Time to Put Up and Spend Down
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The coronavirus pandemic has made us realize – very suddenly – how utterly ill-prepared we are as a nation to handle a major health crisis. If this had been a…
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Vested Interests
[Note: This post was co-published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on March 3, 2020.] Over the past few months, a fierce legislative battle has arisen in California over the mildest of…
Read More Primary Lessons
[Note: This post was co-published in a slightly edited form in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on February 11, 2020.] I’m a New Hampshire voter, which means that, for this week, at least,…
Read More Loopholes, Manipulations, and Abuses
Larry Page, co-founder of Google, is a very rich guy – in fact, he’s the sixth-richest person in the United States, according to those who count such things. Befitting his…
Read More The Great Disconnect
I was speaking with the executive director of a small nonprofit the other day. She mentioned that her board’s major development initiative was to increase the organization’s endowment from $400,000…
Read More A New Cool-Sounding Measurement That Doesn’t Add Up
[Note: This article was published as an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on September 11, 2019.] Donor-advised funds are the fastest-growing segment of philanthropy, and that’s attracted a lot of…
Read More Stress Test
Fewer and fewer Americans are making charitable contributions, and we need to ask ourselves why. Certainly, economics plays a major role. “Gilded Giving 2018,”a report from the Institute for Policy…
Read More Let Us Tell You Your Best Ideas
You can’t order someone to come up with a particular creative idea. That’s not how it works. No editor ever said to Herman Melville, “Hey, Herm! How about you write…
Read More The Vision Thing
The past few months have seen a dozen or so would-be presidents appear in my community of Concord, New Hampshire. If you haven’t experienced the New Hampshire Primary, I can…
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