iBrilliant

I come today not to bury a charity, but to praise one. The group is Keep a Child Alive. They're based in Brooklyn and their mission is to provide lifesaving AIDS drugs to those who are suffering from the disease in Africa. Their spokesperson is Alicia Keys, they spend almost $2 million a year, and until this morning, I'm not sure I'd ever heard of them.

So why am I praising them? Because believe me, I've heard of them now. Today, I've seen them on national TV, I've heard their spokesperson on the radio, and I've read at least 10 articles in which they're mentioned and quoted.

What did they do to get in my face today, and take their cause to every person in America with a television, a radio, or an internet connection? They were smart and they opportunistic. One of their PR people, a guy named Johnny Vulkan, decided to get in line at the Apple store in Manhattan on Tuesday, effectively becoming the first person to queue up for the iPhone. Vulkan had no need for the new creation from Steve Jobs; he just wanted to raise attention for his group.

And has he. Since Tuesday, 80 volunteers from Keep a Child Alive have taken turns holding the top spot in line. With the store mere blocks from the headquarters of every media outlet in the country, the staff has done a ton of interviews, and has managed to sound smart, relevant, and connected the whole time. Said staff member Mia Riddle of the decision to get in line, "It's about using the media frenzy around the iPhone to communicate things that are a little more important," she said.

Their plan is to auction the iPhone to benefit their group, and as a result of their savvy PR utilization and their articulate advocacy of their cause, corporations and celebrities are lining up to give them other items for their eBay auction. ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live sent tickets to the show and access for four to its green room to auction off. So did Rachael Ray and Six Flags. Virgin Atlantic gave them airline tickets, Aliph provided headsets that work with the iPhone, and Netflix is giving movies. eBay themselves saw the media crush and offered to match the iPhone's auction price and donate the amount to the charity. With this much media attention flying around, there will be others who want to get in on giving the charity items, at least until the cameras turn off.

Keep a Child Alive, today's winner for savviest non-profit. They showed that you don't need a huge advertising budget to get your story out, if you have articulate advocates on your side, and know how to seize the moment when it's presented. I'd say even more, but I'm jealous I didn't think of their idea first.

Three Degrees of Separation

Three quick strikes and we're out (just like the Yankees):

1. The Urban Institute has a wildly interesting new study about what's really going on between charities and their boards. They took the time to survey over 5000 charities of all sizes. Among their findings: Board members aren't actively involved in governing their organizations, most board members are white, many trustees are doing business with their non-profits, very few charities are actually loaning money to trustees, and giving CEOs a vote on the board is a bad idea.
   
2. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Senate is actively pushing the Smithsonian to hire some new leaders, to move on from the cesspool of excess and corruption that brought down the previous leadership. I'm glad they're concerned now. Might have been nice if the three Senators that serve on the organization's board had given a damn a few months ago about making sure donor money was being spent appropriately.
   
3. Jean Chatzky of Money magazine has a nice story in this month's issue about how donors and volunteers can make the most of their time and money. Sure, I'm quoted, but that doesn't mean it isn't a quality piece, with good advice in it for those who seek to do more than just assuage their own guilt with their gift.

A Less Than Charitable Act

As anyone with cable can tell you, PETA is a highly-effective and highly-controversial animal-rights organization. Love them or hate them, few would argue that they haven't utilized innovative and edgy marketing techniques to advance their particular animal-driven agenda. Personally, I think they've done some smart things over the years, and in some cases, have actually stepped over the line and hurt their cause, that of protecting animals.

But I do think it's relevant to remember that this is a public charity, subsidized in effect by taxpayers, and chartered to serve the public good. And I'd be lying if I said I could therefore make a rational argument for why PETA decided to send (and subsequently publicize) a letter to filmmaker Michael Moore, in which PETA president Ingrid Newkirk mocks Moore for being fat, calling him "the elephant in the room." The letter was not in response to anything Moore had done or said, but an attempt to capitalize on the media attention surrounding his new movie "Sicko."

This is immature, stupid, insensitive, and an insult to the people who have donated to this group, and to the rest of us who pay taxes and subsequently make their tax-exempt dealings possible. Because Michael Moore is a polarizing presence and a public figure (not to mention a white male--there's no chance Oprah or any other woman or minority that struggles with their weight ever receives this letter), PETA will get away with this, and some will actually praise them for their strident advocacy. But that doesn't make it right.

