Charitable Giving: From the Heart or the Mind? Discuss.
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Marc Gunther and I had never met until about 10 days ago, when we found ourselves at the same meeting in Boston. But we’ve been long-distance pals for a while.…
Read More Affairs of the Heart
Some people misunderstand the motivation for charitable giving. They consider that charitable donations typically result from extended intellectual analysis. In fact, most donors don’t think their way into giving to…
Read More Navigating the Evaluators
I recently gave a keynote address for a conference of nonprofit leaders in Oregon. At one point, I asked people to raise their hands if they thought that the evaluation…
Read More Counting Mosquito Nets
If you think it’s simple to measure a nonprofit’s effectiveness, think again. I’ve written before about the failings of Charity Navigator and other rating systems, which resort to vastly oversimplified…
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 Getting Something for Nothing
Sometimes relatively insignificant measures can assume an absurdly disproportionate importance. For decades U.S. News and World Reports has been ranking the country’s top universities and colleges. These rankings have taken…
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