‘Barron’s’: Effective Philanthropists

A new effort to rank the most-effective philanthropists — not just the most-generous ones — has been undertaken by Barron’s magazine (November 26).

Among the donors on the list:

• Eugene Lang, who started the I Have a Dream Foundation, pledging to high-school students that he will pay for their college education.
• Steve and Liz Alderman, who founded a charity to help trauma victims in the developing world.

• The Aldermans started the foundation as a way to honor their son, Peter, who was killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks (The Chronicle, September 6).

• David Weekley, founder of a home building company in Texas, who pledged, after a business downturn nearly wiped him out, that he would give at least half his income and half his time to nonprofit groups that serve needy people.
• Donna and Philip Berber, who started A Glimmer of Hope, a charity that supports grass-roots projects in Ethiopia (The Chronicle, February 22).

The rankings were put together for the magazine by Geneva Global, a consulting firm that advises donors, with help from another philanthropy consulting firm, IFF Advisors.

Barron’s said the philanthropy consultants examined the records of 100 people to winnow the list to the people it believed had made the most difference in improving the lives of others.

In addition to the rankings, the magazine published an article noting that tax experts are warning that charitable transactions made in 2007 are much more likely to be scrutinized by the Internal Revenue Service than in past years.

“There is a big deficit of dollars the IRS doesn’t have because people are claiming deductions they aren’t entitled to,” Conrad Teitell, a tax lawyer in Stamford, Conn., told the magazine.

The articles are available online at http://www.barrons.com.