April 16, 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — It’s now official: Sonal Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, the search-engine company’s philanthropic arm, is head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation.
April 14, 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — Donations to 75 of the nation’s largest charities have fallen in the past year, adding to problems caused by a multi-year decline in the number of donors who give in response to direct-mail solicitations, online appeals, and telemarketing, according to a study released today.
April 10, 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy — A coalition of nonprofit groups is pressing the White House to relax rules that limit the ability of lobbyists to get appointed to jobs in the Obama administration, saying they should not apply to people who are working for the public welfare.
A majority of affluent Americans say their charitable giving would be unaffected by the elimination of federal tax provisions designed, in part, to encourage philanthropy, according to a new study by Bank of America and Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
As President Obama seeks to reduce the value of the charitable deduction for wealthy Americans, fund raisers and other nonprofit experts are divided over whether his idea would cause any substantial change in charitable giving.
The comedian Steve Martin used to do an amusing routine in the 1970s that ran something like this:
You can be a millionaire ... and never pay taxes! Yes, you can be a millionaire ... and never pay taxes! You say: "Steve ... how can I be a millionaire ... and never pay taxes?"
