• Executive Vice President
• Program Director, Arts & Culture Program
• Program Assistant, Health Program

We are proud to announce that the documentary film Budrus, the second film of our grantee Just Vision. This inspiring film features the story of a community organizer, Ayed Morrar, and his 15-year-old daughter Iltezam who unite local Fatah and Hamas members, a strong women's contingent, and Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save their village of Budrus from destruction by Israel's Separation Barrier. This important documentary chronicles the growing, yet little known movement of people who choose a nonviolent approach to the Middle East conflict.

The film has earned significant recognition at the Berlin Film Festival and the Human Rights Film Festival in London, has been screened to sold out audiences at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Responsible investors have stepped up efforts to have companies increase their disclosure of political contributions and payments to trade associations in the wake of the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court. The Nathan Cummings Foundation is the lead-filer of a shareholder resolution calling for increased transparency at Valero Energy Corporation, one of several investor efforts examined in this piece from MarketWatch.

In a recent piece in the New York Times, Lance E. Lindblom, the Nathan Cummings Foundation's President & CEO, and Laura Shaffer, the Foundation's director of shareholder activities, argue that huge paychecks for top corporate executives are out of line with reality, especially at Goldman Sachs, where shareholders will soon have a chance to vote on an NCF-led resolution on compensation levels and pay disparity.

With the passage of national health reform, funders and advocates (including
current and former NCF grantees) are shifting their strategies to focus on
implementation of the new law:

Supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and based on the Foundation's research, Visioning Justice and the American Jewish Community, the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable is in full swing. Bringing together the top leadership of 18 organizations, the Roundtable is cultivating greater collaboration and partnership as it builds a robust Jewish social movement.

J Street holds unprecedented conference - just part of what is putting this pro-Israel pro-peace organization on the map.

Check out conference sessions here.

We are proud to announce the re-launch of Joshua Venture, a program that - through training, funding, technical assistance, exposure, and access to networks in the Jewish world - will invest in and cultivate the next cohort of Jewish changemakers.

The New Israel Fund responds to egregious attacks on Israeli civil society.

Smithfield Foods, the recipient of several NCF-led proposals asking for improvements to its sustainability reporting, recently appointed its first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer. The appointment follows numerous sustainability related improvements undertaken by Smithfield following the submission of NCF's first sustainability reporting proposal to the company in 2003, including the completion of facility level reports illustrating the company's sustainability impacts from "farm to fork".

By Brian Dumaine, assistant managing editorJanuary 28, 2010: 9:47 AM ET

(Fortune Magazine) -- Quick: which nation builds the most wind turbines? If you guessed America, with its blustery Great Plains dotted with whirring GE blades, you'd be wrong. In 2009, China became the planet's largest producer.

What's going on here? While America was digging itself out of its financial crisis, China quietly positioned itself to become a leader in what promises to be the largest emerging industry of the 21st century: green tech.

Leading investors hailed the SEC's landmark decision to issue interpretive guidance clarifying what public companies should disclose to investors regarding climate risks and opportunities. The Nathan Cummings Foundation and numerous other investors have been requesting such guidance for a number of years in light of the issue's potentially significant implications for their investments.

A story about the NCF-funded Global Warming Litigation Project has received front-page coverage in The New York Times. The project's director, Matt Pawa, has been clear that these suits could never have been brought without the early and sustained support they've received from the Foundation.

Enjoy the story!

A whistleblower represented by the Government Accountability Project was named the 2009 Public Employee of the Year by The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency) for disclosures she made in an effort to ensure that post-Katrina reconstruction in the Gulf Coast was performed properly. Maria Garzino is a civil engineer with the US Army Corp. of Engineers. With GAP's help and support she blew the whistle on the Corps., demonstrating that its failure to oversee work done by private contractors created serious questions about the reliability of New Orleans's rebuilt pumping system, which prevents flooding. In particular, one contractor was allowed to install defective, largely untested hydraulic pumps in New Orleans canals and all efforts to raise concerns about the work were blocked by the contractor and the Corps. OSC vindicated Ms. Garzino's claims, which she made at great personal and professional risk.
For more details, see attached press release . . .