The Foundation: A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World

Book Description

Foundations are a peculiarly American institution. They have been the dynamo of social change since their invention at the beginning of the last century. Yet they are cloaked in secrecy- their decision-making and operations are inscrutable to the point of obscurity-leaving them substantially unaccountable to anyone.

Joel Fleishman has been in and around foundations for almost half a century...running them, sitting on their boards, and seeking grants from them. And in this groundbreaking book he explains the history of foundations, tells the stories of the most successful foundation initiatives-and of those that have failed-and explains why it matters.

The baby boomer generation is going to participate in the largest transfer of wealth in history when it passes on its assets to its successor generation. The third sector is about to become more powerful than ever. This book shows how foundations can provide a vital spur to the engine of the American, and the world's, economy-if they are properly established and run.

Customer Reviews:

Examining a Big but Little Known Area.......2007-03-09

Foundations are a subset of Non-Profit organizations that have become surprisingly big busines in the United States. Somewhere around 1/7th of the business in the country is conducted by these organizations. Somewhere around 1/9th of the workforce is employed by one. They have become an integral part of the American economy.

In this book Mr. Fleishman looks at Foundations (a number of which he has been associated as employee, trustee or some other capacity). He examines what makes a foundation successful, and how some have failed. He offers insight and advice on how to make a foundation more successful, and at the same time how foundations should have an obligation to become more accountable since they received special tax considerations from the Government. He suggests that this accountability should be done by the foundations voluntarily. However, Mr. Fleishman is an attorney and believes that if voluntary response is not forthcoming then new legal requirements should be placed upon them to require more openness.

Deserves serious reading from people who want to make a difference........2007-02-06

Joel Fleishman's book lays an excellent bedrock of history underneath its discussion of philanthropy as a great element of American tradition. We live in days of some staggering examples - from Warren Buffet's living bequest of billions, to the fine work of Bill and Melinda Gates - and many others. But rather than see this as some product of the new millennium - Fleishman shows how the new avatars of corporate generosity are following a fine tradition. More than this, the author shows that certain gifting strategies have been leveraged for huge social benefit. For those who are thinking - at whatever scale - of giving to support a cause, this book sets out the strategies that have produced most benefit. This is an excellent, thoughtful piece of work on a topic that currently has wide currency. Well worth reading.

American Foundations: An Investigative History

Average customer rating:

Strong on the politics of philanthropy, weak on economics...
Foundations in Cross Examination
Foundations in Cross Examination
One of our best journalists does it again

American Foundations: An Investigative History
Mark Dowie
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262041898

Book Description

In American Foundations, Mark Dowie argues that organized philanthropy is on the verge of an evolutionary shift that will transform America's nearly 50,000 foundations from covert arbiters of knowledge and culture to overt mediators of public policy and aggressive creators of new orthodoxy. He questions the wisdom of placing so much power at the disposal of nondemocratic institutions.

As American wealth expands, old foundations such as Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Pew, and MacArthur have grown exponentially, while newer trusts such as Mott, Johnson, Packard, Kellogg, Hughes, Annenberg, Hewlett, Duke, and Gates have surpassed them. Foundation assets now total close to $400 billion. Though this is a tiny sum compared to corporate and government treasuries, and foundation grants still total less than 10 percent of contributions made by individuals, foundations have power and influence far beyond their wealth. Their influence derives from the conditional nature of their grant making, their power from its leverage.

Unlike previous historians of philanthropy who have focused primarily on the grant maker, Dowie examines foundations from the public's perspective. He focuses on eight key areas in which foundations operate: education, science, health, environment, food, energy, art, and human services. He also looks at their imagination, or lack thereof, and at the strained relationship between American foundations and American democracy.

Dowie believes that foundations deserve to exist and that they can assume an increasingly vital role in American society, but only if they transform themselves from private to essentially public institutions. The reforms he proposes to make foundations more responsive to pressing social problems and more accountable to the public will almost certainly start an important national debate.

Customer Reviews:

Strong on the politics of philanthropy, weak on economics..........2003-12-31

This was an excellent book on how foundations spend their money. But as the author points out, they distribute only about 5% of their assets per year. As a reader, I wanted a more searching analysis on many interesting economic issues raised by the other 95% of foundations' money.

