Web Issues and the IRS: a Hot Topic
By GRANT WILLIAMSWashington The Internal Revenue Service has been harshly criticized by many charities and citizens for considering whether -- and how -- to clarify the way tax laws apply to nonprofit organizations’ use of the Internet. Others simply offered suggestions about how the tax agency…
By GRANT WILLIAMS
Contributor
To the Editor: Leslie Lenkowsky’s column (“Bush Faces Big Hurdles in Carrying Out ‘Compassionate Conservatism,’” Opinion, January 25) misses a key point in the development of practical, effective relationships and public-private partnerships between government and charitable and religious…
To the Editor: I was pleased to read the letter from Kate Blanchard and Zina Poletz of the Minnesota Charities Review Council, commenting on the “shallow” charity evaluations in Smart Money magazine (Letters to the Editor, January 11). Ironically, the same issue of The Chronicle reported on two…
Bias Plays Role in Incompetent Nonprofit Management
To the Editor: Mark R. Kramer observes that nonprofit management is too often a contradiction in terms and that the problem starts with donors, who confuse vision and charisma with competence (“Donors Too Often Support Visionaries Who Don’t Have Management Skills,” The Chronicle, January 11). I…
Bush Forces Should Fight Disclosure Overkill
By BRUCE R. HOPKINSWith all its talk of support for the nonprofit world through new deductions for charitable giving and faith-based programs, the Bush administration would be wise to denounce a rear-guard action, begun during the Clinton administration, that threatens to stifle the nation’s…
By Bruce R. Hopkins
Contributor
Charities Should Hire New-Media Experts
To the Editor: The Chronicle continues to do a wonderful job of providing ongoing coverage of Internet and information technologies for foundations and nonprofits. But I wonder if others suffer the same sense of cognitive dissonance as I do when they turn to the career-network pages. There are no…
Remembering David Hunter: Risk Taker, Visionary, Activist
By PABLO EISENBERGWhen David Hunter, former executive director of the Stern Fund and the Ottinger Foundation, died at age 84 two months ago, he left both an impressive legacy and a vacuum that none of today’s foundation leaders seems willing or able to fill. Mr. Hunter was the embodiment of a…
Elimination of the Estate Tax Won’t Do Charities Any Good
To the Editor: Paul Schervish’s reflections on the nonprofit sector’s “misappraisal of the positive effects that a reduction or elimination of the estate tax would have for philanthropy” (“Philanthropy Can Thrive Without Estate Tax,” My View, January 11) are about as convincing as trickle-down…
A Tax Break That Is Good for Charity Workers
By PETER B. GOLDBERGCharity executives will be paying close attention over the coming months to one of the Bush administration’s central tax proposals: eliminating the estate tax, and with it, the deduction for charitable bequests from the estates of wealthy people. But another tax-policy issue --…
By Peter Goldberg
Contributor
Time for Civility in Poverty Debate
To the Editor: In cities all over the country, and in towns large and small, Catholic Charities makes real the Gospel message of helping the poor. Scores of thousands of staff members and volunteers are involved in this work, and hundreds of thousands of people are directly assisted. No doubt, all…