No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

“Are some charities more worthy than others? This seems to be the implication of a bill before the state Legislature that would require philanthropic foundations to document the so-called diversity of the charities they support. The inference is that the more diverse a charity’s board of directors and staff, the more worthy it is of philanthropic funding.

As a private foundation, Koret seeks to maximize our impact in achieving the philanthropic goals developed by our board of directors. We look for nonprofit partners who will produce the most positive impact in carrying out our initiatives, whether in the area of K-12 education reform, arts and culture, or strengthening organizations that serve the Jewish and general communities.”

So writes Jeffrey A. Farber, CEO of the San Francisco based Koret Foundation, in the San Francisco Chronicle concerning a bill moving through the California Legislature. Many of us know the Foundation as a funder of projects both here in Israel and the American Jewish community.

The bill, AB624, requires every private, corporate, and operating foundation with assets over $250 million to collect and publicly disclose certain ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation data pertaining to its governance, operations, and grantmaking. Such data would be required with respect to composition of the foundation’s board, its staff, its grantees, and even its vendors.

Read from from the Nonprofit Law Blog here and the complete Chronicle article here.