A Bubble Bursts
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A scandal at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) has roiled the world of philanthropy. It’s a blockbuster story with dramatic elements worthy of an HBO mini-series: An imperious and…
Read More What’s Behind the Curtain? We Still Don’t Know.
[Note: This article was co-published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy on March 12, 2018.] The most dramatic phenomenon in American charity in the last decade is the rise of donor-advised funds.…
Read More A Tale of Two Letters, and Two Sectors
[Note: A version of this post was published in the opinion pages of The Chronicle of Philanthropy on November 2, 2017.] Here’s an idea: Let’s agree to stop referring to “the nonprofit…
Read More Strange Math
[A version of this piece appeared in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on July 13, 2017.] Here’s the world’s simplest math problem. My wife Pat and I often meet a pair of friends…
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 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…
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