- Charity chief executives who are “too important, too powerful, or too relied-on for too many things” can be risks for the organizations they lead, writes John Copps, head of sector research at New Philanthropy Capital, a nonprofit group in London that evaluates charities.
- In a discussion of the Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, Rick Cohen, national correspondent with the Nonprofit Quarterly, says that charities have a role to play in pointing out to politicians the limitations of free markets. Writes Mr. Cohen: “As a sector that exists because of the dysfunction of the markets, nonprofits should be carrying Stiglitz’s message and reminding the White House and Congress that banking on the free markets to do the right thing might be a losing investment.”
- Nathaniel Whittemore, founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement, highlights the San Francisco design firm Zurb’s approach to corporate philanthropy. For the last three years, the business has been holding 24-hour “design marathons” to help charities achieve a goal related to marketing, and then putting information about the process and its lessons online for others to see.
- To be truly effective at meeting many of their antipoverty goals, grant makers need to look at problems through a social-justice lens, considering issues like racial and class inequality, says Albert Ruesga, chief executive officer of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, on his personal blog. “This seems to me a matter of brute fact, rather than of ideology,” he says.
- Asking whether the federal economic stimulus has done any good, Robert McCartney, a Washington Post columnist, looks at a nonprofit health clinic in Maryland that received $1.5-million from the package. Mr. McCartney says the money was well spent and is helping needy people, although it has also generated some controversy because the clinic serves illegal immigrants.
- Telling the story of the development of a land trust in Puerto Rico, Christine Letts, a senior lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, is encouraging foundations and other donors to support grass-roots organizing and advocacy work. Her views appear on a Duke University blog.
