Our 7 Billion Neightbors

A few months ago, our human population on Earth crossed 7,000,000,000.  This is really quite amazing.  Certainly, it's a tribute to the work of countless scientists, doctors, farmers, families, workers, and businesses to reach this milestone.  That is a lot of people to feed, shelter, heal, and nurture.

National Geographic, who we admire as one of the leading non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world, has been doing a series on the 7 Billion over the last year in their magazines, websites, institutes, and television programs.

This video provides some thought provoking questions about what it means to be living now and how our world may be changing in the near future.

Enjoy!

We're Official! 501(c)(3) Status Approved!

Last month, we were given some very positive news by the US Internal Revenue Service.  After more than a year in the review process, our application for status as a tax-exempt public charity was approved!

Open Endowment NFP on the IRS Exempt Organizations List

Of course, we have been operating as an Illinois Not-For-Profit Corporation since we launched our service in November of 2010.  Fortunately, IRS rules allow contributions that have been made to a non-profit to be tax-deductible to donors retroactively (for a defined period) as long as that organization is deemed to be operating for the public good by the IRS at a later date.

We are VERY pleased to have obtained official recognition as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization from the IRS.  It is an important step in building our service and building our community of philanthropists.

Also, we would like to extend a VERY warm THANK YOU to our partners at Mayer Brown.  Our excellent team of attorneys has done a fantastic job as addressing all the questions and concerns, both from our own team  and the IRS.  Thank you so much!

And thanks to YOU for supporting us, and participating in the community here at Open Endowment.  This is an  important step in making it possible for small philanthropy to make a big impact.