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Foundation Center

Search the Foundation Directory Online Professional (IN LIBRARY USE ONLY). This fully searchable database includes detailed profiles of all active U.S. foundations, as well as an extensive file of recent grants awarded by the nation’s top funders.

The Rochester Public Library is a Cooperating Collection of the Foundation Center (http://fdncenter.org). As a member of this nationwide network of libraries, community foundations, and other nonprofit agencies, the Rochester Public Library provides patrons with free public access to grantmaker directories, books on fundraising and nonprofit management.

Last updated: 08/31/2010

 

 

Author of the Month:
Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit was born in California in 1961. The essayist and historian worked as a museum researcher and editor and since 1988 has been a freelance writer. She is a columnist for the magazine 'Orion' and publishes regularly in the environmental magazine 'Sierra' as well as in art journals, museum catalogues and the website 'tomdispatch.com'. The author, who is active in ecological and human rights issues, lives in San Francisco.

'Wanderlust' (2000), Solnit’s most well-known book to date, is a cultural history of walking concerned with walking as a cultural activity. In 'Hollow City' (2001) she documents how the wealth San Francisco inherited from the computer industry has led to a loss of urban diversity. In a 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost' (2005), the author gathers together autobiographical essays which reflect on moments of uncertainty, doubt, loss, remembrance and desire.

In her most recent book, 'A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster', Solnit surveys disasters from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and shows that the typical response to calamity is spontaneous altruism, self-organization, and mutual aid, with neighbors and strangers calmly rescuing, feeding, and housing each other.

See Rebecca Solnit materials in the library's collection