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The Billionaire Boys Club

In her book last year, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”, Diane Ravitch dismissively described the wealthy philanthropists who are bankrolling various efforts to improve the otherwise taxpayer funded school system as the “billionaire boys club”. She argues that the likes of Bill Gates, the Walton family (heirs of the founder […]

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Cleaning Up News Corp

How should philanthropy respond to the ‘Hackgate‘ scandal that is gripping Britain at the moment and, perhaps, spreading across the Atlantic? Supporting journalistic ethics (in the face of the continued business model crisis of the print media) is meat and drink for many foundations. The Knight Foundation, for example, invests considerable resources in community media and training […]

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All A-Twitter

“This week Ashton Kutcher (aka @aplusk) broke the one million mark in Twitter followers and introduced Oprah (@oprah) to the phenomenon. He’s also using his fame and Twitterlebrity to raise awareness of malaria and ask fans to support Malaria No More in sending insecticide-treated mosquito nets to African countries where they are needed most.” So […]