‘Harvard Business Review’: Cause Marketing
In the post-boom economy, some businesses have combined their marketing and charitable-giving strategies, notes an article in the Harvard Business Review (July). The companies are increasingly seeking to support charities in ways that will enhance their reputations, help them sell more products or…
By Elizabeth Schwinn and Brad Wolverton
‘Bloomberg Wealth Manager’: Donor Funds
A declining stock market caused assets to fall nearly 6 percent to $3.4-billion last year at 25 of the nation’s largest commercial donor-advised funds, according to an article in Bloomberg Wealth Manager (June). The declining market also led two companies -- Thornburg Investment Management and…
By Elizabeth Schwinn and Brad Wolverton
Write-Offs: A New Study on Planned Gifts, Charges for Nonprofit Tax Returns
Researchers at Boston College have designed and analyzed a survey on the use of planned-giving tools, such as charitable gift annuities and charitable trusts, that can offer significant tax breaks to donors. The survey asked whether respondents or their spouses had used any of 10 planned-giving…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Charities Report $4-Billion in Business Income
Charities in 1999 reported $4-billion in business income not related to their charitable missions, according to a new study by the Internal Revenue Service. That’s a drop of $125-million from the amount of unrelated-business income charities reported in 1998. The money accounted for a little over…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Man Falsely Claimed Tuition as Donation
A man who used his family foundation to funnel payments for his children’s private-school tuition has been sentenced to five months in prison for tax evasion by the U.S. District Court for Northern California. In addition to the five months in prison, Tim Mosley of San Rafael, Calif., has been…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Court Upholds Church Tax Exemption
A federal appeals court has declined to rule on whether a Louisiana sales-tax exemption for churches and other religious groups is constitutional, saying the matter belongs in state court. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that because the case involved…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
IRS Bars Stock-Options Deals for Charities
The Internal Revenue Service has barred nonprofit organizations from offering their executives a type of deferred compensation similar to the stock options some corporations give their employees. Aggressively promoted by some of the nation’s largest accounting firms, the stock-option plans have…
By Harvy Lipman
Contributor
A Charity Leader Works to Beautify an Inner City
A DAY IN THE LIFE By Kimberlee Roth Detroit Rebecca Salminen Witt, president of the Greening of Detroit, is starting her day a couple of hours earlier than expected. At 7 a.m. on a Friday in June, she arrives at a vacant lot in downtown Detroit to supervise its refurbishing, even though volunteers…
By Kimberlee Roth
Contributor
AmeriCorps Changes Leaders and Appeals for More Money
Washington Changes in leadership at the Corporation for National and Community Service -- the organization that oversees AmeriCorps -- and efforts by Congress to free up additional money for the agency have helped ease the anxiety many charity leaders felt earlier this summer when a sharp decline…
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Contributor
Bits: A Technology Leader to Head AmeriCorps, Gates’s Grants, and Grants for Grass-Roots Advocacy
President Bush has nominated David Eisner to be the new head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the agency that oversees AmeriCorps. A longtime proponent of nonprofit technology, Mr. Eisner was until recently senior vice president of the AOL Time Warner Foundation, then in…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Technology Use Rises at Pennsylvania Charities
Nonprofit organizations in western Pennsylvania made strides in their use of technology between 2000 and 2002, according to a new report. Last fall, the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University asked 266 charities about their technology planning, hardware and software,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Questions Remain Following PipeVine’s Closure
Nonprofit organizations and the California attorney general’s office continue to deal with the fallout from the shutdown of PipeVine, a San Francisco nonprofit group that processed donations totaling more than $100-million a year for companies that run on-the-job fund-raising drives, United Ways,…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Bush Explains Views on Religious Hiring
Washington The Bush administration has released a report explaining why it believes religious groups have a constitutional ALSO SEE:Faith In Diversity right to follow their beliefs when making hiring decisions, even when the organizations receive federal grants and other government funds. Critics…
By GRANT WILLIAMS
Contributor
Religious groups see benefits of hiring people from other faithsWhen visitors walk through the doors of the Addison Penzak Jewish Community Center of Silicon Valley, in Los Gatos, Calif., ALSO SEE:Bush Explains Views on Religious Hiring Danelle Rhiner is waiting to greet them with a big, welcoming…
By Rebecca Gardyn
Contributor
Following are summaries of recent reports by the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. This private group reports on whether charities meet standards for fund raising, governance, financial management, and public information. The alliance does not approve or disapprove of charities, and urges potential donors…
Drug-Abuse Prevention Group Leader Says Principles Learned in Early Jobs Guided Her
ENTRY LEVEL Mary Pat Angelini Age: 48 First nonprofit job: Assistant director, Mt. Rogers Psycho-Social Program at Friendship House, Community Services Board, Marion, Va. Current job: Executive director, Prevention First, Oakhurst, N.J. While most 11-year-olds I knew were anxious to go to…