November 1996 Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina Initiative Continued from page 8 Campus Partnerships organization would make grants to support ser vice-learning in nursing, medical and other health professions schools and would sponsor national training institutes aimed at allowing commu nities to play a greater role in improving the delivery of health care. The strategic planning commit tee has outlined several needs the new nonprofit organization will address, including • The need to prepare health care practitioners as “community- responsive” providers. • The need to make health-care education more responsive and rele vant to community needs. • The need to recognize commu nity contributions to teaching, research and the development of knowledge. • The need to consider communi ty assets as well as needs. The committee was set to meet in October in Chicago to continue ham mering out details of how the cam pus partnerships organization will work and how it will be funded. Irons says the Pew Foundation is a likely source of financial support, although it has lately shifted its funding focus from health education to health-care research. He hopes the new campus part nerships program will have a ripple effect on centers of higher learning. “I’d like to see a genuine break down of the institutional barriers that are virtually universal,” Irons says. “Td like to see us break down the walls of the university system.” The Health Professions initiative is sponsoring a second national con ference April 26-29 in San Fransico. Call Kara Connors, (415) 502-4771, or send email to: kara@itsa.ucsf.edu For information on the ECU’s service learning efforts or the new Campus-Partnerships program, call Irons at (919) 816-2983 or send email to: irons@brody.med.ecu.edu Skepticism Continued from page 1 tribute to charity. Volunteering and giving, for example, “could be measurably increased if volunteering increased among young people 18 to 24 years of age, blacks, Hispanics, persons in households with incomes under $20,000 and single people,” the study found. “People are three to four times more likely to volunteer when they are asked than when they are not,” the study said, yet a much smaller percentage of young people, blacks, Hispanics, poor people and single people are asked to volunteer than are other demographic groups. Key factors that prompt people to contribute to charity, the study said, include being asked to give by a close acquaintance or a member of the clergy, reading or hearing a news story or being asked at work to give. “Having access to payroll deduc tion plans for contributions also measurably increases giving and volunteering,” the survey said. And people who intend to claim a charitable tax deduction gave 2.9 percent of their average household income, compared with 0.7 percent given by those who didn’t intend to claim a deduction. For information on the report on volunteering and giving, call Independent Sector at (202) 223- Fax news about your organization to (919) 832-2369. Preservation Continued from page 1 grants. State law requires the N.C. Historical Commission to review and rank those applications, and to rec ommend which organizations should receive grants. During the past three years, state Cultural Resources Secretary Betty McCain generally did not follow the recommendations of the commission. McCain made her decisions with a lot of input from state lawmakers, says Joanne Williford, assistant to the director of archives and history in the Cultural Resources Department. During the program’s three-year reincarnation, the commission rec ommended grants be awarded to a total of 196 organizations from a total of 1,232 that had applied for funding. But only 80 of the organizations rec ommended by the commission received grant money The remainder of the 185 recipi ents were selected by McCain from other organizations that had applied for funding and had received hi^, medium or low rankings from the commission - but were not recom mended to receive grants. State law does not require the human resources secretary to follow the Historical Commission’s recom mendations, says Bill Price, a Meredith College history professor and former director of the state divi sion of archives and history. Betsy Buford, deputy secretary of human resources, concedes that poli tics plays a big role in determining who gets grants. She says the grants were created through a political pro cess largely to serve political inter ests. “We don’t make any bones about it,” Buford says. “It’s a wonderful pro gram when you think of aU the hun dreds of local projects that were fund ed. “Pork is such an ugly word to a lot of people unless it’s going to their locd project or their local libraries,” she says. “Tm just grateful, as is Secretary McCain, to the legislators for helping us with this.” Preservationists say the grants program serves a useful purpose and should be revived. But they don’t want politics to determine who gets funding. “I’d like to see the program devel op a more substantive and less politi cal base, so that it gets funded in elec tion years as well as non-election years,” says Myrick Howard, execu tive director of Historic Preservation of North Carolina, a statewide non profit organization dedicated to sav ing state historic sites. In each of the past three years, the commission recommended that Howard’s organization receive state grant money, mainly for its revolving fund, hut the funding was not approved by McCain’s office. Howard says his organization was ignored because it is a statewide organization and funding would not have produced tangible political ben efits for lawmakers, who are elected to represent local districts. “One of the problems we have as a statewide organization is that we are not in anyone’s district,” he says. “Regardless of the equities and eval uations, we are not going to rank well in a purely political distribution.” Price, the former director of the state archives and history division, says Preservation North Carolina is “clearly something that ought to have been funded. And that’s a pretty clear example of where the Historical Commission’s observations should have been heeded and were not. “When you sit down and have a conversation with a particular politi cian about Preservation North Carolina, they would honestly say ‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s deserving [of grant money],’ hut when the shake- and-bake time came to decide if you were going to back money for Preservation North Carolina or the local agricultural museum in your county, there wasn’t any real con test.” Despite the politicized distribu tion process, Howard says the pro gram served a valuable purpose. “I’m very glad there is money available, and I think the program is overwhelmingly good,” he says. “I would like to see it institutionalized on a merit basis.” But the likelihood of that. Price says, is not hi^, although he sees a general Interest in evening out the process. In the grand scheme of things. Price says, $3 million is not much money, so revamping the grants pro gram is not a hi^ legislative priority. “I really think there’s an interest in making this more fair and equi table ... but again, it’s not that big a ticket item. In the rush of dealing with the things [legislators] deal with, it just doesn’t get that much attention. \ouTenLcl To Lxx>k AtTTie^^krld DiJQferently Wken\oxir Invesiments Are Serving AHi^er FWpose. That’s why we established the Foundation and Endowment Management group at BB&T. To furnish nonprofit organizations with an investment team dedicated solely to understanding and meeting their goals. We appreciate the dynamics of this extraordinary sector. And the need to work closely with our clients to devise strategies that balance the requirement for sufficient operating income with the vital, real-world aim of generating funds for future growth. It’s an approach that has served us well. Since 1907 BB&T has been entrusted with the funds of institutions, foundations, and charities of all types and sizes. To learn how we can bring our view of investment management to your organiza tion, call 1-800-866-2288. BB&r Ymcantedm wantyourbusimss.