Should Foundations Focus on Preserving Assets or Their Grant Recipients?
Foundations are still reeling from the precipitous stock-market decline of the last two years. For many, assets have dropped by more than one-third, and the mood is one of pessimism and concern. Some grant makers are increasingly recognizing that this may be a long-term change in circumstances much…
By Mark R. Kramer
Contributor
Facing an Ugly Reality: Most Nonprofit Boards Don’t Work
To the Editor: Pablo Eisenberg is right in saying that “many boards of directors of foundations and charities, both large and small, are still failing to exercise their responsibility in ensuring the financial and programmatic health of the organizations they oversee” (“The Buck Stops With the…
Field of Donor Education Has Much To Learn
The prolonged economic downturn and decline in foundation assets have tempered talk of a new golden age of philanthropy. While such an age may not be upon us, a clear trend, heightened by the boom years of the 1990s, already has emerged: Donors want to be more informed and engaged in their giving…
By Jenny Yancey
Contributor
Salvation Army’s Top Commander Views Job as a ‘Holy Calling’
Clutching a well-worn Bible, W. Todd Bassett strides to the front of a small chapel inside the Salvation Army’s national headquarters during a service to welcome him as the charity’s new top U.S. executive. “I come to this position as national commander with a little fear and trepidation,” he tells…
By Brad Wolverton
Contributor
Improving Neighborhoods: Mistakes Grant Makers Often Make
Baltimore When Lucille Gorham peers out the front door of her row house, she sees crumbling ALSO SEE:Prescription for Well-Being vacant homes, needy kids, and corners where the local drug trade is plied -- examples of the crushing poverty found in her East Baltimore neighborhood, and in several…
By Michael Anft
Contributor
What a Master’s in Business Can Mean for a Career in Charities
TOOLS AND TRAINING By Alicia Abell When John Vogel graduated from Harvard Business School in 1980, job seekers who held master’s SAMPLES OF E-NEWSLETTERS:Where M.B.A. Holders Wind Up in the Nonprofit Field of business administration degrees were regarded with suspicion by nonprofit employers, he…
By Alicia Abell
Contributor
To the Editor: The recent column by Pablo Eisenberg about Independent Sector (“What Independent Sector Should Look For in a New CEO,” September 19) reflects the narrow views of an ivory-tower academic who appears to know little about managing and leading a complex community. He clearly knows even…
Changes in Labor Market Create Opportunities for Charities
To the Editor: In response to “Charities and Foundations Must Confront Shrinking Labor Pool, Researcher Says” (October 17): While the threat of a shrinking labor pool and a maturing work force soon to be coming into retirement age appears to be a problem, it also presents an opportunity. Since the…
A New Measure for Accountability
Many nonprofit leaders probably sighed with relief this summer when Congress passed the most far-reaching corporate-accountability legislation in decades. Not only would the legislation restore confidence in the stock market and therefore, they hoped, help battered endowments, but it seemed that…
By Patrick K. O’Hare
Contributor
Small Charities Find Online Giving Full of Rewards and Challenges
IN THE TRENCHES By Kimberlee Roth Street-Level Youth Media, a Chicago charity that provides free computer and ALSO SEE:Tips for Creating an Online Fund-Raising System video technology to local inner-city young people, has maintained a Web site for its entire seven-year history. But two years ago,…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor