Here's an interesting piece from today's Austin American Statesman. Turns out that Austinites much prefer giving up their time to volunteer for local charities than to give monetary contributions.
It's a familiar refrain from Austin charities: Austinites are generous with their time, but not so generous with their money.
Austin was ranked third in the nation behind Minneapolis-St. Paul and Salt Lake City in volunteerism, with 38 percent of Austinites volunteering at least 49 hours each year, in a 2007 study by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
But a 2003 study in The Chronicle of Philanthropy - a national newspaper devoted to charity - ranked Austin 48th out of 50 major U.S. cities in per capita donations to charity, based on 1997 tax returns.
But wait- there are actually logical reasons as to why.
Local nonprofit leaders say that trend still holds. They say Austinites don't donate more, in part, because the city has a large population of cash-poor students and middle-class government workers, a younger-than-average population and a large number of newly-rich millionaires who have not hit their prime giving years. For local nonprofit groups, the result is a highly competitive environment in which a large pool of charities - 10 per 1,000 people, the highest ratio in the state - is forced to compete for money, volunteers, employees and name recognition.
So which do you tend to give- time or money? Take the poll below the fold.
Happy Friday the 13th! Looks like it wasn't a lucky one for ethically challenged Republicans. Between the prostitution scandals and the increasingly obvious failure of the Iraq war to accomplish anything Republicans are being hit hard across the states. Remember that all politics is local and support your local state blogs!
I guess this is what happens when you go through an election cycle with over 90% unchallenged Student Government seats. Kudos to Zack Hall, Alex Hunt, and Tony McDonald for trying to get SG to grow a pair...
Student Government voted against a resolution opposing tuition deregulation and called on the Legislature to increase public university funding during its meeting Tuesday night.
"I think this was an opportunity for SG to stand up for students, and they didn't deliver," said government sophomore Zack Hall co-director of SG's Legislative Affairs Agency and co-author of the resolution.
...
"I wholeheartedly encourage the efforts of students to get legislators' attention to the devastating impact of tuition deregulation," wrote Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, in a written statement. Ellis is the sponsor of legislation that would ask the legislature to re-examine tuition deregulation by 2010.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board estimates tuition has increased by 61 percent at state universities overall and 102 percent at UT since tuition deregulation passed in 2003, according to the statement of intent for Ellis' bill.
Now that I've graduated, I'm not going to have to pay any more of that increasing tuition. But that's ok, it's not like SG has wanted to be all that aggressive with the Lege. Good thing they keep there focus on the important things like...
SG also passed resolutions supporting the E-bus, and passed internal rule changes that, among other things, eliminates the requirement that SG give The Daily Texan legislation before it is voted on at the meetings.
Glad to see priorities are being kept in order.
P.S. An anonymous tipster says we can call next year's elections right now for Keshav Rajagopalan as president and Emily Jung as vice president. Isn't it fun how SG has become so predictable. And to think I tried to support reform when I was there...
I saw this in the latest e-issue of the "Kim Connection" which I'm apparently subscribed to.
At the May 3rd Council Meeting, I will be bringing forward a resolution directing the City Manager to start work on a new 3-D model of Austin.
The purpose of this new system is to provide an easy- to-use modeling tool for better planning of our land use for the future.
This will facilitate more effective discussions regarding development standards and specific zoning cases. We will be able to look to the future by compiling the best, most recent data into one 3-D model that everyone can see.
Last year, I made 3D visualization software available to the public at the City's One Stop Shop for development. For more information, please download the presentation (pdf) I made to council that demonstrates the capabilities of this new software.
The presentation is kind of cool to check out. In a city like Austin with a lot of tech savvy users, I can see neighborhood or individuals using such a thing to virtually look out of their backyard at how proposed building plans might change the landscape.
