Wednesday Wrap-Up
Still in mild depression that I didn't win last night's Mega Millions jackpot, let's hop around the non-profit sector, quick hits-style:
- The NAACP's next act, after forcing out a CEO for trying to make them "more effective," is to give an "Image" award to a guy who is best known in the mainstream media for saying the same word that Ann Coulter used last week? All competent PR professionals, please send your resumes to the NAACP, ASAP. They could use a little help.
- This month at Charity Navigator, we've added a bunch of really lousy charities to our database. To no one's surprise, the groups that are more interested in lining their own pockets than serving the public are usually focused on one of four subjects: cops, firefighters, veterans, and sick kids. These are obviously the causes for which it is easiest to fundraise over the phone.
- I'm tired of getting indignant about politicians' not disclosing their roles in their private foundations. Despite most people seeing it as no big deal, I still say it's a blatant display of arrogance and contempt for playing by the rules, and another case where we demonstrate our belief that non-profit transparency and accountability is less important than we would expect in the for-profit world. The latest culprit is none other than Hillary Clinton.
- A charity in Arizona is seeing a precipitous decline in donated clothing and they're not blaming the new IRS rules on getting a receipt for everything you give away. The real culprit? The slowing of the housing market. It's an interesting take, and if true, is an excellent illustration of how every economic sector affects the non-profit world.
- I'll be on Good Life radio tomorrow with Jesse Dylan at 12:45 PM EST. You can hear it on Sirius channel 114. The topic is the always scintillating "charitable tax tips."
- I'll also be on CNN on Friday, a little after 11 AM EST. I'll be talking about this, and I promise to be fair. Cause-related marketing is a complicated topic, and not every campaign is a waste of time and money.
Labels: CNN, Good Life radio, Hillary Clinton, NAACP, police charities, telemarketers
posted by Trent Stamp at 10:50 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Trent, I'd really be interested to know what you think about this debate going down here:
http://www.terrapass.com/terrablog/posts/2007/03/what-is-a-missiondriven-business.html
Thanks!
Reads to me like they tried to change the subject. Obviously someone wanted to know why they weren't a non-profit, or at least a little more transparent, and they decided it would be easier to attack the use of data to measure non-profit efficiencies.
Seems kind of silly.
Seems sillier that they keep citing Guidestar as their source for why non-profit ratios are misleading. Guidestar rose to prominence by allowing people access to these evil ratios and then, once they got $10 million in foundation money for their efforts, disowned the whole concept.
I wish TerraPass and mission-driven businesses well. We need creative solutions to the problems that plague this country. I hope they're one of them, and if they are, they're right that it won't matter one bit what their tax designation is.
Thanks so much, Trent! It's gotten a bit heated-up over there :)
Would like to hear your thoughts on the recent OPM decision to simply Remove any requirement regarding admin percentages for non-profits to participate in the CFC campaign. Here's my email to the reporter:
I read with some astonishment that OPM is reversing direction on administrative overhead percentages and doing away with the 'no more than 25%' current requirement despite the strong public comments favoring current requirement and the IRS's recent move towards greater accountability. Are you kidding me? At a time when transparency and accountability are hot topics, they are going to basically allow any level of overhead? Fortunately, there are reputable online sites such as Charity Navigator and Guidestar that are far more user friendly than any site I've seen. Might be worth it to do an article to help fed employees as OPM is doing us no favors with this 'earmark'.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031101123.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email
Post a Comment
<< Home