There is little on the tax aspects of foundations. Namely, I would be interested in reading about the policy consequences of allowing large pools of capital to aggregate in perpetuity. Readers need some statistics on the cost of this tax exemption to government revenue and, by inference, to taxpayers-at-large. The author could have collated the data from public records filed with the IRS. IRS mandates that foundations file financial disclosure forms each year (unfortunately, many fail to comply).

There are only a few pages in an appendix on foundations' impact on capital markets. Where and how they invest their endowments? Do their trustees sit on corporate boards and, if so, how does the presence of these trustees affect corporate decision-making? Are the assets held offshore? What institutions invest the assets on behalf of the trustees of the foundations? How well do the trustees perform? The answers are of considerable importance as some of the larger endowments rival in size mutual funds and pension funds.

There is little on the legal framework within which foundations are created and operate. This is a key failing. If the author were familiar with the Statute of Elizabeth, adopted by virtually every common law jurisdiction, he would understand why foundations do not contribute to political activists. Political activities - defined by the Internal Revenue Code as the funding of electoral campaigns of individuals or parties and as exercising direct influence on the legislative process - would cost foundations their charitable status. They would be subject to taxation, which would rapidly erode their capital and force them to divert resources toward fundraising. The author repeatedly criticizes the restraint of the trustees. Much of this restraint is the product of fiduciary obligations imposed upon the trustees by law.

I would like to know more about the background of trustees. Where are these people from? where are they educated/trained? What about their attitudes to American society? Why did they join a foundation as opposed to government or the private sector?

One last complaint: the book focuses primarily on a handful of older, well-known foundations (Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) at expense of the tens of thousands of small family foundations.

Foundations in Cross Examination.......2001-12-20

(Foundations&Phil\Dowie-amazon Book Review) Dec. 19, 2001

There are over 50,000 foundations in the U.S. today. With $448 billion in assets (1999), foundations are an unbelievably huge philanthropic industry compared to almost 40 years ago, when the federal government launched its War on Poverty. Foundations' assets then were well under $30 billion.

Mark Dowie, author of American Foundations: An Investigative History (MIT Press, 2001), does not blanche in analyzing this industry, despite its diversity and differences in grant making and style of operating. Dowie sets an ambitious agenda. He reviews foundation funding of education, science, health, environment, food, energy, art, civil society, democracy and imagination! He is an accomplished writer with16 journalist awards and five books to his credit.
Perhaps consumer activist and Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader suggests best why this book should be read by those involved with the foundation world either as a staff member, trustee, grantseeker or academician. Dowie, says Nader, "is a scholar and a muckraker," who analyzes "foundations' past achievements and failures and then critically [takes] the institutions to task for directing their grants so often away from ?root causes.' Dowie shakes up the complacency, myopia, and insulation of [the] giant foundations by naming names and places."

Dowie clearly raises the most important questions about foundations' performance, and offers thoughtful, usually balanced answers that certainly pull no punches. As the longtime director of a national watchdog nonprofit organization charged with monitoring and redirecting foundations' grantmaking toward the disadvantaged and disenfranchised in the USA, I believe this study is both highly readable and extremely informative.

Education receives the largest share of foundation grants. Dowie observes that "Foundation trustees...seem to favor the spawning of an elite intellectual force over the principle of equal educational opportunity...The great preponderance of educational grants...have found their way to institutions of higher education where scientists and other experts are educated." Recently, however, more foundation money has been poured into reform of primary and secondary education, especially inner city schools. This money was stimulated by Walter Annenberg's $500 million challenge grant in 1993. Dowie applauds this trend. Nevertheless, he raises the question: Can such money ever change the entrenched public education monopoly to enable it to do significantly better educating poor and poorly prepared students? Maybe the foundations should "also be funding community organizations that demand more of public schools..."

"American foundations' second largest area of grantmaking is health." Dowie concludes that "foundations' enthusiasm for high-tech diagnostic systems, pharmacology, and the disease model of medicine has not only inhibited the development of preventative and holistic approaches but has also retarded public health and fostered the evolution of an essentially unjust health care system...Until quite recently the public health effects of environmental pollution have been virtually ignored by the large foundations."

More generally, beyond specific subject areas, Dowie identifies proactive philanthropy for criticism: "...when proactive philanthropy is pursued without the participation of the people most affected by it" serious problems result.

