The Rich (Organizations) Get Richer
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The boarding school I attended recently announced a $25 million gift from one of its trustees. I don’t begrudge my alma mater its big gift. I’ll also note that the…
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Staff Salaries Matter
Everyone values the work that nonprofits do. But not everyone values the people at nonprofits who do the actual work. I’ve repeatedly encountered nonprofit boards that fail to invest appropriately…
Read More This Spin Won’t Wash
November marks the tenth anniversary of Professor Ray Madoff’s New York Times op-ed calling for new rules that would accelerate grantmaking from donor-advised funds. Over the years since, as the…
Read More Wealth and Charity
[Note: This article was also published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on May 19, 2021.] The rich are richer than ever before. We have to keep this in mind when we…
Read More Boom! MacKenzie Scott Brilliantly Disrupts the Philanthropic Status Quo
If you’re looking for one good thing to come out of 2020, I would nominate the remarkable philanthropy of MacKenzie Scott. Scott, a novelist, philanthropist, and former wife of Amazon…
Read More New Year’s Resolutions
Now that we’re well into December, can’t we just get 2020 over with? The new year won’t be any sort of picnic, but it has to be better than 2020.…
Read More Using Grants to Win Friends, Influence People, and Silence Critics
[This article was co-published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on October 21, 2020.] Grants from corporations inevitably keep the donors’ business interests in mind at recipient organizations. That’s certainly the…
Read More In a K-Shaped Recovery, Nonprofits Should Lean on Major Donors
[This article was published in full in Harvard Business Review on September 17, 2020] America’s nonprofits are under enormous pressure. More than six months into the pandemic, those that provide…
Read More Smoke and Mirrors
[Note: This post was co-published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on July 22, 2020.] A great magician relies on diversion. The eyes of the audience go where the magician is drawing…
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