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Op-Ed: The Politics of Charity (New York Post 12/20/12)
In the last couple of weeks, it’s become clear what happens when heads of charities play politics and when politicians play at charity: Everyone’s hands get dirty.
Start with the latter. It recently came out that Gov. Cuomo’s $17 million Empire State Relief Fund — established to help Sandy victims — is being run by four of his top campaign fundraisers....
Op-Ed: Charities in Louisiana Face a Different Fiscal Cliff (Times Picayune 12/20/12)
As our leaders in Washington play their game of chicken over the approaching fiscal cliff, it's good for those of us outside the Beltway to remember the financial precipice toward which many of our nonprofits are lurching. These are the organizations that feed our hungry, house our homeless, care for our sick, rehabilitate our prisoners, and teach our children.
If you attend any earnest discussion of the challenges faced by nonprofits, you'll often find an elephant in the room. The elephant making the most frequent appearance is, in my view, the chronic and significant undercapitalization of our charities. "Undercapitalization" is a fancy way of saying that nonprofits are always madly scrambling for money. This undercapitalization leads to fundraising burnout (figuring prominently in the Daring to Lead and Ready to Lead reports published by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services), underinvestment of time and money in staff capacity, an impoverished organizational infrastructure, and, on occasion, the shutting down of programs that provide critical services....
Letter to the Editor: Helping One Another Is Part of Our State's DNA (East Oregonian 12/18/12)
The Oregon Community Foundation recently released its Giving in Oregon report, including information on trends in giving in every county in Oregon. Overall, it’s a bit of good news in the midst of a fiscally uncertain time.
Despite a lower than national average income level and a higher than average unemployment rate, Oregon maintains its place in the top 20 states for charitable giving. And this is true not just among those who can most afford it — it holds true across all income brackets....
Op-Ed: Meaningful Philanthropy Can Be the Legacy You Leave (Denver Post 12/16/12)
How many people can you name who lived one hundred years ago? Including politicians, scientists, artists, inventors, historical figures and our own ancestors, many of us struggle to name even three dozen. How many of the 314 million Americans or 7 billion planetarians will be remembered one hundred years from now?
Very few of us will be a Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Pablo Picasso, Harriet Tubman, or Henry Ford. Nonetheless, most of us seek meaning in our lives and hope to be remembered after we're gone....
Editorial: Charity Surges After the Storm (New York Times 12/15/12)
Hurricane Sandy left his Rockaways parish flooded and torn. Now Msgr. John Brown finds himself managing seasonal charity even as he wonders where half his parishioners have gone. “Fifty percent of my people aren’t here,” the monsignor noted with obvious worry. He was presiding in a sprawling food and information tent buzzing with emergency workers and volunteers across from the Catholic Church of St. Francis de Sales.
Out beyond the tent, the oceanfront parish seemed a study in post-storm anguish. Who among the homeowners will risk restoration, and who will never return? One bedraggled home bore a Christmas wreath with a message short on joy: “It is what it is.” Down at the beach, the upright concrete pylons of the destroyed boardwalk lent the Rockaways a Stonehenge eeriness — symbols, it seemed, of a defunct civilization....
Op-Ed: Should We End the Tax Deduction for Charitable Donations? (Wall Street Journal 12/14/12)
Washington is desperate for new revenue. And the charity deduction looks like a very tempting target these days.
Politicians and pundits across the political spectrum have been calling for cutting back the tax break that people get for making donations to charities. With the country's finances in such a mess, they say, we simply can't afford to be so generous about rewarding charitable giving—especially when it's mostly the very rich who claim the deduction. Even though trimming or eliminating the deduction won't solve our fiscal problems, they say, the contribution will certainly help get us closer to making ends meet....
Op-Ed: Charitable Deduction Should Be the Last Thing Congress Cuts (Silicon Valley Mercury News 12/13/12)
As the president and Congress face a critical deadline to strike a budget deal to reduce the federal deficit, the charitable deduction should be viewed as a source of innovation for social benefit -- not as an expense to be cut.
The nation's future social and economic health will demand a balanced fiscal approach. We must raise new revenue, including increasing some tax rates, and cutting expenses, including some entitlements. To suggest anything else is not realistic or responsible. However, the cuts we choose are important because they speak to our country's values and priorities....
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