Non-profit tax-exempt status should not be used as an excuse for charities, no matter their missions, to execute personal and malicious attacks on individuals, or to belittle entire subsets of people, for the charity's personal PR gain. At Charity Navigator, we of course only evaluate groups on the basis of their financial health and fiscal efficiencies, and in this area, PETA is good, but not great. If you give them a dollar, they're generally going to spend it on their mission. I just wish their mission didn't include calling people "fat."

Wait for the Bad Guys to Call a Reporter?

Disagree with my plan to make IRS audits of charities more effective by simply starting with the police, firefighters, and veterans groups that have large telemarketing budgets, and see where that gets you? Based on this Boston Globe article, I'd already have caught one bad guy, a veterans group (in name, at least) that is lying, cheating, and stealing, and getting away with it.

The Veterans Charitable Foundation (sounds legit, right?) is calling donors and telling them that 100% of their donations will go to veterans. Yeah, 100% of whatever they have left, after they spend over 97% of the money they raise on professional telemarketers.

There are thousands of these groups, playing on people's patriotism and hiding behind the vagaries of the tax code and the state-driven system of charity regulation. The only reason these guys even ended up in the Boston Globe is because they had the misfortune to call an honest and dogged reporter named Bruce Mohl.

What we have here is a group based in Florida that is calling donors in Massachusetts but not Florida (to avoid prosecution in their own state), spending 3% of their budget on their programs, and actively lying to the people they're calling on the phone, and we as a nation can't do anything to stop them? They're preying on the donors who admire their cause and the legitimate recipients who could benefit from the money, if there was any money left over after the telemarketers and the charity charlatans divvied up their shares.

There has to be a better way.

Can I Buy My Staff Popsicles?

One of my readers asked me earlier this week for my thoughts on "how you think nonprofits should treat their hard-working employees while still using donated funds wisely and accountably?" Specifically, he or she wanted to know if I thought it was acceptable to spend donor funds on a cocktail reception for staff every once in a while, or even bring in an ice cream truck during the summer.

So, on a slow summer day, I do as requested, and offer up a quick take. I'm just another yodeler, taking requests and singing for my supper.

Basically, and this may surprise some of you, I think it's just fine. The strength of the non-profit sector is our people, and if we don't make them feel valued and respected, we'll lose them in the long run, and that's just bad business. The psychic pay from doing good work only gets us so far. We need to keep our good people, and keep them happy, so if a little ice cream every once in a while helps in that endeavor, I firmly believe that your employees' job satisfaction has a positive effect on the bottom line and subsequently helps the people who depend on your charity.

Now, there are of course two major caveats to this: 1) Your event has to pass the smell test. A cheap wine and cheese and cracker reception on company property is one thing. Taking your staff to Key West for golf, steaks, and booze cruises on the charity's dime (and time) is another. 2) Donor intent matters. The best case scenario is to get a board member or key funder to specifically foot the bill for your staff outing. Failing that, you must utilize general use funds, preferably generated from sources other than donations. You absolutely cannot use funds that you received as a result of a fundraising campaign in which you promised to spend the money that you raised on charitable recipients.

Here at Charity Navigator, we do all we can to keep our costs under control, but we do have a holiday dinner for staff, board, and significant others, and a smaller luncheon for staff only on Charity Navigator's birthday. And we get a specific board member to fund these activities. I'm sure my staff would appreciate (and they definitely deserve) a lot more, but that's about all I'm comfortable with, given our role as a charity watchdog.

The View From The IRS

As promised, I attended Lois Lerner's presentation at the AICPA conference on what is happening at the IRS regarding charity regulation, and of course, the details surrounding the new 990. To be honest, I didn't get a whole lot out of the 990 discussion, so I'll stick with my original thesis that it's a pretty good new form, and I'm still concerned that they're trying to please all people with their announcement that their three priorities with the new form are a) transparency, b) accountability, and c) to ease the reporting burden on charities. I love the first two goals, but you simply cannot have all three at the same time. If you want more transparency and accountability, you're going to have to demand more of charities. By saying upfront that one of their goals is to make reporting easier on charities, I have to question how serious they are about promoting transparency and accountability. But like I said, the document itself is a good one, and Charity Navigator plans to publicly announce our support for it in short time.

So what else is going on at the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS? Not a whole lot that will thrill donors, I'm afraid. A brief rundown of what I learned:

• The IRS is committed to making their determinations of tax-exempt status quicker for the vast majority of the groups that apply. They're very proud of this, but I'm no fan. There are too many groups as it is. I wish they'd slow down the influx, not make it easier. But that's clearly not where their priorities are.
  
