Masquerading Nonprofits
I’ve never been a fan of Halloween, but I might have insider information on the hot costume for 2020. Since top costumes tend to mirror what is happening in society, your first thought might be a coronavirus costume. That might turn out to be true, but my idea of a hot costume is the nonprofit sector masquerading as itself.
As you well know, there are two parts to our sector: the public charities and the philanthropists. But neither of these parts is always as it seems, Read more
Plausible Pandemic Ponderings
I can remember precisely the two times in my life when I have turned to my doctor and asked, “If I were your wife or you mother or your daughter, what would you tell me to do?” Given this ongoing worldwide health crisis, we could all use some special insight.
Fortunately, The New York Times did this for all of us, asking 511 epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists what they would do regarding the coronavirus and real life situations based on what they know and Read more
Promoting Us Non-Essentials
After every crisis of the last 20 years, many organized funders shift their priorities to meet the immediate needs stemming from that crisis. Following the logic, the nature of a crisis is that it creates urgent needs, quite often outside of, or intensifying, the ongoing needs of society. So, it is understandable that more money would flow in those directions.
Philanthropic dollars are quite often a zero sum pie, this means that money is flowing away from those things the sector provides that are deemed less Read more
Lucky Nonprofits
While many are chattering about Fidelity Charitable (which collected—don’t call it raised—philanthropic dollars totaling $4.6 billion last year) firmly bumping United Way (which only collected $3.7 billion) from the top of The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s newly released “Philanthropy 400” list, I’m having very different thoughts—though they are pretty much the same thoughts I have every year when I look at this list.
First, is there any real value in this list? Does it actually do some harm? To the extent that the American public learns about Read more
The 2% Solution
Year after year, charitable giving makes up only 2% of America’s GDP. I don’t care what the actual number of dollars is because it still always amount to the same small percentage.
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I was intrigued when I caught a headline suggesting there were three ways to increase this 2%. Sadly, though the author of the article says these three things could move the needle on the GDP, they certainly didn’t move me: legacy giving (the new term for planned giving), donor Read more
