Charity Wrap

All you need to know about the non-profit world this week, just in case you're at a barbecue and someone comes up and says "hey, what's new in the non-profit world?"

• Here's a non-profit created to work on behalf of one of our worthiest causes. Yes, the Ohio Legacy Fund (sounds great, huh?) spent $2 million to promote legalizing slot machines in the state.
  
• Boston wants to put a non-profit in charge of creating and maintaining a wireless network for the entire city. When I was in New Orleans, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the whole city is now "wired" and it's free. The only drawback was that it didn't work worth a damn. Details, details.
  
• Senator Bill Frist continues to think that the rules, especially when it comes to disclosure and non-profit reporting standards, apply to everyone but him. Regular readers of this blog know that the Senator has a track record with playing fast and loose in the charitable world.
  
• Are you Jewish? Do you have any money? Is your phone ringing yet? If not, it will be.
  
• The residents of Dallas want to know "if non-profit hospitals are doing enough charity care?" The answer, of course, is "no."
• Hot enough for you? In Boston, at the zoo, the lions were eating frozen blood popsicles. How cool is that (pun sadly intended)? I encourage all donors to this zoo to designate your gift next year and insist that your monies be spent on blood popsicles.
  
• And finally, some organization named Charity Navigator unveiled their special "Hurricane Katrina One Year Later" section of their site, with lessons learned, updates on the charities involved, a report on where all the money went, and much, much more. It's pretty cool. And their executive director is spending much of his time doing radio interviews on what went right and wrong with the Katrina relief effort. Too many shows to list; just turn your radio on and flip around. Here's a link to one I did for ABC News. They seem to have left out the parts where I said charities did a decent job over all. Oh well, I guess controversy sells.