Charity Regulation Needs to Be Rethought, Not Just Who Can Sue
To the Editor: In your cover story “Rethinking Who Can Sue a Charity” (March 12), your reporter suggests that the Internal Reve nue Service’s Exempt Organizations branch does not have the resources to deal with the number of organizations it is supposed to regulate. A greater issue, which the…
Why Annenberg’s School Plan Failed
In December 1993, when the philanthropist Walter Annenberg announced a five-year, $500-million effort to reform the nation’s public schools, few people doubted that he had made a great social investment. The self-proclaimed “Annenberg Challenge,” which sought to match the former publisher and diplo…
By Patrick J. Reilly
Contributor
Court Finds Boy Scouts Exempt From California Civil-Rights Law
The Boy Scouts of America does not have to abide by California’s civil-rights law, the state’s Supreme Court has ruled in two unanimous decisions. The court found that the Boy Scouts is a private organization and therefore not bound by the law, which prohibits discrimination by business…
By DOMENICA MARCHETTI
Contributor
Sale of Catalogue Business Nets Profits for Minn. Public Radio — and Top Officials
Minnesota Public Radio last month announced that it had sold its highly profitable mail-order catalogue business to the Dayton Hudson Corporation for an estimated $120-million. The sale has attracted some controversy, in part because the people who built the business and arranged the sale were…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
A Clearinghouse of Causes: WebActive Reflects Founder’s Progressive Vision
“While we’re all doing a million things, our mutual friend -- the earth -- is going to hell in a fur-lined, coal-powered, non-recyclable hand basket,” the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus says in an Internet video message for the Environmental Defense Fund. Ms. Louis-Dreyfus, who plays Elaine on the…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
The Internet lets activists reach around the world at little cost The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance faced its toughest battle ever when Congress was considering a bill to open up much of the state to road construction, mining, and other types of economic development that threatened to damage…
By Paul Demko
Contributor
Some Ground Rules on Enforcing Pledges
To the Editor: To Irving Warner’s recent interesting opinion piece “Making Donors Make Good on Their Pledges” (February 26), I would add two or three comments. Though reneging on promises to give remains a relatively rare phenomenon for non-profits, my experience has been that moderate-sized…
One Fund’s Ceiling Is Another Fund’s Floor
To the Editor: Our experience as a relatively small family foundation shows that not everyone follows the pattern set forth in your article “Despite Gains in Assets, Many Funds Stick to the Legal Minimum for Giving” (February 26). We started with $10-million in assets and made our first program…
Sizing Up Foundation Leadership
Rightly or wrongly, preeminence in size has given some foundations preeminence in press attention and public recognition. And to some degree, the largest foundations have been accorded public respect as “leaders” in the field -- if only because of an American proclivity to associate size with…
By Waldemar A. Nielsen
Contributor
Recognizing the Best of the Worst in Fund Raising and Philanthropy
This is the time of year when awards are given for best movies, best books, best plays, best dressed, and, for all I know, best cab drivers in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Chapters of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives all over the country have already conferred their “best of the year” awards to…
By IRVING WARNER
Contributor