To the Editor: I truly enjoyed your article on the many motorcycle groups across the country that are raising funds for non-profit organizations (“Doing Good Turns for Charity,” October 16). During the past four years, I have had the pleasure of working with the Sunset Riders Motorcycle Club in…
Ducking the Evidence About Gay People
To the Editor: Charles Watkins’s letter to the editor (“Keep Numbers Straight About Gay People,” October 30), while professing to correct a canard, itself “ducks” the evidence about the prevalence and nature of homosexuality in human populations. Figures on the prevalence of homosexuality vary…
Dance-Group Article Missed a Step
To the Editor: As a former capital-campaign assistant to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, I felt compelled to write in response to Vince Stehle’s article in the September 18th issue (“Dance Center Lands Back on Its Feet”). Mr. Stehle’s assertion that the festival chose bond debt over conducting any…
Keeping On-Line Fund Raising in Line
Using the Internet, a person in Chantilly, Va., can explore how to help reduce suffering in Cambodia through the World-Wide Web site of an international relief agency located -- as if it mattered -- in Finland. While exploring the charity’s Web site, the person could become interested in the relief…
By PUTNAM BARBER
Contributor
Accumulation of Capital, Not Borrowing, Is Charities’ Problem
To the Editor: My opinion piece in The Chronicle (“Charities Should Borrow Money, Not Hoard It,” My View, July 24) has prompted a slew of letters. Many of them have insightful contributions to the perennial question, To borrow or not to borrow? Unfortunately, I believe that the debate has lost…
Israeli Charities Need U.S. Partners, Not Patrons
As Israel nears the close of its 50th year as a nation, more and more of its North American supporters are becoming alienated by the Israeli government’s resistance to the peace process and by the continued calls of ultra-Orthodox groups to limit the definition of who is to be considered a real…
By Yonatan Gordis
Contributor
Pipeline Company’s Role in Smithsonian’s Alaska Exhibit Fuels Criticism
The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History opened an exhibit on the Trans-Alaska pipeline recently that is generating more heat than the museum had hoped for. The problem, critics say, is that the company that operates the pipeline brought the idea for the exhibit to the…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
Investor Donates Art Collection to University
Mitchell Wolfson, Jr., an international investor with major holdings in Miami and Genoa, Italy, has donated his private collection of artwork worth approximately $60-million to Florida International University in Miami. At the same time, The Wolfsonian, a non-profit research and exhibition center…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
Author says fund raisers are as likely to find wealthy people hanging out at trade shows as attending the ballet As Albert Hoffman makes his way to daily Mass, few of his Chicago neighbors see a millionaire philanthropist. The retired engineer doesn’t wear expensive suits or drive a fancy car, and…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
Grassroots Groups Deserve Direct Grants
To the Editor: The importance of grassroots groups cannot be denied, as David Horton Smith observes (“Grassroots Associations: the Lost Non-Profit World,” My View, September 18). But to conclude, as he does, that direct grants weaken these groups reflects too narrow a view of the roles that…