News of Note from the Philanthropic World

from Fast Company:

How to Build A Better Nonprofit Board: It’s About the Board Chair

… the most important thing you can do to help build stronger boards is to position the right people as board chairs, and then give them your fullest support.

from Ken’s Commentary – Navigating Charities with the President of Charity Navigator:

Why Should Donors Care About Outcomes and Impact?

We announced in December of 2008 that it is our intention to modify our system of evaluating public charities to go beyond matters of financial health and assess the outcome indicators (and more broadly, the potential to create social value through high performance) of the nonprofits we look at. The reaction we have gotten to this goal has varied widely from thumbs up encouragement to mission impossible skepticism. We expected all of that and are up to the challenge, thanks to the help of many experts who have been working diligently in this area for years. However, one reaction we have gotten from a number of experts has baffled me, “What makes you think donors care about outcomes or impact?”

from The Daily Beast:

Gender Trouble at Nonprofits

Unequal pay for equal work. Patriarchal control and oversight. Those disparities, associated with gender discrimination in the home and workplace, also undermine the world of charity, whose workers are overwhelmingly female. Society has two rulebooks; one for charity and one for the rest of the economy. This apartheid discriminates against the nonprofit sector at every level.

from The Telegraph:

Charitable giving has no place in the bonus debate

Generosity doesn’t make bonuses smaller. Some critics of huge bank payouts apparently would go easier on recipients who give a chunk of their winnings to charity. But that’s muddying the issue. Charitable giving should be encouraged. But it has no place in the bonus debate.

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