Editorial Argues for Madoff Victims’ Repayment; Plus More: Tuesday’s Roundup
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
March 9, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
- Victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme should receive as much financial restitution as possible, even if it means that nonprofit groups in the Boston area have to suffer, says an editorial in The Boston Globe. For example, the editorial says the foundation of Carl Shapiro, who reportedly earned $1-billion investing with Mr. Madoff, needs to return some of its founder’s money even if it cannot fulfill its charitable pledges.
- How does a donor or volunteer “break up” with a charity comfortably? Wendy Helgeson, a management consultant, says it’s not easy and looks at her own experience separating from a nonprofit group. Her views appear on a blog about grass-roots leadership in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
- A year after Google revamped its approach to philanthropy, it is developing several new projects to spur economic development, clean energy, and access to technology, Megan Smith, the vice president of Google.org, writes on the company’s blog. In addition, she says Google in 2009 contributed $100-million to various charities through its corporate giving and by matching employee gifts. Read The Chronicle’s article about changes at Google.org.
- Writing on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Alana Conner, senior editor, discusses a recent conference on social innovation at the university, at which scientists and professors explored how to encourage charitable giving. Among the suggestions: Don’t feel guilty about asking for help, ask again if you get turned down the first time, and don’t suggest that giving is outside of the norm, because humans are herd animals and like to follow the crowd.
- Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of the nonprofit-evaluation group GiveWell, weighs in on a discussion about whether gifts that don’t maximize social impact are “selfish.” Mr. Karnofsky says there’s nothing wrong with contributing to a cause just because somebody asked or because you benefit personally from it (for example, Wikipedia). But he says such contributions shouldn’t be counted toward your philanthropic budget for the year.
- Stephen Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard and the author of a new book on social innovation, writes about how the quality of social services doesn’t improve because government dominates their delivery and individuals have little choice. The solution, he says, is to choose “policies that move young people from being passive consumers of public services into tax-paying, productive members of society.”