The 50-year Green Revolution is often touted as one of the foundation world's greatest achievements. Dowie acknowledges its success in significantly raising food production per acre in the developing world. But he goes on to challenge its social, economic and environmental consequences for the peasant-farmers and the urban poor. Unfettered scientific experimentalism in increasing crop yields, supported by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, with little heed to culture, economics and sustainability, meant the rich got richer and the poor poorer, with 800 million people still hungry in the world.

The Energy Foundation was created in 1991 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, MacArthur and the Rockefeller Foundations "to assist the nation's transition to a sustainable energy future by promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy." This was a major proactive foundation initiative to do what the environmental movement was not perceived to be doing. Dowie records the positive accomplishments of the Energy Foundation, but worries that "concentrating so much leverage in one funding body could create serious power problems, as well as an orthodoxy, that, if misguided, would be difficult to challenge." And, in the end, he identifies how the Energy Foundation gave its largest grants to environmental legal organizations which were "agents of capitulation...deferring to free market arguments," while "throwing mere crumbs to energy visionaries, renewable activists, and consumer advocates."

Dowie's investigation into American foundations is not all negative. The author identifies several individual philanthropists as possible harbingers of "a new and imaginative era of philanthropy." In fact, the author seems mesmerized by the big money and big ideas of these individuals.

He singles out Irene Diamond, Ted Turner, Walter Annenberg and George Soros as "venturesome" philanthropists -- because they "imagined, respectively, worlds without AIDS, without strife, without ignorance, and without tyrants, then made massive and immediate financial efforts to make those worlds real"

The author acknowledges that it is an uphill battle for these individuals to be creators of "a new and imaginative era of philanthropy." He observes, "If historical precedent were to hold, foundations would [take] courses [that] would be safe and uncontroversial."

On the war of political ideas and foundations, Dowie writes, "During the last twenty years of the twentieth century, it was conservatives who prevailed.., financed the Reagan revolution, and provisioned the Republican recapture of Congress. A dozen or so medium-sized, uncharacteristically patient foundations can take a good deal of credit for the rise and endurance of America's conservative revolution...More recently, following this bold twenty-five-year foray into public policy by right-wing foundations, the Left has stepped timidly into the fray with a few programs in economic and political justice. Will mainstream foundations, too, learn from the conservative foundations' triumph of leveraged influence? Or will they continue their minimal, unimaginative funding of safe and soft institutions proposing weak, incremental solutions to urgent and undeniable crises?"

"Brilliant and constructive as some of their work has been," writes Dowie, "much of it has also been fruitless, uninspired, and designed to do little more than perpetuate the economic and social systems that allow foundations to exist."

He explicitly faults foundations for not doing enough for social movements which they have aided: "With the single exception of civil rights, foundation interests in America's signature social movements ? for women's rights, peace, environment, environmental justice, students, gay liberation, and particularly labor ? [have] been parsimonious, hesitant, late, and at times counterproductive...In any case, all foundation support for social movements...remains small potatoes any way it's measured."

In summation, Dowie argues that "Those empowered to make grants should not assume that they have the wisdom to solve such serious problems simply because they control the money." As a student of philanthropy and seeker of foundation largesse for the past 30 years, I can only say, "Amen!"

Foundations in Cross Examination.......2001-12-20

One of our best journalists does it again.......2001-06-29

You simply cannot understand the social and political order in the United States without reading this book. Dowie is at the top of his game here, and that says a lot since he is arguably America's best left-leaning investigative journalist. Some people slow down in their 60s, but Dowie is picking up his pace. He has the wisdom and perspective and gonads to speak it like it is, picking apart the influence of wealthy foundations in helping, and mostly hurting, the cause for social, political and economic democracy and environmental sustainability. Too bad he left out an analysis of foundations and their impact on the worsening state of US media, but maybe that's the next book. This is a great follow-up to Losing Ground, his brilliant critique of the failures of US environmentalism.

The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, 7th Edition

Average customer rating:

An excellent technical resource
Very comprehensive "hornbook."
The single most important treatise on the law of nonprofits

The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, 7th Edition
Bruce R. Hopkins
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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650 Essential Nonprofit Law Questions Answered
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ASIN: 0471196290

Book Description

Nonprofit organizations face a special set of rules governing everything from how they charter their organization, to their methods of measuring unrelated business income, and how they lobby (and if, in fact, they should continue to be allowed to lobby).