• They've spent a lot of time looking at Executive Compensation ( a red herring issue if I've ever seen one) and they seem to believe that the general problem isn't that non-profit CEO compensation is too high, just that many groups aren't reporting it truthfully enough. So they're cracking down on the people who don't report it correctly, but not those who get paid too much.
  
• They're troubled by the number of 501 c3 groups that are engaged in inappropriate political activity. They surveyed groups (that were referred to them for potential political violations) in 2004 and found over 50% were abusing the laws, in activities ranging from displaying yard signs for candidates to campaigning from the pulpit to actually making campaign donations. So they ran a big public education campaign and surveyed the referred groups again in 2006. Despite it being a non-presidential election year, they still found over 50% of those groups engaged in political activity. Shocked by this continued illegal activity, the plan of the IRS is to wait until 2008, and see if it happens again.
  
• And they've instituted a new, complicated risk model for assessing potential charitable organization audits. It seems they've wasted a bunch of time and money in the past auditing groups that didn't warrant audits, so they've created a computer model driven by algorithms and regression analysis for identifying correlations between reporting data and actual improprieties, to see if they can devise a better system to identify those playing fast and loose with the rules and therefore worthy of an audit. I have a better idea. And it's a hell of a lot simpler. Go do audits of every group that claims to work on behalf of the police, firefighters, veterans, and sick kids, and has a large telemarketing budget. Sure, you'll unfairly pull in a few honest groups that don't deserve the scrutiny, but most you find will be lousy, and I suspect the good guys will endure the audit for a playing field that is subsequently cleared of the predatory outlaws.
  

I don't envy the folks at the IRS. They have an unbelievably difficult job. They have responsibility, but little authority, and a regulatory budget that hasn't changed much in the last 10 years, while the number of non-profits has doubled. They're out-manned and they're doing their best. But through no fault of their own, their best isn't good enough. Donors are on their own.

Give or Everyone on Earth Dies

I have a new winner in the "Most Alarmist and Hyperbolic Charity Slogan or Solicitation Contest." St. Jude's, which is generally a pretty good group (if a tad dramatic) is running print ads ( I saw it in Washingtonian Magazine) that ask "Can you imagine... a world without children?" And then answers that with "We Can't."

I had no idea that was our choice, a world without kids or gving to St. Jude's. But given those options, I guess I better go get my checkbook.

Pennsylvania Safe For Crooks Again

At the AICPA conference today in D.C., I heard some sad news, for those of us who care about charity regulation and reform. Karl Emerson, who has been Director of the Bureau of Charitable Organizations for the state of Pennsylvania for a dozen years, told me that he is hanging it up next week, and like most politicians eventually do, is headed to the private sector to make some money.

There really are only 5 or 6 state charity officials in this country who truly give a damn about getting the bad guys out of their state and protecting their residents from the predators and the scofflaws that abuse the public trust. Karl was one of those guys. He was tough, aggressive, fair, and "got it." He was also one of the first people of importance in this country to recognize the value of Charity Navigator, and welcomed us into the space with grace and respect.

There are unfortunately too many bad guys out there in the charitable world, although thanks to Karl, there are a lot less of them in Pennsylvania than there used to be. When Karl Emerson leaves the sector next week, we'll have lost one of the good guys.

High Impact Media

The natural nexus between CN and CNN started today with a special partnership, in which the television network (CNN) is working with the charity evaluator (CN) to make telling the news a more proactive experience for the network's viewers. Launching this morning with World Refugee Day, CNN (with CN's help) is creating a special new initiative called "Impact Your World" in which they will use their multiple media platforms to tell the story, and then direct viewers to their site to learn more about charities working to take action and provide solutions in the area covered in the story.

CNN is delivering the news and the site. We're providing the charities. Check it out. Learn. Act. What have you got to lose, except your excuses for not doing your part?

On The Road Again

I'm in Washington, DC for the AICPA Not-for-Profit Industry Conference. I'm speaking tomorrow morning. Ironically, my session immediately follows that of Lois Lerner of the IRS, in the same room. I've never met Ms. Lerner, but I did of course criticize her work in last Friday's New York Times.

Should make for a nice, comfortable transition. I'm not sure your average blogger, pontificating in his PJ's from his parents' basement, ever has this problem. In the interest of fairness, I plan on attending Ms. Lerner's presentation, and will share what I learn here tomorrow.

