#ProAging: GAP Index Highlights Global Challenges Of Care For Aging
The fact of the aging of the global population is something our readers are likely at least acquainted with. The phenomenon has arisen as life expectancy has lengthened even in developing countries and populations in developed countries often are not having enough children even to replace themselves. The result is that most national populations whose citizens or subjects are over 60 are quickly moving toward 30%. To put that number in historical perspective, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) posits that, before the Twentieth Century, the percentage of inhabitants over 60 was 5-8%.
The CSIS released a sobering report earlier this year that measured the ‘Global Aging Preparedness’ (GAP) Index. The report stresses the demographic facts of the so-called ‘Silver Tsunami’ (a tide that can not now be turned, even if we all started having larger families) and the current economic situations of a number of countries both rich and poor, both developed and developing. So how did the US do?
Popularity: 30% | Category Aging, Banking & Finance, Boomers, Civics, Community, GI Generation, Health, Healthcare, Healthcare, National/International, Nonprofit, Politics, Publications, Report, Resource, Seniors Life | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Fundraising: How To Apply For A Grant From Intel
This week in our ongoing periodic series on grant providers and how to apply for their support, we look at the tech company that helps build Microsoft and Apple computers: Intel. The corporation is best known for its processors and motherboards and for its 5-note jingle - but its stand on corporate social responsibility is truly impressive. A post on the company’s CSR blog site by Perry Gruber back in 2008 nicely shows the synergies Intel envisions between corporate wealth and nonprofits and charities that do work that also helps those corporations who support them. A (Flash) video about Intel’s more recent philanthropic outreach can be viewed here.
Popularity: 4% | Category Banking & Finance, Blogs, Civics, Communications, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Technology for Education | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#ProAging: AARP Busts Some Social Security Myths
As we enter ‘crazy time’ in the electoral calendar (a calendar that now runs from the Friday after the last election to the day of the next one), we will hear ever more about the desperate need to balance the federal budget and pay down the national debt. Few will strongly argue against these budget-balancing ambitions. The arguments are over just how to do that.
Social Security payouts make up some 20% of the federal budget, tied with national defense and one percentage point behind Medicare/Medicaid. Yet Social Security is usually singled out as one of the three federal line items that must be trimmed (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and … um … oops.). The American Association of Retired Persons challenges five of the most commonly-stated myths about the state of Social Security, even in the midst of the economic malaise we continue to struggle with.
Myth Number One? Not surprisingly: Social Security is going bankrupt. According to AARP, that scary claim is untrue no matter how you divvy up the dollars. “Even in the unlikely event that nothing changes and the program’s entire surplus runs out in 2036, as projected, checks would keep coming. Payroll taxes at current rates would cover 77 percent of all the future benefits promised. That’s true for young and old alike, and includes inflation adjustments.”
Read the other four myths and the facts that refute them at AARP’s site. Then you can make an informed decision about how to vote in 2012, and how to plan for your retirement after that.
Popularity: 5% | Category Aging, Banking & Finance, Boomers, Civics, Community, eNewsletter, Healthcare, Independent Living, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Politics, Resource, Retirement Living, Seniors Life | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#ProAging: Social Security Recipients Enjoy COLA For First Time In Two Years
Social Security has built into its law and budgets a ‘Cost of Living Adjustment‘ (COLA) tied to inflation and/or rising prices. Those prices have, if anything, fallen during The Great Recession, so recipients have not seen a COLA since 2009. But the Social Security Administration published its formula this week to account for a 3.6% increase for most people who receive their checks, beginning in January 2012.
The adjustment can not come soon enough for many seniors. As reported in The Associated Press, though inflation did not move over the last two or three years, incomes that retirees depended upon to supplement their Social Security benefits collapsed over those same years. What does the equation come out to for seniors?
Popularity: 5% | Category Aging, Banking & Finance, Boomers, Civics, Community, Healthcare, Healthcare, Independent Living, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Report, Retirement Living, Seniors Life | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#SocialMedia: Going To An #OWS Rally? Grab Your Android Phone!
Social networking has been the pivotal influence that has allowed the Occupy Wall Street movement (search #OWS on Twitter) to gain momentum and go global. Social-media platforms helped the first organizers get the word out, and these platforms have allowed millions around the world both to watch developments in New York City and to organize their own protests in their own cities in support of the founding occupation.
In the month since the movement began, we have seen a single, lonely, Twitter hashtag become the spark of worldwide protest, and we have endured media indifference that has become a media circus. We have also seen numerous arrests and efforts to drive away protestors – some of them posted on videos showing police using pepper spray.
Social media, protestors’ ambitions, and police intervention have all been drawn together in a new app for Android phones: ‘I’m Being Arrested.’