Nonprofit lawyers, accountants, and directors need an easy-to-use reference work in understandable language to help them comprehend the issues and make informed decisions.

This core volume (ISBN 0471-196290) is supplemented annually.

The 2002 Cumulative Supplement (ISBN 0471-443425)includes:

New information on: relief of the poor, constitutional law framework, business leagues, public use of facilities, taxation of social clubs, and the sale of club assets.
New and revised sections on Internet activities, ancillary joint ventures, and state action doctrine.

This supplement updates the core volume, Hopkins/The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, 7th Edition (ISBN 0471-196290).

Customer Reviews:

An excellent technical resource.......2001-04-26

The nonprofit sector is a huge part of the American economy. Nonprofits range from multinationals to your local little league. While, technically, the same body of tax laws applies to all of them, the level of sophistication varies as dramatically as the size of the nonprofit. And while the big nonprofits can afford to buy expertise, smaller nonprofits have to manage more of the tasks themselves. This book can help.

Hopkins' book is an excellent reference for attorneys and accounts and nonprofit executives with some knowledge of nonprofit tax laws work. It's not likely to be useful to and it's not written for the average volunteer. This is a fairly technical resource, and while nonprofit tax law gets a lot more complicated than Hopkins, this is a very good middle-level resource.

If I have any criticism of Hopkins it's this: in recent editions he has removed important subjects from this reference and spun them off into separate books at equally high prices. Most of the treatment of charitable donations, for example, is now in a different book. Private foundations are now in a different book. Excess benefits transactions are in a different book. You can spend a ton of money on Professor Hopkins. It costs him one star in my rating.

Even so, as a basic entry point, this book is indispensable. I've attended seminars by Prof. Hopkins and read most his books, and he is very knowledgeable and does a good job at the difficult task of translating IRS-speak into comprehensible language. This book should be a part of every nonprofit lawyer and accountant's library.

Very comprehensive "hornbook.".......1999-08-13

In mid-1999 I read this treatise in conjunction with the author's one day course on the Law of Tax Exempt Organizations. The book is essentially a "hornbook:" a summary of law geared towards lawyers and accountants, rather than the casual reader. It would be especially helpful for lawyers and accountants in outside firms who counsel a variety of different tax exempt organizations and are confronted with questions of how to structure an organization or several related organizations. The material is valuable but no easy slogging, so if you can take the course (which in mid-1999 was approx. $230 and included the book), it would be worth the extra $70 or so.

The single most important treatise on the law of nonprofits.......1998-06-09

US nonprofit boards, officers, senior managers, and funddevelopment professionals have enough to contend with without alsoracing to keep pace with the accelerating changes in the multi-faceted law of tax-exempt organizations.

As with his prior editions, Hopkins has managed to address, within the covers of a single volume well, actually, he added another book to more fully cover private foundations!

Book Description

The fascinating story of the life and times of Robert Wood Johnson, a creative and dynamic leader who put the public trust before profit. He made Johnson & Johnson one of the world's great companies, then left his fortune to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve health care in America.

Customer Reviews:

A Joy to Read.......2000-03-17

The impact of the Johnson family -- and particularly the "gentleman rebel" at the center of Larry Foster's book -- on the community, the health care industry and society at large has been documented in a way that is illuminating, satisfying and inspiring. Attention to detail, the providing of context and respect for the subject, along with graceful writing, make this book a joy to read.

THE THOUGHTFUL REBEL.......2000-01-19

The usual authorized biography is worthy but not worthwhile; the author has traded access for freedom to write what he damned well pleases. In this case, Foster, though not writing an "approved" or subsidized book, has given up nothing -- he knew and genuinely liked his subject, despite having worked for him. Robert Wood Johnson, NOT the Johnson who just bought himself a professional foootball team, was both a gentleman and a rebel but he did establish for one of the premier American companies a credo which helped to build it and, even after his death, to keep it on the right course during the Tylenol crisis, a triumph of responsible capitalism -- and not incidentally of well-handled public relations . The author minimizes his own role in handling this potentially widespread and dangerous situation. The book is rare in its genre -- well written, humane, interesting, and valuable to anyone interested in top drawer American companies, the economy, public health, public service, the lives of the rich, and more.

