Closing the Divide
No Comments
(Note: This entry is cross-posted in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.) In this election year we’ve heard plenty about the 47%, the 1% and the 99%. The expanding wealth gap…
Read More Branded Police Cars and Other Unsettling Notions
In his new book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel gives disturbing examples of financial privilege and markets intruding into ever more…
Read More A Person in the Picture
My wife’s grandfather, a lovely and memorable man named Jim Nolan, had a simple rule for taking photographs: “Always put a person in the picture.” A photo of Niagara Falls…
Read More The Biggest Story That Nobody’s Talking About
At a time when nonprofits (and their donors) are still struggling to recover from the devastation of the Great Recession, one sector of philanthropy is thriving: donor-advised funds. In my…
Read More Missing Pieces
There’s a memorable scene in the 1981 movie “Reds.” It’s 1917. Warren Beatty, playing radical journalist John Reed, asks Diane Keaton, playing Louise Bryant, to accompany him on a trip…
Read More Numbers Game
Imagine you are a manufacturer of widgets. You have a sizable factory and a loyal customer base. Your business is growing steadily and you’re making money. One day your best…
Read More Artful Dodger
Here’s a story that has all the plot elements of a Hollywood spy thriller. International intrigue! Soviet agents! Stolen art! A fabulously wealthy politician caught red-handed! Money, money, money! And…
Read More Best-Kept Secrets
Here’s the scene: A nonprofit board is discussing how to attract new supporters. One board member, in an exasperated but sincere tone, says, “But it’s so hard to interest people……
Read More