Walter Reed Rats Go South

In March of this year, in response to the Washington Post's expose of the inhuman living conditions at Walter Reed Hospital's Building 18, U.S. Congressman Phil Gingrey blamed the presence of rats and cockroaches on the soldiers leaving food out in their rooms.

I couldn't believe it when I heard it, and assumed that human decency would dictate that I wouldn't hear anything similar for a long time.

90 days later, in response to the New York Times's expose of the inhuman living conditions in a Florida housing development built by Habitat For Humanity, Habitat officials blamed the presence of rats and cockroaches on the new homeowners failing to do proper maintenance.

I had assumed that Representative Gingrey was still serving his constituents, but maybe he's moved on to do P.R. for the housing charity.

New 990 Longer Than Old 990

Stephanie Strom of the New York Times has a story today about what the IRS is calling "the biggest thing the tax-exempt division (the non-profit side) has done in the last quarter-century." The biggest thing? What could it be? Are they making it tougher to become a non-profit? Are they revoking the status of those that have abused the privilege? Are they mandating that the for-profits that are masquerading as non-profits now must pay taxes on their multi-million dollar revenues?

Nah, they're proposing changes to the 990, the informational tax return that all non-profits are forced to file. While the new form is actually pretty good, this is a sad indictment of our federal charity regulatory system, in that proposed wording changes to a tax document passes for the "biggest thing the agency has done in 25 years."

That being said, as I said before (and in the Times article), the proposed new form is progress, at least in its current form. (It's only a draft document, and it's fair to assume that after they get done listening to charities complain about the burdensome reporting requirements for the next year, the document will only get shorter. Ms. Strom of the Times told me yesterday that the largest group of people at the press conference for the announcement of the new form were attorneys for charities and their professional associations, presumably sharpening their razors and getting ready to carve the document back into a less onerous size).

But without regulatory enforcement on the back-end of this new document, for organizations that aren't playing by the rules, either in their actions or their reporting responsibilities, it's just another document. It means nothing without a fear of reprisal for the outlaws, and the IRS has no plans to expand their enforcement of non-profits, just what they ask of the groups under their purported jurisdiction. It's akin to making the application for admission to Harvard even longer, with more questions, but then letting everyone who completes the form, no matter what their answers are, be admitted to the school.

In the end, good charities will welcome the new form, and dutifully fill it out. Bad charities will ignore the new reporting requirements, or even worse, simply find that it takes a few more pages to acknowledge that they're violating the public trust, knowing that the IRS and Congress are virtually powerless to stop their shenanigans.

New Jersey's Real Mobsters

Exhibit #4672 in the case of "Yeah, charities are really unregulated and sometimes out of control, but that's nothing compared to foundations, where there appear to be no rules, no regulators, and no watchdogs:"

I give you (actually Harvy Lipman, formally of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, now of The Record of Bergen County, NJ gives you) Daniel Borislow and the foundation he created, the D & K Charitable Foundation.

Follow the money, here and sadly, it ain't hard to follow, and it ain't complicated. Mr. Borislow makes a ton of money in telecommunications. He sets up a foundation, and donates to it some of his money. He gets a huge tax write-off for that charitable gift. He then uses the foundation money, not to do much charity, but to pay himself a "salary" in the millions.

Tax fraud? Money laundering? Embezzlement even? Nope. Mr. Borislow has broken no laws in the state of New Jersey. How can that be? Hell, even I don't know. "That's the way it is with Jersey" is one answer. That'll suffice for those of you still upset about the way The Sopranos ended. But a more honest answer would be "That's the way it is with foundations."

Paris Hilton Should Have Robbed a Charity

A few months ago I whined ("pontificated" if you were my 11th grade English teacher, "advocated powerfully" if you were my mother) about the ridiculously light sentences usually meted out for those who steal from charities from the inside. As I wrote then:

"I wish our judges and prosecutors would take charity crime seriously and start sentencing the people who steal from charities, either from within or without, in a way that sends the message that this is a crime against humanity."

I thought I had seen the most egregious example of this when the two executives that ripped off the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in NY City for north of a million bucks were given probation, and ordered to pay back a grand total of $70K, but that was actually harsh justice compared to what came down recently in California.

In a crime that I believe to be unmatched in the history of American non-profits, Andrew Liersch reportedly stole $20 million from the Santa Clara, California branch of Goodwill that he served as CEO. Please read that again. $20 million. From Goodwill. By the charity CEO.

I've seen a lot of bad guys in this sector, and even I'm shocked by this. This crime was so heinous that one of his accomplices (another manager at the charity) killed herself when it came out that she was in on it!

