During the past 15 years, I’ve spent a lot of time (some might say an unusual amount, even) thinking about the importance of gathering and responding to feedback from the people social sector programs are designed to help.
Everyone in the United States plays a race or ethnic card at some point, or at least everyone who responds to the decennial census. Despite the scientific consensus that race is an artificial social construct, unmoored from biological reality, is there a box that best describes you?
Whether you plan to respond to the census online, in writing, or by telephone, one question you'll be asked to answer is how, racially speaking, you self-identify. What follows are answers to some frequently asked questions to help guide you through the process.
Philanthropic investment in the public system through the social sector can enable statewide systems change. Here is the story of how one initiative transformed access to public higher education for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Californians.
We all know the charitable deduction works. It encourages Americans to give more money away than they might otherwise give. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have it, or many other tax incentives for that matter.
Deductions and taxes are used, at all levels of government, to encourage behavior we want more of in society and discourage behavior we want less of. We have the mortgage interest deduction to encourage homeownership, and we have sin taxes to discourage consumption of substances deemed harmful, like alcohol or tobacco.
Global development funders pour millions of dollars every year into various forms of learning — from disseminating insights and lessons learned to reflecting and acting on program outcomes to using knowledge to improve decision-making. But, based on what we’ve seen, many of the smartest, most creative, and most successful organizations in the social impact space are hindered by poor learning systems. This means that they are failing to reach their potential in terms of performance and impact, and that they are limited in their ability to evolve or pivot in response to challenges they face.
As we close out 2019 and head into a new decade, it’s time to reflect on what happened this year in the field of corporate social responsibility.
Lawmakers came to an agreement yesterday on a tax bill that includes the simplification of the private foundation excise tax. The provision is from the Private Foundation Excise Tax Simplification Act, H.R. 4953.
The United States can restore the trust that allows civil society to flourish by emphasizing the values that have long bound us together and by adopting the newer values of shared power and racial equity.
Housing advocates in Michigan continue to raise concerns over a federal affordable housing program. These concerns echo similar sentiments across the country as municipalities continue to struggle to meet the demand for quality affordable housing.
"Giving Season" is upon us, and it benefits a lot from the charitable tax deduction. But the reality is, only a sliver of taxpayers will receive this tax benefit.
The charitable deduction dates back to 1917. As the United States geared up for World War I, the federal government raised the top income tax rate from 15% to 67% on the richest Americans. America's federal income tax, which had been implemented just four years before, became far and away the most progressive on the planet.
