Failing Well
Foundations need to make more of the right kinds of mistakes.
Viewpoint - Articles
Insights from the front lines (more)
Evaluation Blues
How accountability requirements hurt small, innovative programs the most.
Worst Practices of a Social Entrepreneur
You can learn more from your mistakes than from your successes. Paul Schmitz, president and CEO of Public Allies, gives a sampling of classic foibles of not only social entrepreneurs, but leaders in general.
Portfolio Philanthropy
To ensure that baby boomers' wealth does not fall short of its philanthropic potential, Randall Ottinger suggests applying portfolio theory to make wiser social investments.
Oil in Troubled Water
To enrich Africa, oil companies and NGOs must cooperate.
Robbing the Grandchildren
Human-caused climate change, sharply declining conventional energy sources, and population growth are threatening the very platform of human life. Yet only 5 percent of U.S. foundation spending goes to the environment, and a paltry 2.9 percent goes to science and technology.
Partners for the Planet
You know the world is changing when the largest corporate buy-out in history hinges on an environmental commitment. That’s what happened in February when two top private equity firms enlisted the help of Environmental Defense, a nonprofit that finds practical solutions to environmental problems, to acquire TXU Corp., the largest utility in Texas.
Laws, Not Lawyers
How states can protect nonprofit leaders and infuse more money into the sector.
Sound and Fury
Much public affairs lingo, such as "capacity," signifies nothing in particular. The nonprofit and public sectors have more than their share of this vocabulary. There are a handful of toxic words and phrases that have a way of polluting any stream of consciousness, muddying the concepts and making it impossible to see what facts and arguments (if any) lie below the surface.
Profiting From Failure
What nonprofits and donors can learn from the closing of a venture philanthropy firm.