Gift Hub

Madoff Collapse is Biggest Setback to Jewish Charities since the 1930s

Bloomberg.com: 

“I can’t think of anything since the Great Depression that had an impact of this size,” said Melissa Berman, president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in New York.

See also.

Lifestyles Magazine

I am being interviewed for a feature on my lifestyle.  I kid you not.  They must assume that I, as Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families, live like a King, or at least like, Precious, the Queen's lapdog.  Truth is, playing the Fool is not that lucrative.  Serving the wealthy is for me a labor of love. I just hope the article nets me some of those trophy wives as clients. 

Madoff Fraud Hits Charities Too

Nor are charities spared by Madoff 's fraud:

However, the collapse of Mr Madoff's firm is also having an impact far beyond the world of the wealthy private investors - many charities have been hit.

The New York-based JEHT foundation, said it was freezing all its grants and would shut by the end of January. The group is funded by one couple, Jeanne and Kenneth Levy-Church, whose personal investments were managed by Mr Madoff.

Other victims include film director Stephen Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation charity.

Parker Palmer on Repossessing Virtue

Parker Palmer,  Quaker educator and public intellectual, on repossessing virtue when greed has gone unregulated at every level. Parker is a true Morals Tutor, though not to America's philanthropic families. I only wish this level of practical wisdom characterized our profession. We too are teachers, not servants of wealth, but encouragers of virtue - or not?

Searchable Directory of Consultants to Grantmakers at NNCG

National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers:

 A new online resource to help grantmakers and donors find qualified and experienced philanthropic consultants is now available from the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers at www.nncg.org.

 

The NNCG Directory of Consultants provides a centralized, easy-to-use resource bank of 

professional consultants who can assist donors and grantmakers of all types, sizes and stages of development. Consultants can be searched according to their professional expertise, programmatic experience, types of grantmakers theyʼve served, geographic focus, and more.

Michael Lewis, "The End"

Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker, on the Wall Street meltdown. How we got here. Hints at how we might better align risk and rewards for those who do the profitable (to them) deals that bring our world down.

Beyond Planned Giving to Fellowship in the Spirit of Love (Philia)

Excellent article on establishing a planned giving program from Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. To the article I would add a caution and some encouragement for a slightly different slant. Planned Giving programs are struggling and have been for several years. The Tools and Techniques of Charitable Planning are no longer news. Donors have long since heard about them from other nonprofits and increasingly from the Philanthropic Advisors employed by banks, brokerages, and insurance companies. The field has tilted towards the forprofit advisors, leaving the planned giving officers, and National Committee on Planned Giving, struggling for a new direction. A better approach might be to think in terms of marketing to the affluent, regardless of whether the gift is an annual gift, a capital gift, a major gift, or a planned gift. Then ask how you can align your organization's mission and its core values with a donor education and appreciation program that will help donors work more effectively with advisors on the donor's "inspired legacy plans."

If your organization has a heart and soul, and a passionate commitment to treating each constituent as an end in herself or himself, and not as means to an end, then you are already at the leading edge, although no one has told you yet.  I train both nonprofit and forprofit philanthropic advisors. When it comes to heads nodding when they read the last few sentences, it is the nonprofit dance majors, or the mythology majors, or the religion majors, or literature majors, who see immediately the point. The forprofit advisors find it more difficult, not only because their training may have centered on tax, or finance, but also because a big forprofit has to talk "vision and values" with all comers - with members of every group, community and sect, so long as they are money-laden. That can be hard - being encouraging about their vision and values to all comers, from all secular, political, and faith traditions. Candidly, it can feel sometimes like hypocrisy or like being a well trained professional at love itself, artfully providing a personal service.  (Don't even say it;  yes, I have been there. I am not proud of it, but I can't deny it.  That was when I was young and foolish, though, and besides, I needed the money. As an English major down on his luck, what else could I do? All I had to too was shine the rich people on about their precious "vision" of a better world. Listening with big empathetic eyes to the self talk of the deluded. Nodding encouragingly and waiting for the bit when I could at their money.  It was so easy and so lucrative. I wonder sometimes why I ever gave it up.) Much more valid, authentic, sincere, less forced, less like simony,  if your organization and its donors share a common language of value, and think of one another as constituents, or colleagues, or as donor friends, or fellow alums, or as fellow congregants. 

