logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Haunted Happenings at the Smithsonian? (Oct 07)

Rick Cohen
December 21, 2007
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

Scary for our sector is a little counterintuitive, of course, since it can involve lavish overindulgence coupled with indolence. Who wouldn’t want to be rich and largely unaccountable? But these are the images that haunt regular, run of the mill nonprofits because they destroy the public’s faith in the sector. Some nonprofits — the big universities, for example — are in first-class cabins enjoying Great Gatsby-style soirees, while most nonprofits are sitting in steerage and watching icebergs float by just a bit too closely. The Nonprofit Quarterly — the magazine as well as its e-newsletters like this one — thinks it’s worth making such distinctions and asking what’s really included under the generalized nonprofit “halo,” what real nonprofits are experiencing, and where the trends in the sector are leading, especially for those of us in steerage looking anxiously for the undersized lifeboats.

This issue of the Cohen Report continues its quest to delve beneath the spin and see what’s really there. Spinning wildly is the new Congressional Philanthropy Caucus. The caucus membership contains a couple of players who have held strange and frightening positions on key nonprofit issues. Even more horrific are the thugs who run the Sudan and Burma, but they still haven’t frightened off certain major foundation and university investors. There may be some nonprofit execs who think they are haunted by advisory committees, as the Smithsonian Institution bigwigs clearly do about the (advisory) board of trustees of the National Museum of the American Indian. But maybe these committees wouldn’t be so fear-inducing if they were treated with courtesy and respect — as the law requires for advisory committees of institutions like the Smithsonian.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Okay, enough of the Halloween metaphor. Let me know what’s on your mind and don’t forget to look in the Fall issue of the Nonprofit Quarterly for my article on the United Way’s latest reinvention of itself. Is it death throes or soaring spirit? You’ll have to subscribe to find out.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: OpinionThe Cohen Report

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Nonprofit Workplace Culture: Why It Matters So Much to Us
Jinna Halperin
The Nonprofit Ethicist | Conflicts of Interest and the Board
Woods Bowman
One Nonprofit CEO is Cruelly Refused a Raise While Another Whistles
Mark Light
Executive Committees as Nonprofit Pestilence
Mark Light
Sounding a Call for Civil Sector Journalism: A Letter from NPQ’s Board of Directors
Chuck Bell
When a Nonprofit Becomes a Regulator: The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency
Rick Cohen

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Nonprofit Workplace Culture: Why It Matters So Much to Us
Jinna Halperin
The Nonprofit Ethicist | Conflicts of Interest and the Board
Woods Bowman
One Nonprofit CEO is Cruelly Refused a Raise While Another...
Mark Light

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.