January 15, 1998 | Read Time: 6 minutes
C. Quinn Hanchette
Cancer Scam: Diversion of Federal Cancer Funds to Politics
Public money intended for medical research is instead being illegally funneled through health charities to support the anti-smoking lobby, charge the authors of this book.
In 1991, the National Cancer Institute, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, received money from Congress for Project ASSIST, a collaboration with the American Cancer Society and other non-profit health organizations to study ways to stop people from smoking. A total of $135-million over seven years was appropriated to the program.
Mr. Bennett, a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and Mr. DiLorenzo, a professor of economics at Loyola College in Baltimore, allege that the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society instead diverted some of those funds to pay lobbyists and wage a public-awareness campaign urging people to support cigarette-tax referenda on state ballots. That violated the law prohibiting taxpayers’ money from being used to pay for political lobbying, say the authors.
While the Internal Revenue Service imposes a limit on how much charities can spend on lobbying without paying taxes, the authors say that the I.R.S. weakened when it issued a letter ruling in 1991 that allowed the A.C.S. to count its 57 branches separately for lobbying purposes. In addition, the authors fault the society for reneging on a 1978 resolution from its board to refuse any government funds.
They accuse the Advocacy Institute, a tax-exempt group in Washington that trains people to sway public policy, of accepting money from Project ASSIST through an intermediary, for-profit health-consulting firm in Rockville, Md. This “laundered” money paid for anti-smoking lobbying, the authors say.
But the implications behind this blend of charity and politics are what have Mr. Bennett and Mr. DiLorenzo fuming.
“When non-profit organizations become increasingly dependent on taxpayers’ dollars they effectively become appendages of the state . . . they abandon their genuinely charitable purposes in order to essentially shill for an expansion of governmental power,” they write. “We believe this is a deadly mistake on the part of America’s health charities.”
Mr. Bennett and Mr. DiLorenzo also wrote the 1994 book Unhealthy Charities: Hazardous to Your Health and Wealth, which accused non-profit health organizations of placing their own survival above those of disease victims. Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, N.J., 08854-8042; (732) 445-2280, ext. 235; fax (732) 445-3138; 175 pages; $32.95; I.S.B.N. 1-56000-334-0.
The Foundation 1,000: In-Depth Profiles of the 1,000 Largest U.S. Foundations, 1997/1998
Edited by Francine Jones
This directory is designed to help grant seekers find suitable sources of funds from among America’s 1,000 wealthiest foundations. According to the Foundation Center, which produces the guide annually, those foundations control more than $168-billion and each year appropriate some 200,000 grants worth approximately $8-billion to non-profit organizations nationwide.
Each profile includes the foundation’s stated mission, grant-making priorities and limitations, program areas, contact information, financial data, key officials, board members, history, policies and application guidelines, and publications.
Also featured are lists of sample grants and analyses of recent giving organized by subject, type of recipient, and type of support provided.
In addition to a table of contents listing each foundation’s name and corresponding page number, the guide has five indexes, organized by names of donors, officers, and trustees; by grant subject; by types of support offered; by geographic location; and by international grant making. Information in the latter index is arranged by country and region.
The information contained in the profiles is culled from annual reports, lists of grants awarded, Internal Revenue Service Forms 990-PF, news releases, and other materials. Publisher: The Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York 10003-3076; (212) 620-4230 in New York State or (800) 424-9836 elsewhere; fax (212) 807-3677;2,922 pages; $295 plus $4.50 postage and handling; I.S.B.N. 0-87954-721-9.
National Directory of Corporate Giving, Fifth Edition
Edited by Jeffrey A. Falkenstein
This directory profiles 2,532 companies that make grants to non-profit organizations, either directly or through corporate foundations.
Each entry includes a basic breakdown of the company’s operations, including financial data, names of officers, and subsidiaries. For companies’ giving programs and foundations, entries generally list contact information, assets, activities and areas of interest and limitations, types of support provided, and application information. Profiles of foundations also provide the names and titles of board officers and trustees.
The directory includes approximately 10,000 sample grants from foundations with assets of more than $2-million and annual giving of more than $50,000.
Information on the companies is indexed in several ways, including by geographic location; by officers, donors, and trustees; by types of support provided; by type of company; and by fields of grant-making interest. Publisher: The Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York 10003-3076; (212) 807-3690 in New York State or (800) 424-9836 elsewhere; fax (212) 807-3677; World-Wide Web http://fdncenter.org; 1,224 pages; $225; I.S.B.N. 0-87954-722-7.
The Structure of Women’s Nonprofit Organizations
By Rebecca L. Bordt
This book examines whether the idea of collective leadership, championed in the early days of the modern feminist movement, has given way to more-rigid governing structures in women’s groups over the past 30 years.
Ms. Bordt, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, surveyed 95 New York-based groups that were founded by women between 1967 and 1988. She writes that although she expected to find that most groups had strayed completely from the idea of the collective, the majority of groups she examined combined elements of group decision making within a traditional, businesslike hierarchy.
The groups Ms. Bordt surveyed range from health-education organizations to domestic-violence centers. She places 69 of the organizations in categories that employ a hybrid of governing techniques, and asserts that groups incorporating bureaucratic mechanisms are not necessarily shunning feminism.
“Women’s non-profits in New York City that adopt a feminist ideology are not only thriving within the formal bureaucratic form but are also innovating by combining aspects of both bureaucratic and collectivist structures,” she concludes.
Publisher: Indiana University Press, 601 North Morton Street, Bloomington, Ind. 47404; (800) 842-6796 or (812) 855-8054; 114 pages; $24.95; I.S.B.N. 0-253-33347-4.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
The Future of Children: Financing Schools, edited by Richard E. Behrman, is the Winter 1997 issue of a report published three times a year by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Sixteen authors contributed chapters, which include an analysis of increases in per-pupil expenditures since World War II and an exploration of vouchers and other alternative forms of financing. Publisher: David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 300 Second Street, Suite 102, Los Altos, Cal. 94022; (415) 948-3696; fax (415) 948-6498; World-Wide Web http://www.futureofchildren.org; 144 pages; free; I.S.S.N. 1054- 8289.
Unlikely Companions: Organized Labor and Philanthropic Foundations, by Richard Magat, examines the often rocky relationship between labor unions and private foundations, whose benefactors were not usually regarded as friends of the working classes. Even as those two factions have historically viewed each other with suspicion and hostility, writes Mr. Magat, there is common ground to be found today in the fight against conservative forces, whom he says would stigmatize both unions and foundations as enemies of the prevailing social order. Publisher: Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Institute for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, 88 Trumbull Street, P.O. Box 208253, New Haven, Conn. 06520-8253; (203) 432-2121; fax (203) 432-7798; 81 pages; $8.50; ask for PONPO Working Paper No. 244 or I.S.P.S. Working Paper No. 2244.
