Measurement Is a Futile Way to Approach Grant Making
Schemes to measure the outcomes of grants put a substantial burden on nonprofits and usually yield pointless results.
By WILLIAM SCHAMBRA
Contributor
How a Hedge-Fund Manager Gives to Improve Public Schools
William Ackman, a hedge-fund manager, has donated $25-million to an ambitious and contentious effort to help overhaul Newark’s public schools
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
Grant Makers Should Take Aim at Curbing Gun Violence
Nonprofits could muster a force as powerful as the National Rifle Association if they joined together to push for laws that would curb the violence destroying so many communities, writes a Chronicle columnist.
Virginia A.G. Says No State Funds Can Legally Go to Charities
Virginia’s attorney general says government grants to nonprofit organizations violate the state’s constitution, writes The Washington Post.
Opinion: Philanthropy Has Changed Little in Past 100 Years
Donors continue to give relatively little to help community organizers, minorities, and other groups that help the disenfranchised, writes a philanthropy adviser in Forbes.
Sargent Shriver’s Legacy to the Nonprofit World
R. Sargent Shriver, who died last week at age 95, created federal programs that were the training ground for many of the leaders who built and expanded programs to serve the poor and disenfranchised.
By PABLO EISENBERG
Contributor
A Newly Powerful Grant-Making Force: Artist-Endowed Foundations
The controversy over the Smithsonian’s decision to pull a video sheds new light on the growing role that foundations started by artists play in financing nonprofits.
By Christine J. Vincent
Contributor
Opinion: Commercialization Skews Microlending’s Purpose
The microfinance industry has taken a “terrible wrong turn” as more lenders go public and charge high interest rates in search of profits, the Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus writes in a New York Times opinion piece.
Philanthropy Must Challenge the Idea That Gun Violence Can’t Be Stopped
It’s time for foundations to spend more money to promote a balanced debate about how to stop mass shootings like the one in Tucson, writes the head of the Joyce Foundation.
By Ellen Alberding
Contributor
California’s Safety Net Faces More Fiscal Strain
The new governor of California, Jerry Brown, says the state needs to cut spending on social services as part of massive plan to reduce costs and raise taxes.
By SUZANNE PERRY
Contributor