Keeping On-Line Fund Raising in Line
Using the Internet, a person in Chantilly, Va., can explore how to help reduce suffering in Cambodia through the World-Wide Web site of an international relief agency located -- as if it mattered -- in Finland. While exploring the charity’s Web site, the person could become interested in the relief…
By PUTNAM BARBER
Contributor
Accumulation of Capital, Not Borrowing, Is Charities’ Problem
To the Editor: My opinion piece in The Chronicle (“Charities Should Borrow Money, Not Hoard It,” My View, July 24) has prompted a slew of letters. Many of them have insightful contributions to the perennial question, To borrow or not to borrow? Unfortunately, I believe that the debate has lost…
Israeli Charities Need U.S. Partners, Not Patrons
As Israel nears the close of its 50th year as a nation, more and more of its North American supporters are becoming alienated by the Israeli government’s resistance to the peace process and by the continued calls of ultra-Orthodox groups to limit the definition of who is to be considered a real…
By Yonatan Gordis
Contributor
Pipeline Company’s Role in Smithsonian’s Alaska Exhibit Fuels Criticism
The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History opened an exhibit on the Trans-Alaska pipeline recently that is generating more heat than the museum had hoped for. The problem, critics say, is that the company that operates the pipeline brought the idea for the exhibit to the…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
Investor Donates Art Collection to University
Mitchell Wolfson, Jr., an international investor with major holdings in Miami and Genoa, Italy, has donated his private collection of artwork worth approximately $60-million to Florida International University in Miami. At the same time, The Wolfsonian, a non-profit research and exhibition center…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
Author says fund raisers are as likely to find wealthy people hanging out at trade shows as attending the ballet As Albert Hoffman makes his way to daily Mass, few of his Chicago neighbors see a millionaire philanthropist. The retired engineer doesn’t wear expensive suits or drive a fancy car, and…
By Vince Stehle
Contributor
Grassroots Groups Deserve Direct Grants
To the Editor: The importance of grassroots groups cannot be denied, as David Horton Smith observes (“Grassroots Associations: the Lost Non-Profit World,” My View, September 18). But to conclude, as he does, that direct grants weaken these groups reflects too narrow a view of the roles that…
Arts Report: Right Picture, Wrong Remedy
Although the National Endowment for the Arts appears to have beaten back another effort to abolish it, art in the United States in general -- and non-profit arts groups in particular -- remain in perilous condition, a new N.E.A. report argues. The reason, the report contends, is that elite artistic…
By LESLIE LENKOWSKY
Contributor
Leadership Is Key in Raising Money
To the Editor: It was fascinating to read Richard L. Moyers’s insightful piece (“‘Non-Profit’ Label Limits Charities’ Effectiveness,” My View, October 16) only to read two pages further Gil Mangels’s letter reviling big salaries for non-profit C.E.O.'s (“Big Non-Profit Salaries Are Demoralizing,”…
We Should Give Ted Turner the Credit He’s Due
To the Editor: Your recent article on Ted Turner (“Ted Turner’s Headline Pledge,” October 2) pointed out the pettiness of some within our ranks by their pointing out the possibility that he might not fulfill his pledge (“If Ted Turner fulfills . . .”), questioning his motives (" . . . Mr. Turner…