“I am not running a charity” is something I often here business people say, well today the business of running a charity is quite sophisticated. In the United States giving to private “charitable” associations, trusts and corporations is a major part of our economic activity, and many wealthy individuals decide to establish their own tax exempt funds (often called private foundations [Wikipedia backgrounder]) to insulate their hard earned pre-tax dollars from the “bite” of the “Tax Man”. As the Foundation Center has established there are approximately 25,000 such private foundations in the United States that must distribute their income annually to tax exempt 501(c)(3) activities. This vast “third sector” has developed into an area of great expertise. Before becoming a lawyer I worked as a not-for-profit administrator, fundraiser, grants writer, board director and I can tell you that all these activities, while often undertaken by “grass roots” volunteers also can be performed by highly trained professionals who have managed multi-million or even billion dollar organizations including large educational institutions (universities, think tanks, research institutes), medical facilities (not-for-profit clinics and hospitals sometimes affiliated with universities), public interest law firms, legal clinics, not-for-profit housing corporations and cooperatives — the list of this area of the economy is quite extensive — and all these organizations and institutions while not being run, “for profit” are run like businesses that need to deal with the “bottom line”. Money has become a necessary evil for all kinds of altruistic activities and without individuals who can deal with the management of these entities many of the services that we have been accustomed to receive in our “capitalistic” society would be even less available than they are at present.

Stumble it!