What is Really Behind Questionable Deals
LETTERS TO THE EDITORTo the Editor: In his opinion article, “Television Deal Sets Bad Precedent for Charities,” David Madland (Opinion, May 18) does not look at the big picture and therefore is looking at the wrong equation. For some time, our government and its agencies have moved away from public…
Why Don’t Charities and Lawmakers Want to Curb Nonprofit Abuses?
After a torrent of news articles during the past five years about nonprofit scandals and almost three years of Senate Finance Committee hearings on the subject, neither legislators nor charities and foundations themselves have been able to do much to ensure that nonprofit groups uphold the public…
By PABLO EISENBERG
Contributor
Will Bill Gates Become One of History’s Great Philanthropists?
Bill Gates’s decision to relinquish his day-to-day duties at Microsoft to devote himself to his foundation has aroused considerable anticipation in the philanthropic world and beyond. Already far wealthier than any other grant maker in the world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation now stands to…
By LESLIE LENKOWSKY
Contributor
Advocating a Nonprofit Strike Is ‘Unseemly and Disturbing’
LETTERS TO THE EDITORTo the Editor: Amid a cacophony of rhetoric, an opinion article by Robert Egger asks: “Can a Nonprofit Organization Strike?” (My View, June 1). The answer is, quite naturally, “Yes.” However that rather simplistic question begs a far more important one: “Should a nonprofit…
Nonprofit and For-Profit: Blurring the Line
Their names and purposes buzz with idealism. There is Ventures in Development, whose goal is to raise incomes in western China’s rural Hunan province by helping local farmers to tap export markets. And One World Medical Devices, which sets out to save millions of lives in developing countries by…
By HOWARD HUSOCK
Contributor
The breaking point for me came when I opened my New York Times to learn that Lee Raymond was paid $144,573 a day, each and every day that he served as chief executive officer of the Exxon Mobil Corporation from 1993 to 2005. In other words, he made around three times as much money by the end of the…
By Kevin Jennings
Contributor
A Victory for Charities Is a Loss for Donors
The failure of the House and Senate to pass any meaningful legislation this year to crack down on nonprofit groups means that charities have won, while donors have lost — again. Charities have banded together to quash legislation because they seem to think that any effort by lawmakers or regulators…
By TRENT STAMP
Contributor
Court Denies State Aid to Christian Charity’s Prison Program
In a legal decision that may hinder the use of federal dollars to support religious charities, a federal judge in Iowa said that a Christian nonprofit group’s efforts to rehabilitate prisoners violates the Constitution. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt said the charity program — run by the…
By Ian Wilhelm
Contributor
An entrepreneur relishes giving to causes she holds dear By Nicole Lewis Growing up, Sheila C. Johnson moved 13 times to follow her father’s jobs at veterans’ hospitals around the country. In each of her family’s homes sat a piano where her father, a neurosurgeon, often played music by Chopin after…
By nicole lewis
Contributor
Misleading Analysis of the Katrina Effect
To the Editor: Your headline “Hurricane Donations Did Not Hurt Other Gifts, Study Finds” (May 4) is the latest unfortunate example of the top line of the story misleading readers as to the true impact of Katrina relief on individual giving to so many nonprofits. The body of the article states that…