But the crime is less shocking than the sentence. For stealing $20 million, from a freakin' Goodwill(!!!!!!), Mr. Liersch (who was caught after he fled to Guatemala!!!!!!!!!!I'm going to run out of exclamation points) was allowed to plead to a lesser charge and will do no prison time. He does have to pay back $540,000, which shouldn't be too much of a problem, since the money has already been seized by federal authorities from Mr. Liersch's off-shore secret account (insert your own exclamation points here).

This is a joke. Except it's not funny. It's off-the-charts disgusting. Go steal $20 from your local convenience store. If they catch you, you'll go to jail. But if you steal $20 million from the poorest people in your community, as long as you do it while you're the CEO of a tax-exempt taxpayer-subsidized non-profit, you'll get probation.

Justice.

Not here.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

I'm in Hershey, Pennsylvania until Wednesday. It's reputedly "the sweetest place on Earth" and I'll do my best not to disrupt the ecosystem that makes it so. Sadly, my purpose there doesn't involve chocolate production, or even consumption, but making a presentation to some of Pennsylvania's finest accountants. If you're in the area, stop on by. The rest of you, I'll be back soon.

We're Beholden to Logic Only

There’s a shrill little troll out there on the internet (I’m not going to link to him—it would give him some sort of legitimacy and if three of you actually clicked on the link, it would triple his web traffic and crash his home-made server) that is trying to impugn our credibility with one of the dumbest accusations I’ve ever heard. (And when you’re in the charity ratings business, you hear your share of accusations).

It goes like this: Because we allow charities to count in-kind contributions when we analyze their data, we must be in the back pocket of the pharmaceutical industry, since they make a lot of in-kind contributions (medicines, usually) and in this person’s eyes, pharmaceutical companies are all evil and trying to poison little children everywhere.

Yes, we count in-kind contributions (better known to normal people as gifts that are not cash) as both an input and an expense for the charities we rate. And yes, in some cases, that includes pharmaceuticals. Here’s what it also includes: food given to the hungry, computers given to schools, software, mini-vans donated to youth groups and the handicapped, books given to kids from low-income neighborhoods, coats for the homeless, work clothes like the kind Dress For Success gathers for women on welfare to wear on job interviews, etc. The list could go on and on. We count non-cash donations because that’s the currency most charities utilize and we follow the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, IRS guidelines, and industry standards for valuing those gifts.

Here’s who else counts in-kind contributions (and therefore must also be in the back pocket of Big Pharm): the IRS, every state attorney general, every reputable auditor in the country, every professional accounting association, every charity, and every donor I've ever met (when you donate your coat to Goodwill, you do get a receipt and write it off on your taxes, don't you?). All of these people, puppets of Johnson & Johnson apparently.

If we didn’t count in-kind contributions, it would be illogical and unethical, and would get us laughed out of the sector tomorrow. It's not proof that we're beholden to Pfizer, it's a sign that we're not insane haters of charities, donors, and common sense. Anyone who doesn't count in-kind contributions, or non-cash gifts, is either too dumb to understand charity accounting or too mean-spirited to be trusted. And then to slander those that do it the right way, well, that's just off the charts on the unconscionable scale.

Be careful of what you read out there on the web, especially if the site on which you find it is held together by twine and popsicle sticks and powered by a mouse on a bicycle.

Words are cheap. Data is power. And jealous lies get us nowhere. Donors deserve better.

Hate To Say We Told You So

No, really, I get no pleasure out of this, but we've been telling our users for years that the NAACP was in big trouble financially. Their administrative costs have long been out of control and they've been hemorrhaging money for at least three years. The big business CEO they brought in to right the ship had a few early successes, but when he became more "corporate" than "advocate", they fired him.

Today, we get word that the once-mighty civil rights group is laying off 40% of its headquarters staff (40%!--that's a blood-letting) and closing its 7 regional offices (that's 100% of them--they only have 7). It's almost hard to fathom, but this famous organization is just about bankrupt.

And I'm not optimistic they'll turn the corner. The vision thing seems a tad lacking still. When asked why they were struggling so much, their new president blamed not only the old president, but rising gas prices, and yes, the fact that people aren't giving as much money to the NAACP as they used to.

This is a sad situation for people who care about civil rights, and even those who love this country. We need the NAACP. But it's vindication for those of us who have cautioned for a long time that the sky was falling at the NAACP, due not to its mission or relevance in today's times, but to a maelstrom of mismanagement, lack of vision, lazy marketing, a refusal to self-reflect, and a board constantly at odds with senior staff leadership over not just the direction of the group, but the path to get there. The data was what it was, and it showed that this group was in trouble.

