Group items tagged

"The mission of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) is to help donors create thoughtful, effective philanthropy throughout the world. The organization, a 501-(c)-(3) nonprofit, was developed by the Rockefeller family as its private philanthropy service, and traces its antecedents to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., who in 1891 began to professionally manage his philanthropy as if it were a business." RPA provides research and counsel on charitable giving, develops philanthropic programs, and offers complete program, administrative and management services for foundations and trusts. It also operates a charitable gift fund through which clients can make gifts outside the United States, participate in funding consortia, and operate nonprofit initiatives. The organization is governed by a 17-member board of directors representing the fields of philanthropy, finance, venture capital, education, the arts, broadcasting and medicine (list available upon request, or via BPA currently serves more than 160 donors in advising on giving to more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and North America. As a whole, the organization has facilitated over $3 billion in grant making and advised last year on nearly $180 million. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is one of the world's largest philanthropy services, with 40 full-time staff in our New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. We also work with a group of carefully-selected expert affiliates. Our senior staff members offer an average of 20 years each in grant making experience with major foundations, both U.S. and international, including the Ford Foundation, the Levi-Strauss Foundation, the SmithKline Beecham Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the New York Community Trust, the Wallace Fund and the John A. Hartford Foundation. Senior staffers are frequent speakers and are quoted often in national publications and media."

"Blackboard To Take Learn Platform Mobile By David Nagel 03/22/10 Blackboard Mobile Learn on BlackBerry. It will also support iPhone and Android. Blackboard is preparing to release Blackboard Mobile Learn, a new version of the company's flagship learning management system tailored for smart phones and other mobile devices. It will debut as a native application for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and "other Web-enabled devices" in the late spring. Mobile Learn, according to Blackboard, will move beyond the company's current mobile offerings and will mimic the full functionality of the Web-based Learn platform, including two-way communication between students and teachers, access to gradebooks, blog access and commenting, discussion board participation, and student-to-student e-mail communications. According to Blackboard, Mobile Learn will be available in the United States in June for Android, iPhone, iPod, and BlackBerry. (There is no word yet from Blackboard on when or whether there will be a version with enhanced native support for Apple's iPad; however, native iPhone applications are supported on the iPad.) Blackboard said that the initial offering will be for higher education institutions and professional schools using Blackboard Learn 8.0 or later. The company said Mobile Learn will also be available for K-12 institutions down the road and that it will eventually support institutions that are using Angel and WebCT systems, as well as those that are on versions of Blackboard's software prior to 8.0. Mobile Learn will be available via an annual license and will allow schools to apply their branding to the interface. A Blackboard Building Block to enable Mobile Learn is available as of today on Blackboard's support site. In related news, Blackboard also announced today that it's partnering with Sprint to provide Mobile Learn at "no additional cost to institutions" for users of some Sprint devices.

"Saving the Google students For the Google generation, closing school libraries could be disastrous. Not teaching kids how to sift through sources is like sending them into the world without knowing how to read."