177 articles
Lifespring
Lifespring, Inc. was a large group awareness training company founded by John Hanley Sr. in San Francisco, incorporated 1974; its five-day basic trainings drew thousands and dozens of lawsuits before the mid-1990s shutdown.
Lions Clubs International
Lions Clubs International (LCI), founded 1917 by Melvin Jones in Chicago, is a service club organization with 1.4 million Lions in 50,000 clubs across 200 countries, known for vision service, LCIF grants, and the MISSION 1.5 growth goal.
Lisa
Lisa: feminine given name, short form of Elisabeth/Elizabeth (also from Alice or Louisa); US top girls' name 1962–1969, peak 60,271 births in 1965, now 987th (2025); Nordic name days and registers.
List of charitable foundations
Charitable foundations: endowed nonprofit grantmakers, from ancient waqf trusts to modern institutions like the Gates, Rockefeller, and Mastercard foundations; covers US private foundation versus public charity classification, the 5% payout rule, and development funding.
List of environmental organizations
List of environmental organizations: nonprofit, nongovernmental groups protecting nature, from the Sierra Club (1892) and The Nature Conservancy to Greenpeace, WWF, and Climate Action Network, with founding dates, activities, funding, and oversight.
List of Freemasons (A–D)
List of Freemasons (A–D): the A-to-D portion of notable Freemason rosters. Documented members include Johnson Beharry, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Christopher Wren; Davy Crockett's membership is disputed for lack of lodge records.
List of Freemasons (E–Z)
List of Freemasons (E–Z): alphabetical roster of surnames E through Z documenting verified members of Freemasonry, including Truman, Edward VII, Goethe, Mozart, Kipling, and Fleming, with lodge affiliations and proof standards.
List of mottos
Mottos: short phrases stating the beliefs or ideals of a person, group, or institution. Covers motto versus slogan and tagline, etymology from Latin muttum, and lists of national, U.S. state, university, and organizational mottoes.
List of Padma Vibhushan award recipients
Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award for exceptional and distinguished service, instituted 1954; lists recent recipients including 2025's seven and 2026's five awardees.
List of Phi Mu members
List of Phi Mu members: founders Mary Ann DuPont Lines, Mary Elizabeth Myrick Daniel, and Martha Bibb Hardaway Redding, plus notable alumnae such as Jerrie Mock, Jackie Ronne, and Mary Ellen Weber of the 1852 sorority.
List of Scroll and Key members
Scroll and Key, Yale's second-oldest senior secret society (founded 1841), with documented members including Cole Porter, Harvey Cushing, Maynard Mack, A. Bartlett Giamatti, and honorary member Mark Twain.
List of Sigma Pi Phi members
Sigma Pi Phi (the Boulé), founded 1904 in Philadelphia, is the oldest Black Greek-letter graduate fraternity; members called Archons include Du Bois, Bunche, King Jr., Mays, Sullivan, and Graves.
List of Skull and Bones members
List of Skull and Bones members: rosters of the Yale senior society founded 1832 (the Eulogian Club, or The Order). Fifteen tapped juniors per year; names published until 1971; Sutton catalog 1833-1985; members include Taft and the two Bushes.
List of social sororities and women's fraternities
The list of social sororities and women's fraternities catalogs women's-only Greek-letter organizations, from Alpha Delta Pi in 1851 to the 26 sororities of the National Panhellenic Conference.
Loyal Order of Moose
Loyal Order of Moose, fraternal order founded 1888 in Louisville, Kentucky by Dr. John Henry Wilson; revived by James J. Davis, runs Mooseheart school and Moosehaven retirement home, over 1,000,000 members.
Make-A-Wish Foundation
Make-A-Wish Foundation, founded 1980 in Phoenix after Chris Greicius' police-officer wish, is a nonprofit granting wishes to children with critical illnesses; over 650,000 wishes granted in nearly 50 countries, distinct from other wish charities.
Manufacturing Consent
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (Pantheon, 1988), argues US media serve elite interests via five structural filters: ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak, anticommunism.
March of Dimes
March of Dimes, originally the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis founded by FDR on January 3, 1938, is a US nonprofit that funded the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines and now fights preterm birth and maternal mortality.
Masonic bodies
Masonic bodies: the craft lodges, Grand Lodges (e.g. United Grand Lodge of England), and appendant and concordant bodies such as the Scottish Rite, York Rite, and Shriners that Master Masons may join beyond the three craft degrees.
Masonic lodge
Masonic lodge: the basic local unit of Freemasonry, chartered by a sovereign Grand Lodge, holding meetings and conferring the three Craft degrees. First Grand Lodge formed in London in 1717; recognition, Prince Hall, and research lodges distinguish the system.
Mass media
Mass media: institutional and technological forms (print, broadcast, film, digital) distributing messages to large dispersed audiences. Known for gatekeeping, agenda-setting effects, and a 2020s shift toward social media, video networks, and AI chatbots as news sources.
Mink'a
Mink'a, also written minka and regionally called minga, is a Quechua term for communal reciprocal work, such as harvesting or building homes, still practiced across the Andes.
Musk Foundation
Musk Foundation: Elon Musk's private philanthropic foundation (founded 2002, Austin, Texas), funding renewable energy, space exploration, pediatric research, STEM education, and safe AI; record $474 million granted in 2024, mostly to Musk-affiliated entities, with repeated shortfalls against the 5% payout rule.
Myra Kraft
Myra Hiatt Kraft (1942-2011), American philanthropist, wife of Patriots owner Robert Kraft; first woman chair of Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, president of the Patriots Charitable Foundation, namesake of the Myra Kraft Community MVP Award.
National Bravery Award
National Bravery Award: annual Indian award for children, started 1957 by the Indian Council for Child Welfare, with Bharat, Geeta and Sanjay Chopra, and Bapu Gaidhani categories, presented by the Prime Minister before Republic Day; later replaced by the PMRBP.
Neighborhood Associations
Neighborhood associations of Japan, called chōnaikai and burakukai, were local units created nationwide in 1940 to run rationing, savings mobilization, civil defense, and war cooperation, and dissolved in 1947.
Neo Black Movement of Africa
Neo Black Movement of Africa (NBM), also identified by governments as the Black Axe confraternity, founded 1977 at University of Benin, Nigeria; registered 1994; denies criminal links.
Neo-Templarism
Neo-Templarism: modern movements claiming inspiration from or descent from the medieval Knights Templar, suppressed in 1312. Begins with Fabré-Palaprat's 1804 Order of the Temple and the forged Larmenius Charter; spans Masonic Templar degrees, OSMTH, and the Order of the Solar Temple.
Nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization, also known as a not-for-profit, is an organization whose surplus earnings cannot be distributed to owners or members; examples range from charities to universities.
Odd Fellows
The Odd Fellows are fraternal orders and friendly societies originating in 18th-century England among workers of assorted trades, named 'odd' for lacking guild membership. Main bodies: the IOOF (Baltimore, 1819, founded by Thomas Wildey) and Manchester Unity (1810), motto Friendship, Love and Truth.