I just wish I felt better about us having been right.

No Check For You

Today’s tale of charity woe comes courtesy of Arnold Diaz, investigative reporter for Fox 5 New York (you can tell he’s a great investigative reporter by his mustache, all great investigative reporters sport a mustache). The star of the story is Al Yeganeh, the “Soup Man” from Seinfeld fame (he doesn’t like to be called that other name that rhymes with Yahtzee).

As part of the opening of every Soup Man franchise, Al donates to a local food bank through his Al Feeds the Hungry Foundation. At the opening of a franchise in Edison, New Jersey a press release indicated that the Soup Man’s charity would donate $1,500 to the Highland Park Food Pantry. After being presented with a giant novelty check for $1,000 signed by Reggie Jackson ($500 less than originally promised) the charity never received an actual check that they could use to help feed the hungry. After several calls to Bullseye Public Relations, the PR firm responsible for paying the food bank, the charity still did not receive their money. Finally, through the intervention of a TV news reporter, Highland Park Food Pantry did receive its check. Apparently, neither Al, the Soup Man, nor the Edison franchise owner knew about the problems getting the money to the charity, so the real villain here is Bullseye Public Relations. This has earned the PR firm a spot in the Fox 5 Hall of Shame and, also, a Special Place in Hell.

There are also some lessons to be leaned here for donors and charities alike:

1) Charities should be very careful of who they partner with before they allow a for-profit company to use their name.

2) Donors who choose to support a business or buy a product based in part on the company’s claim to help those in need, should look closely at where the money goes.

3) Apparently, banks will not cash giant novelty checks signed by Yankee greats.

This is a Hot Idea

Regular readers of this blog already know that the number of non-profits in this nation is exploding exponentially. Experts believe that we have 25-40% more non-profits today than we did just 10 years ago. One area, in particular, where we're seeing a multitude of new groups relates to climate change and global warming. Due to Al Gore's movie, the upcoming Live Earth concerts, and the ensuing national discussion, these climate crisis types of charity are the next new thing.

But you want to know how a problem like global warming really gets defeated? It's not by more groups fighting for the dollars, it's by more funders like the Gund Foundation. The Cleveland-based foundation announced recently that "all organizations that apply for funding will have to submit a climate change statement as part of their application." This means that anyone who wants money from the Gund Foundation, no matter what their program may be, will need to know what their carbon footprint is and have concrete plans in place to reduce it.

This is remarkable vision on the part of Gund, and a real-world demonstration of exactly how longterm sustainable global change takes place, when those with the money and the power decide to make it in their own best interest. The Gund Foundation has given out over $500 million during its existence and is not primarily focused on environmental causes (although they do give to some of those type of groups). Most of their giving has been within Cleveland, and they historically have supported education, arts, cultural, and human service groups.

But here, they've made a bold decision to try and have their cake and eat it too. They'll continue to fund the groups that do work with missions in which they believe, but they're going to insist that those that receive their funding honor their other commitment to reducing global climate change. If you want to play with the Gund Foundation's money, you're going to do it their way.

Your City's Charities

Last month's Special Events Study garnered a ton of attention. Some in the industry scoffed at our results (we found that for the most part, special events are a losing proposition for the majority of charities), but most of the skeptics turned out to be caterers, race planners, and t-shirt designers. Most of those that have intimate knowledge of the financial operations of smaller non-profits simply looked at us and nodded, silently but affirmatively.

We're back this month with another study, and unlike the special events study, this one is nothing new for us. It's our 5th Annual Metro Market Study, in which we look at the financial practices of the large charities in America's 30 largest cities, and see if a) differences exist between how charities operate from one city to another; and b) differences exist in the individual cities from year to year.

Some of the conclusions are not revolutionary. New York pays its charity CEOs more than any other city. The older, more-established Rust Belt cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh have more large well-established charities with huge asset banks. Fast-growing Phoenix has the fastest-growing charity market in the nation.

Other conclusions from the data aren't so obvious. Detroit's big charities are raising more in annual contributions than anyone else. Charities in Boston are more than twice as likely as those in Milwaukee to sell or trade their donors' names to other organizations. And Colorado Springs has more large religious charities than any other city in the nation.

It's a fun study. Check it out. It's here, and it's already being picked up in media markets nationwide. You can see some of the early coverage here, here, and here.