -0700

The stock price of rural-based firms continued to outpace the other major stock indices. The Yonder 40, 40 stocks chosen to reflect the rural economy, is down 7.4% since July of 2007, only half the decline of the Dow Industrials.

All the stock indices rose last week, as the markets bounced back from heavy losses in June and early July. In the Yonder 40, stocks that had been performing poorly — retail stores and regional banks — have risen in recent weeks. Meanwhile, energy stocks — especially coal miners — that had led the way over the last year lost some of their gains.

The Yonder 40 was led this week by the owner of hotels and Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, Gaylord Entertainment. The Nashville-based firm saw its stock price jump more than 30 percent this week after a very rich Texan, Robert Rowling, bought a 14 percent stake in the company.

Food Shortages Expected to Affect One Billion People

editor — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:49:09 -0700

Drawing by Samuel Malaza
Malawi
Image: World Food Program

The number of people in the world who don't have enough to eat each day is expected to grow over the coming decade. In 70 developing countries most at risk for food shortages, the number of people who live on less than the 2,100 calories per day necessary for an active and healthy life has already jumped, from 849 million people in 2006 to 982 million people in 2007.

The number of "food insecure" people in these 70 countries is expected to increase to 1.2 billion by 2017.

Once a year, the Economic Research Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture does a "food security assessment." The latest report, released just before July 4th, describes a world where a growing number of people will be living hungry, unable to find or pay for the food they need.

The ERS researchers expect worldwide economic growth to slow and food and fuel prices to continue climbing, leading to an "ongoing deterioration in global food security" within these 70 developing countries. Food shortages will be particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa and are expected to grow in Asia, where previous projections had charted improvements in food supply. Those gains, according to the ERS, have been "slowing to a halt."

'It's Time For An Accounting' — A Weekly Newspaper's Story

editor — Tue, 8 Jul 2008 13:45:54 -0700

Neshoba Democrat publisher Stanley Dearman at a memorial for the three civil rights workers murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964.

Photo: The New York Times

Jim Prince was a mid-20s reporter in Alabama in 1989 when he received his mailed edition of his hometown weekly newspaper, the Neshoba Democrat from Philadelphia, Mississippi. This edition was a special one. It contained a long interview with Dr. Carolyn Goodman, the mother of a young civil rights worker who was murdered in Philadelphia just a few months after Jim Prince was born in 1964.

The Democrat's editor, Stanley Dearman, conducted the interview with Dr. Goodman at her apartment in New York city. Prince had heard about the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner from his first memories — how the three had been pulled over by a local law enforcement officer in Philadelphia on June 21, 1964, tossed in the Neshoba County jail, released and never heard from again. He knew that the car the three young men were driving was found a few days later, abandoned and burned, and that in early August of that year the bodies of the three — two white and one black — were eventually dug out of a earthen dam. He knew that seven men were eventually convicted on federal conspiracy charges, but none had served more than six years in prison. And he knew that the state had never prosecuted a soul for the killings.

It was Dearman's interview with Goodman, however, that "put a face on them for me," Prince said of the three slain civil rights workers. "I wasn't much older than Andy at the time I was reading the article. I was moved by the way his mother described him. He was athletic. He loved dramatic arts. He was a peaceful person who cared about people. That was a turning point for me, and I decided I had to be in Philadelphia for the (25th anniversary) memorial service." Prince left his job at the daily paper in Alabama and came home to work that summer for the Democrat.

On June 27, the Neshoba Democrat received an award from the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky. The Tom and Pat Gish Award is given for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism. The Neshoba Democrat, Stanley Dearman and Jim Prince have shown all that and more over the past four decades.

Speak Your Piece: Urban Issues, Yes. Rural....Maybe

editor — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:16:05 -0700

Former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle spoke on behalf of an absent Barack Obama before a meeting of rural organizers, scholars, and activists in Washington last week -- a joint meeting of the Rural Assembly and Stand Up for Rural America. (John McCain was a no-show, too. )
Photo: Shawn Poynter

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama met privately with a group of mayors over the weekend to talk about urban issues and, of course, politics. He emerged from the gathering to address the U.S. Conference of Mayors, where, according to the Los Angeles Times, "he promised, if elected, to use both federal money and muscle to address the urban needs for affordable housing, roads and funding for schools that he said have been neglected by the Bush administration."

Obama huddled with mayors just a few days after more than 300 people met in Washington, D.C., to discuss a "rural agenda" for the first 100 days of the next administration. Sen. Obama could have made it a two-fer last week, addressing rural concerns on Tuesday and urban ones on Saturday. But, the discussion of rural America was put off by both Obama and Republican John McCain. Both sent surrogates to the National Rural Assembly, and both surrogates -- Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas repping McCain, former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota speaking for Obama -- talked only vaguely about rural policies.

Sen. Obama's reluctance to delve into rural issues or visit long in rural places has become the subject of some political discussion recently. (Sen. John McCain this spring toured rural Alabama and the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky.) In The Politico over the weekend, writers Charles Mahtesian and Amie Parnes listed the "five places Obama and Clinton should go." Number 4 on the list was Mingo County in southern West Virginia — a region where Clinton clobbered Obama in the primary. "Appearing with Clinton in the heart of the anti-Obama belt...would be a bold statement about his intention to address the vulnerabilities the primary season exposed in his candidacy."