Splendid Legacy: The Guide to Creating Your Family Foundation

Average customer rating:

WHAT A WONDERFUL TOOL

Splendid Legacy: The Guide to Creating Your Family Foundation
National Center for Family Philanthropy (U. S.)
Manufacturer: National Center for Family Philanthropy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Creating a Private Foundation: The Essential Guide for Donors and Their Advisers
Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan, 2nd Edition
The Legal Answer Book for Private Foundation
The Handbook on Private Foundations, Third Edition
The Foundation: A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World

ASIN: 1929455062

Book Description

The first and only comprehensive guide designed especially for donors and families who are starting family foundations is now available from the National Center for Family Philanthropy. Splendid Legacy: The Guide to Creating Your Family Foundation helps donors, families, and their advisors create a detailed blueprint for their family foundations to fulfill their hopes and goals.

If you have recently started a family foundation, are seriously considering starting one, or are seeking to renew the mission, programming, and administration of your family foundation, Splendid Legacy is for you.

Splendid Legacy is the only resource guide that…

Is designed specifically to meet the needs of the founders of family foundations.

Addresses the full range of considerations in starting a family foundation, including values, mission, hopes for family involvement, governance, legal issues, ethics, funding the foundation, grantmaking, communications, investments, and management.

Offers dozens of stories and vignettes from the experiences of family foundations to illustrate how family considerations affect key decisions.

Splendid Legacy helps you translate the passions values, and dreams for your philanthropy and your family's participation into a comprehensive and practical action plan for setting up the foundation. The combination of the personal and practical makes this guidebook most unique and most relevant to the needs and aspirations of giving families.

Dozens of charts, checklists, and pull-quotes throughout make Splendid Legacy inviting and easy to read. The guide is 258 pages and includes a comprehensive glossary, sample policies and forms, and list of resources.

Customer Reviews:

WHAT A WONDERFUL TOOL.......2002-10-02

This book is a wonderful tool for any trustee whether new or seasoned.!!!

It is splendidly laid out and easy to navigate.

Every possible problem has been addressed and solved for the family planning to start a new foundation.

Along with that, there is information that can vastly enhance those who are newly appointed to longstanding boards of old established family foundations.

I was very impressed with this book and plan to suggest our foundation buy copies for all board members, associates and staff members.

Best regards,

Bonnie

Book Description

A must-have guide that enables managers and trustees of private foundations, as well as their lawyers and accountants, to successfully navigate today's increasingly complex tax laws and reporting requirements

Private foundations are the most regulated of nonprofit organizations. Burdened with laws written over thirty years ago, which have become more complex and intricate, private foundations are forced to operate in a harsh legal environment. An operational or reporting mistake, no matter how innocent or inadvertent, can lead to immense tax and other penalties.

To reap the charitable, tax, and other economic advantages of private foundations while avoiding the perils lurking in the myriad of tax-law traps, you must be fully informed about the basic legal requirements and the many subtleties and current developments affecting private foundations.

Written by two of today's leading authorities on the laws regulating private foundations, The Legal Answer Book for Private Foundations provides this critical information in an efficient and comprehensible fashion. In clear, easy-to-understand language, the authors provide expert guidance on everything from how to set up a private foundation to how assets are invested, how funds are distributed to grantees, and how to avoid self-dealing.

You'll find answers to such critical questions as:

What are the legal definitions of private foundation and public charity, and what constitutes a disqualified person?
Just what are the private foundation rules and what are the penalties for violating them?
What assets are involved in the calculations of the mandatory payout requirement?
How are self-dealing rules avoided?
What is an excess business holding?
Do foundations have to file annual returns with the IRS?
What are the alternatives to private foundations?

Book Description

There are over half a million high-net-worth individuals in the United States. Already 5 percent of them have private foundations, and interest in setting up charitable organizations is on the rise--due to the estate and tax-planning advantages offered by foundations and the growing desire of many to give back to the community. Creating a Private Foundation is a straightforward and authoritative guide for individuals and families looking at the pluses and minuses of creating a foundation, as well as for the advisers who serve these high-net-worth clients. It explains the reasons for establishing a foundation, the steps for setting one up, and tips for avoiding common pitfalls. Author Roger Silk covers the ins and outs of private foundations from the perspective of both philanthropists and the professionals who work with them.

