This is quite a downer:\u00a0 according to Stern, charities are<\/em> failing, in multiple ways:<\/p>\n Their programs are ineffective.\u00a0 <\/strong>For instance,<\/p>\n There are countless \u201ccharities\u201d that aren\u2019t even charitable.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the case of hospitals, and likely other institutions, maybe even universities, too, they ought to by all rights be paying Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) in the same way as any profit-making venture of a charitable enterprise, but lobbyists have been too effective for this to happen.<\/p>\n Plus, of course, there are large numbers of charities that are outright frauds, with no other purpose than to enrich their founders.<\/p>\n People donate based on personal connections<\/strong>, for instance, a single starving child tugging at their heartstrings, rather than donating to causes\/organizations that are actually effective at what they do.\u00a0 <\/p>\n CEOs of charities\u2019 pay is escalating rapidly<\/strong>.\u00a0 In some cases they deserve it for their management skill.\u00a0 Usually they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n The bright points:<\/p>\n Stern highlights some charities which are actively attempting to truly be well-managed, and to choose their programs and services based on authentic research of what\u2019s actually effective.\u00a0 And he points to key organizations which are attempting to research effectiveness rather than give based on sentiment:\u00a0 GiveWell<\/a> and New Profit<\/a> and the Gates and Robin Hood Foundations receive particular mention.\u00a0 Stern\u2019s hope is that these and similar \u201ccharitable mutual funds\u201d will grow and more people will turn to research for their charitable \u201cinvestments\u201d in the same way as they do for their personal investing, and his \u201cinterim recommendation\u201d is that one look to the causes these organizations donate to in order to get ideas of vetted charities.<\/p>\n He also recommends (though without a clear line of sight on how to get there) that the IRS be more tight-fisted with its charitable exemption approval, and that a renewal process be implemented, to require charities to prove that they continue to be charitable.<\/p>\n So what do you do?\u00a0 And how, if at all, would you change the laws around charities and tax-exemption in the United States?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is quite a downer:\u00a0 according to Stern, charities are failing, in multiple ways: Their programs are ineffective.\u00a0 For instance, multiple charities promise to deliver water to Africa by drilling wells.\u00a0 But they don\u2019t spend any time ensuring those wells are maintained over time, or that the well is constructed in such a way that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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