Stories indexed with the term ‘nonprofit’

Alex Perlman and Molly Dobson represent the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation's 45-year span. Dobson was a trustee from 1969-1971. Perlman, a Huron High senior, has been a youth council representative on the AAACF board.

“This has been a challenging year – you’ll hear that word a lot,” Debbie Beuche told about 300 people who attended Tuesday evening’s annual meeting of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. Beuche, the nonprofit’s board chair, said AAACF gave out $2.2 million in grants and scholarships in 2008 – a year in which their annualized investment return was -31%.

The meeting highlighted AAACF’s accomplishments during 2008, and recognized volunteers who were stepping down from their work with the organization. The event also included a presentation on a project funded by the foundation called The B-Side: The Business Side of Youth, a program to encourage entrepreneurship for youth.

But first, the finances. [Full Story]

UPDATE to our previous article: Just after 4 p.m. we received a call from Mike Klein of Online Technologies Corp., who said that OTC is offering a free month of website and email service to anyone affected by the IAS situation. They also are offering free co-location of servers for a month, if necessary. OTC, with offices at Avis Farms, has received dozens of calls from people seeking help, Klein said: “They can’t afford downtime.” To contact OTC, call 734-213-2020 and press 2 for sales.

The IAS sign is among the detritus set outside following the firm's eviction this week.

Websites for several local institutions – including the AATA and Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation – were disabled Monday in the wake of business problems suffered by IAS, a local Internet company that’s been evicted from its office in the Lowertown area.

The NEW Center, a group that provides support services to local nonprofits, received calls from several people on Tuesday who were searching for alternatives to get their websites up again, said Linh Song, a NEW Center technology manager. Song is director of NEW’s npServ program, which helps nonprofits manage their information technology services.

The timing of this outage – which in some cases affected email service as well – was especially difficult for nonprofits, given that it has occurred during the height of the giving season, when groups typically see their largest year-end donations and await word on grant applications. You want to be as responsive as possible – you don’t want to worry about whether your email works, Song said. [Full Story]