Customer Reviews:

private foundation fundamentals.......2006-03-09

The book is more for donors than advisors. I does not provide enough of the necessary essential legally technical information.

Useful Primer.......2003-11-01

Unwitting new philantrophists sometimes end up with bureaucratic creatures that do exactly what the donor did not want. This book is full of practical advice on how to avoid unpleasant surprises if you set up a foundation of your own, such as finding out that you have no control over its activities.

It also gives a succinct review of investment problems. Foundations can potentially last for many generations. But they can easily mismanage themselves into oblivion in short order. The authors identify seven deadly investment sins.

For example, foundations don't need to frequently redeem their investments, but some mistakenly invest in liquid assets and lose returns as a result. They would be better off with non-traditional investments like private-equity, income producing real estate, hedge funds, and timber.

Many foundations fail to diversify, unwittingly taking on risk. THey start with stock from the founder's company and continue to hold a concentrated position, exposing themselves to the vagaries of that business. In 2002 the David and Lucille Packard Foundation was forced to cut its donations drastically when Hewlett-Packard stock fell.

IN short, an easy-to-read, useful guide.

Creating Private Foundation.......2003-06-16

A great great book to give to your existing Private Foundation clients, as well as those considering their options. The book hits on several key points among many others - which are the reason to formalize your investment policy statement(IPS) and donor intent issues. The author is correct that too often good intentions fail to result in effective results. It deals with other vehicles like charitable lead trusts (CLTs) and charitable remainder trusts (CRTs) as well as donor advised and support organizations. It is a big picture book not a technical how to for the attorney!

Foundations and Evaluation: Contexts and Practices for Effective Philanthropy

Average customer rating:

An excellent resource!

Foundations and Evaluation: Contexts and Practices for Effective Philanthropy

Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
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Binding: Hardcover

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Branding for Nonprofits

ASIN: 0787970778

Book Description

“Gathered together in this unique book on evaluation and effective foundation practice are the experienced-based perspectives and measured insights of both seasoned practitioners and key philanthropic thought leaders. Foundations and Evaluation is a substantial think piece for grantmakers of any size.”--Dorothy S. Ridings, president and CEO, Council on Foundations

“Foundations and Evaluation explores the intersection between organizational effectiveness and evaluation and demonstrates the need for commitment to evaluation throughout the foundation. . . . A good read for both newcomers to evaluation and those with more experience, written by some of the most highly respected leaders in the field.”--Kathleen P. Enright, executive director, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Download Description

Gathered together in this unique book on evaluation and effective foundation practice are the experienced-based perspectives and measured insights of both seasoned practitioners and key philanthropic thought leaders. Foundations and Evaluation is a substantial think piece for grantmakers of any size;--Dorothy S. Ridings, president and CEO, Council on Foundations

Foundations and Evaluation explores the intersection between organizational effectiveness and evaluation and demonstrates the need for commitment to evaluation throughout the foundation. . . . A good read for both newcomers to evaluation and those with more experience, written by some of the most highly respected leaders in the field.;--Kathleen P. Enright, executive director, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Customer Reviews:

An excellent resource!.......2004-09-15

As a nonprofit fundraiser/trainer, I often advise clients and students to include an evaluation component in their grant proposals. Sometimes it is hard to see the value of this expenditure, and nonprofit clients especially tend to see as a diversion of funds from their "real" work. This book goes a long way to answering these questions, for funders and grantees alike. The four short essays by prominent foundation presidents who have embraced evaluation in various ways provide a fascinating peek into foundation executive thinking and action. In particular, the perspective by Hodding Carter III provides a dose of reality and fortitude, in a vibrant writing style that's sure to entertain as well as inform. The first of two sections of chapters addresses foundations as a unique context for evaluation, with several forays into critical issues, including a history of foundations' use of evaluation, challenges in foundations' use of evaluation, foundation-grantee relationships, etc. The second set of chapters is more applied, including practical and non-technical coverage of making judgments about what to evaluate, adapting evaluation to foundations, evaluation for small foundations, evaluative thinking for grantees, appraising program effectiveness evidence, and communicating results to different audiences. All of these chapters should appeal to evaluators and evaluation users alike. Overall, the book is well edited, the writing is non-technical and quite accessible, and the range of topics is exciting. A book like this has been long overdue.

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