Popularity: 2% | Category Banking & Finance, Civics, Communications, Community, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Politics, Reviews, Social Media, Software Review, Technology | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#SocialMedia: Turns Out, Twitter Can Start Revolutions Mr. Gladwell
What a difference a year can make – not always for the better, mind you. But in today’s post we see grounds for optimism when it comes to the development of social networks and of social movements through those networks as they force political and economic change.
Last fall we wrote about the incisive and incendiary thesis of Malcom Gladwell, who wrote in The New Yorker magazine that social media gives us an inflated sense of social and political engagement when, in fact, little changes. His argument was that though social networks are critical for social change those networks must be personal, not virtual, and the ‘friends’ must be willing to put themselves in a high-risk situation – something that a retweet does not require. He contrasted the revolutions of Moldova and Iran in 2009 (and largely unsuccessful) with the civil-rights movement that began at a Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, NC in 1960.
But what about now that dictators have fallen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and perhaps Syria – and the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement has gone global this past weekend?
Popularity: 2% | Category Banking & Finance, Blogs, Civics, Communications, Community, Facebook, Facebook, Geo-Location, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Politics, Social Media, Tweets, Twitter | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Philanthropy: President’s Jobs Bill & Tax Proposal Not Warmly Welcomed By Charities
As arguments over what to do with and about the US economy and the federal deficit continue to shed more heat than light, President Obama sought to take the fight back to the Republicans with the ‘American Jobs Act’ announced last week. The act contains a mix of tax realignments likely to gain some Republican votes and stimulus spending pretty much guaranteed to lose those same votes.
Perhaps the most talked-about realignment pertains to the ‘Buffett Rule‘, a popularly-coined term reflecting Warren Buffett’s dismay at paying less income tax than does his secretary. It would rearrange the tax code to shrink loopholes for wealthy individuals and corporations, while rearranging the tax base for those with low-paying jobs.
One loophole the president wants to reduce concerns the deductions of taxes made by the wealthy to charitable organizations – a reduction many charities and nonprofits do not want to see.
Popularity: 3% | Category Banking & Finance, Communications, Community, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Low-Income, Major Gifts, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Tech: Near-Field Communication (NFC) Could Turn Smartphones Into Donation Engines
Near-Field Technology (NFC) allows short-range communications between an NFC antenna or engineered SIM card and a receiver. The communication is good only up to a couple of feet, which might help make it a secure connection because eavesdroppers need to be next to the users. It is a technology that first appeared in Taiwan in 2007, and is expected to have a major impact in the US by the middle of next year.
From a hardware point of view, the user needs a smartphone with the necessary antenna or SIM card. For most of us, that would mean a phone upgrade, though a few NFC-ready phones are already on the market (click here for a running list of available phones). With the NFC-ready phone, a user could connect his or her bank through the phone to make purchases with a swipe of that phone. And there is where the debate has started.
Popularity: 3% | Category Advertising, Banking & Finance, Civics, Communications, Geo-Location, Hardware Review, iDevice, Marketing, Public Relations, Reviews, Software Review, Technology, Tools | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Philanthropy: Could Text Messages Circumvent Apple’s Restrictions On Donation Apps?
Apple Inc. has been unwilling to allow fundraising/donation-soliciting software for the iPhone to be developed and sold through The App Store because Apple’s contract expects a cut of the profit and expects some control of the money flow. Apple claims (not without cause) that its iTunes/iPhone success is built on consistent user experience and unified expectations among developers and consumers. Thus, to adjust those dynamics after-the-fact for the sake of charities and their expectations will prove detrimental to everyone.
Workarounds exist, like sending mobile users to websites via Safari where they can donate directly to their charities, though some complain of the relatively cumbersome process that will ward off potential givers.
In the UK (for now), the development of ‘Reverse-Billing SMS’ (Simple Messaging System – text messages) might be another, convenient and quick, way to use the iPhone to give to the charity of choice.
Popularity: 3% | Category Apple, Banking & Finance, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Crowdfunding, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, iDevice, iPhone Apps, Marketing, Nonprofit, Technology | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Economy: The Loss Of A Functional Middle Class
The oft-discussed possibility of a double-dip recession still looms darkly on the near horizon. Sure, the Stock Market is more often up than down, but those numbers represent only about 40% of the economy. Unfortunately, some 1% of the people in the economy control and profit from the 40% takings from that particular casino.
For the rest of the economy, and the people who built it, the shocks of ‘The Great Recession’ are still coming. And the working middle class are feeling it the worst.
Popularity: 4% | Category Banking & Finance, Civics, Communications, Community, Low-Income, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Opinion, Politics, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
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