Playing the Percentages
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Ah: the end of the year! Donors are racing to register their charitable contributions before January first. Nonprofits are counting on a December bounty. But what, besides tax advantages, is…
Read More Leading From Behind
The death of Nelson Mandela has triggered international recognition that he was a singularly remarkable man. In leading the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, Mandela attracted accolades not…
Read More Self-Interest
My recent blog post, “Wall Street Muscles In,” certainly got some attention: my largest readership ever for a single post, and a record number of comments both in this space…
Read More Wall Street Muscles In
I really wish I’d been wrong in my earlier warnings about the growth of commercial donor-advised funds. But the latest Philanthropy 400 rankings from the Chronicle of Philanthropy indicate that…
Read More Missing the Obvious in Nonprofit Ratings
[Note: This post is simultaneously being published as an opinion piece in the October 6, 2013 edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.] Americans love ratings and rankings. We like to…
Read More Telling Us What To Do
At a time when Democrats and Republicans can find virtually no common ground, at least two prominent thinkers, one on the right and one on the left, emphatically agree on…
Read More Less is More
Half a lifetime ago, I found myself the newly appointed 27-year-old Executive Director of a small nonprofit. I had lots of energy and woefully little experience. I was particularly ignorant…
Read More Point, Counterpoint
Dear Readers: You may be familiar with epistolary novels – that is, novels told entirely in letters between the characters. Today is an epistolary blog post. My first! (Perhaps yours…
Read More Scale, For Better or For Worse
Nonprofit trends – and their associated jargon – seem to come in waves. Given the disparate and atomized nature of the sector, it’s striking that new notions and terms fall…
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