This Spin Won’t Wash
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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 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…
Read More Missing Information
[This article was co-published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on June 15, 2020.] Our access to information is instantaneous. While having breakfast at 8:00 we know that thunderstorms will be rolling…
Read More Yes, It’s Political
“What can technologists do to fix the problems facing the nonprofit world?” The question hung in the air for a while. The setting was a recent “hackathon,” an on-line, national…
Read More Not Bad! Not Bad at All!
I’m a people person, and I prefer my people… in person. I’m also not the most technologically adroit guy. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that most of…
Read More Soliciting Gifts, Gracefully, As the World Falls Apart
[Note: A version of this post was published in Harvard Business Review on April 15, 2020.] This is a time of dislocation, fear, and trauma. In the course of about four weeks,…
Read More Time to Put Up and Spend Down
[Note: A version of this post was published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on April 14, 2020.] The coronavirus pandemic has made us realize – very suddenly – how utterly ill-prepared…
Read More 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…
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