Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 1, No. 4 | Helping Nonprofits to Help Us (low bandwidth)

Four Way Books
Founded in 1993, with first books out in 1995, Four Way Books is the New York publishing arm of a Vermont nonprofit called Friends of Writers, Inc. The two organizations' shared mission is to encourage, support and publish writers at every stage in their careers. Four Ways Books was started by four writers, hence its name, to help overcome the dearth of publishing opportunities for authors of poetry and short fiction. The literary press is directed by Martha Rhodes, one of the founding editors and a widely published poet (her latest collection, Perfect Disappearance, won the Green Rose Prize in 2000). She is also a a member of the writing faculty at several colleges including The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and New School University. The nonprofit press has 32 books in print and annually publishes a half-dozen new ones (www.fourwaybooks.com). All this and more-including Readings on the Bowery, a reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club, and a national poetry competition-is done on a shoestring budget of under $100,000 a year.

Futures and Options, Inc.
Futures and Options enables public high school students to make a successful transition to work, careers and higher education by providing them with supervised, paid internships, mostly in downtown Manhattan companies and nonprofit organizations. For the employers, which range from Merrill Lynch to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the internship program provides a stream of candidates for entry-level positions. Barbara L. Christen started the program and continues to serve as its executive director, assisted by a small staff and working with a budget of about $300,000. During her tenure, the program has made more than 1,300 placements of interns, all of whom are trained and monitored. The program, established in 1995 by the Alliance for Downtown New York, had recently begun to expand-in part, by opening a field office at 1 World Trade Center.

Safe Horizon
In 1978, the Vera Institute of Justice established an independent, nonprofit organization called Victim Services to work with the New York State Crime Victims Board in providing compensation and crisis counseling to crime victims. The organization was renamed Safe Horizon in 2000 reflecting its expanded mission: to support and advocate for victims of crime and abuse, their families and communities, as well as working on violence prevention. While best known for its 24-hour hotlines that provide crisis support and referrals, Safe Horizon operates 75 programs, including training schoolchildren and teachers in conflict resolution; guiding victims through the criminal court system; providing long-term counseling to families of homicide victims, refugees and victims of torture; sheltering victims of domestic violence; advocating for abused children and even installing new door locks after a burglary or robbery. With an annual budget of $35 million, 800 employees and 250,000 New Yorkers served each year, Safe Horizon is the nation's nonprofit leader in this field. Gordon J. Campbell is the agency's chief executive officer.

The Robin Hood Foundation
Established in 1998, Robin Hood raises money from the rich and distributes it to anti-poverty programs in Sherwood Forest, a.k.a. New York City. Unlike traditional philanthropies, which make grants to a great many capable organizations with promising proposals, Robin Hood is a pioneer of the newer "venture philanthropies" that work more intensely with relatively fewer grantees, leveraging cash grants with technical, legal, accounting and management support. Benefits and appeals to wealthy donors support the grantmaking, while members of the board of directors personally underwrite the foundation's operating expenses. In addition to cash grants, the foundation supports grantees by soliciting tens of millions of dollars worth of donated goods and services each year for them. David Saltzman is the foundation's executive director, overseeing a staff of 39 and an annual operating budget of $8 million, and an annual grantmaking budget of $28 million.