Spring 2015 – Digital Issue

Inequality's Tipping Point & The Pivotal Role of Nonprofits

Features

• Welcome
  
  
• The Nonprofit Ethicist
  From confusions around duty of loyalty to the advisability (or not) of regifting gifts in kind, there is no complicated situation that the Nonprofit Ethicist cannot untangle. by Woods Bowman
  
  
• Inequality’s Dead End—And the Possibility of a New, Long-Term Direction
  Life in the United States grows ever more unequal; as the author contends, “self-evidently either a new direction anchored in a different power base will be built or there will simply be no way forward.” Are we ready for what looks to be the beginning of a very long struggle to reverse the deepening inequality? by Gar Alperovitz
  
  
• Not Adding to the Problem: Seven Ways Your Nonprofit Can Avoid Mirroring Practices That Perpetuate Inequality
  This article outlines seven things your organization can do to avoid mirroring the problems of inequality in the larger culture. by Jon Pratt and Ruth McCambridge
  
  
• The Culture of Inequality
  Here Susan Nall Bales, founder of the FrameWorks Institute, explains what exactly is culture and how it affects how we think about inequality. FrameWorks was just named recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative & Effective Institutions. by Susan Nall Bales
  
  
• From a Tangle of Pathology to a Race-Fair America
  In this article that looks at the post racialist stance on the status quo, the authors ask, “Has America really transcended the racial divide, and can the enormous racial wealth gap be explained on the basis of dysfunctional behaviors?” by Alan Aja, Daniel Bustillo, William Darity, Jr., and Darrick Hamilton
  
  
• Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America
  This article, originally published by the Urban Institute, presents nine charts illustrating why it is that wealth inequality, in particular as it pertains to race, persists in the United States. by Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, and C. Eugene Steuerle
  
  
• Do the Fruits of Philanthropy Now Fall Closer Than Ever to the Tree?
  As wealth becomes more stratified, giving goes up—but more of it is being directed by the highest-level givers. What does this mean for democracy? by the editors
  
  
• Philanthropy’s Misguided Ideas for Fixing Ghetto Poverty: The Limits of Free Markets and Place-Based Initiatives
  In this exegesis of the history of unequal distribution of wealth in the United States and globally, the author lays out the problems with mainstream philanthropy’s geographic approach to addressing inequality. by Peter Dreier
  
  
• Is Your Board “Normal”? BoardSource’s 2014 Nonprofit Governance Index
  BoardSource offers their Governance Index for 2014 to help you determine how your board fits in. But is fitting in what you want? by Ruth McCambridge
  
  
• Inequality and Space: Mapping the Geography of Human Services
  This article outlines current and future problems stemming from the trend toward privatization of public services. by Brent Never

Departments

• Dr. Conflict
  When a new hire gets caught between the longstanding CEO and an overly involved board chair (and must manage a resentful staff, to boot), misery ensues. by Mark Light, MBA, PhD
  
  
• How Philanthropy Props Up Public Services and Why We Should Care
  Should we welcome or should we curtail the efforts of private donors to support public services? by Beth Gazley
  
  
• Disrupting the Dominant Frame: An Interview with Susan Nall Bales of the FrameWorks Institute, 2015 MACEI Award Winner
  WARNING: This interview contains powerful metaphors and insights into social-issue communication. The FrameWorks Institute wins the MacArthur Award for Creative & Effective Institutions.
  
  
• How Board Members Can Learn to Spot Red Flags
  Why is it that boards so often miss what in hindsight look like obvious red flags along the way to an organization’s financial collapse? This article, adapted from the third in a series of blog posts by the author, explains. by Kate Barr

Satire

• 2015 “Selfie Awards” Salute Philanthropic Narcissism (Recipients Boycott Ceremony . . . but Need Not Be Present to Win)
  When a renegade philanthropic group decides to upstage the annual conference of the Council of Large Foundations with its first “Selfie Awards,” the Association of Large Foundations decides to battle it out with the upstarts, “statuette to statuette.” by Phil Anthrop