Ken Burns is one of America’s most preeminent filmmakers and documentarians. His documentaries have chronicled many aspects of American history and for his work, he has been nominated for two Academy Awards and has received fifteen Emmy Awards and two Grammy Awards. He is an astute student and observer of American life. As the commencement… Read more »
Category: Family & Individuals
My father’s fight to save democracy and defeat authoritarianism – and ours. Are you in?
Recently, I spent two days at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. There, I gained a much deeper understanding of the enormous sacrifices and commitments made by my father, who served in Europe, other loved ones who served there and in the Pacific, and the millions of Americans who worked overseas and at… Read more »
It’s Time for Some “Moonshot” Philanthropy
The challenges facing contemporary society are enormous. Think about helping to solve hunger, homelessness, climate change, disease (including pandemics), gun violence, income inequality, discrimination, threats to democracy, education, environmental degradation and so much more. Traditional philanthropic investments have been working for decades to make a dent in solving these problems. In some cases, much progress… Read more »
Hungry for Change – simple questions to ask about the ongoing problem of food insecurity in the U.S.
The winter holidays are right around the corner. Soon, many Americans will gather around the dinner table with family and friends to give thanks for abundant blessings and freedoms as they indulge in a cornucopia of delicious traditional foods. Leftovers will last for days. Then, in December, people of different faiths and traditions will celebrate… Read more »
Charity “Grand Bargain” strained by Religious Nonprofit Tax Exemption
Over a century ago, Mark Twain prophetically cautioned that “no church property is taxed and so the infidel and the atheist and the man without religion are taxed to make up the deficit in the public income.” In 1937, 73% of Americans said they were a member of a church. A Gallup survey in 2020… Read more »
Setting New Table for Family Philanthropy Helps Families Thrive
Many of us grew up sitting at the family dinner table. Often, it was rectangular, with the family’s primary bread winner(s) sitting at his or her end of the table. Regardless of the shape, the rest of the family sat at designated seats, night after night, year after year. Sometimes, long after the kids had… Read more »
Nonprofit hospitals highlight important questions about the Charity “Grand Bargain”
The charity “Grand Bargain” in the U.S. allows nonprofit organizations to perform charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes for the “public good,” often relieving government from performing those same functions. In return for their contribution to the public good, nonprofits are deemed tax-exempt organizations, which means they typically don’t pay income, sales or property tax… Read more »
Pressure builds to increase giving requirements and expand charitable deductions
Over $1.1 trillion currently sits in private foundations and donor-advised funds (DAFs) in the U.S. These two charitable intermediary tools have grown tremendously in recent years, fueled by tax-deductible contributions for the wealthiest of Americans. By 2019, 12.7% of all individual giving went to DAFs and an additional 15.1% went to private foundations – an… Read more »
Eight Steps for Effective Family Giving
Over the last decade of working with multi-generational families, helping them to become more effective with their philanthropy, I have learned many lessons. The field of strategic philanthropy is more sophisticated and complex than ever and the understanding of philanthropic “best practices” has evolved. Some of the challenges we face in today’s world may seem… Read more »
Pandemic Puts Nonprofits in Peril: What Donors Can Do
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a crushing impact on the nonprofit sector that employs about 14% of the U.S. workforce, nearly half of which works for nonprofit hospitals and universities. The remaining half, working mostly for smaller and under- or un-endowed entities, has been severely impacted. In December 2020, the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil… Read more »