The Church of Latter Day Saints, Catholic Charities, Jewish Federation, Yale University,  Cisturcian, a Women's Foundation, Giving to Asia,  - good luck competing with Fidelity, Schwab, or Bank of America on high powered planning, credential ladened staff, efficient back office, or on tools and techniques.  But what does that leave? Maybe vision, meaning, purpose, community, love, and hope, faith, wisdom, a nurturing environment in which a constituent might dwell and raise healthy children. A fitting place to contemplate death and legacy under the aspect of eternity.  And guess what the hottest topic is in philanthropic planning? All that "touchy feely stuff" as the expert advisors tend to say with a shudder of disgust.  "Discernment" they have been taught to call it,  writing it down in their notebooks as a good hook for a sales process. Discernment, the wisdom of the ages, provides a competitive edge with High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs). Write that down. Want me to spell it? D-i-s-c-e-r-n-m-e-n-t. And yes, it will be on the exam.

Instead of aping advisors with tools and techniques, or providing high end discernment services to all comers, as if you were a salesperson, sit  quietly, invoke whatever is most precious in your tradition, and reach out to your constituents to suggest they bear that shared trove of tradition in mind as they meet with advisors. Say you are willing to create a quiet space, among friends, where they can think this through, achieve discernment in a place they hold holy, rather than in a place of business.  Then bring in the advisors, under your banner, and managed to the spirit of your organization and its reason for being. You will do much good for donors. Money will move in the spirit of community and higher purpose. And you will get your share  because you stand for something the donor loves, and because you keep that special spirit alive, when the world seems bent on making money the measure of all things. 

Spare a Bailout for the Poor, Mister?

Interfaith Worker Justice:

This is a period of great hope and a period of tremendous fear. We have a new administration coming to power and a newly constituted congress-and many people of faith and conscience have great hopes that government can stand up again for workers and their families and communities. Our faith traditions demand justice for workers and the poor.

The economy is in deep distress. Thus far, the government has focused on bailing out large banks and investment firms. But we know that workers have been suffering long before the current stock market meltdown, even while hedge fund managers and investment banks were giddy over their huge earnings. Low -wage workers in particular have long seen their standard of living decline. Interfaith Worker Justice calls on the incoming congress and administration to put the needs of workers and their families at the forefront of plans and programs to repair and stimulate the economy

National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers

National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers:

Part think-tank and part service organization, the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers provides a learning community and a forum for open discussion among consultants dedicated to increasing and strengthening philanthropy. The Network's mission is to increase the quality, effectiveness and capacity of grantmakers by mobilizing and strengthening the work of knowledgeable, ethical and experienced consultants. NNCG offers resources, opportunities for engagement and access, and support for consultants seeking to hone best practices and increase their impact and that of their clients. It offers consultants a forum in which to convene and practice professional development, and it provides a national platform for cooperative involvement in addressing the principal issues, trends, and challenges that we face daily in the philanthropic field. NNCG is a direct response to the needs of grantmakers.

What Colleges and Donor Advisors Can Learn From 'Robertson v. Princeton'

Chronicle of Higher Education:

The settlement announced on Wednesday in the dispute between Princeton University and the Robertson heirs can provide some useful lessons to colleges about how to avoid long and costly skirmishes over donor intent (see

related article). Even though the settlement means a judge won't rule on what rights donors have when they feel the intent of a gift is not being met—and Princeton keeps control of the endowment at the center of the case—the settlement is "certainly a victory for donor intent," says Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of philanthropy studies with the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. The fact that Princeton was willing to pay $50-million to the Robertsons to establish a new foundation, as well as $40-million for their legal fees, suggests to him that the university thought the case had some merit.

"It does send a message [that] this wasn't an entirely frivolous complaint," says Mr. Lenkowsky, who believes that more cases will follow this one. "Donors are emboldened to challenge university discretion."