Tag: Chicago

Charities should fight poverty, not create it

Charities should fight poverty, not create it
The job of the charitable sector is to fight poverty, not create it. Someone should mention that to the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. Bravo to the SEIU for calling attention to the issue with a one-day strike of child-care workers. In the wake of the West Virginia teachers’ successful job action, it seems like unions... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
March 9, 2018 at 6:18 pm
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Museum Admission Fees Could Go Down Instead of Up

Museum Admission Fees Could Go Down Instead of Up
Last week the Chicago Tribune reported that the Museum of Science & Industry and the Chicago History Museum will raise their admission fees effective February 1, creating a confusing welter of numbers: teens will pay a nickel less at MSI but $3 more at the History Museum, but on alternate Tuesdays when the moon is... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
January 17, 2018 at 8:56 pm
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Impact Investing: MacFound and CCT respond

Impact Investing: MacFound and CCT respond
The MacArthur Foundation today shared with the Nonprofiteer its letter to the Sun-Times disputing claims that impact investing will diminish rather than strengthen nonprofits.  In the spirit of equal time, its letter is reproduced in full here.  The Nonprofiteer remains unpersuaded that lending is the best use of philanthropies’ considerable resources. May 2, 2016 Mr.... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
May 3, 2016 at 12:05 pm
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Impact Investing Is No Substitute for Philanthropy

Impact Investing Is No Substitute for Philanthropy
This letter to the Sun-Times by Phillip Jackson, Founder and Executive Director of Chicago’s Black Star Project, ably summarizes everything that’s wrong with the recent announcement by the MacArthur Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust and the Calvert Foundation that they plan to join forces to lend money to nonprofits, a behavior they style “impact investing.”... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
May 2, 2016 at 5:09 pm
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Free consulting for nonprofits

Free consulting for nonprofits
The Executive Service Corps offers free consulting for nonprofits in return for a donation.  The Nonprofiteer passes along this information against her own financial interests! Chicago Rising is a fundraising campaign for Executive Service Corps of Chicago (ESC) to support local nonprofits and public agencies working to alleviate pressing social issues impacting the lives of millions... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
August 4, 2015 at 10:55 am
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Woods Bowman

Woods Bowman
The Nonprofiteer extends her condolences to the family and friends of Woods Bowman, who died last week in a car accident. (See his obituary in the Chicago Tribune.) By all accounts, Bowman was the proverbial gentleman and scholar: a faculty member at DePaul University, an active participant in the “GooGoo” (Good Government) movement in Chicago... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
July 21, 2015 at 2:11 pm
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The Art Works Fund: Capacity Building So the Arts Work

The Art Works Fund: Capacity Building So the Arts Work
The Nonprofiteer tends to assume that nonprofits know about all the funds available to support them, and in particular the funds earmarked for capacity building, e.g. strengthening Boards, creating fundraising plans, figuring out how to use high-skills volunteers.  But there’s a special fund of this type in Chicago, reserved to arts organizations: the Arts Work... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
June 27, 2015 at 1:08 pm
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Not about nonprofits: is there a "black site" in Sweet Home Chicago?

Not about nonprofits: is there a "black site" in Sweet Home Chicago?
The Guardian and The Atlantic have now both reported that Chicago police maintain a “black site” at which they interrogate suspects without booking them or letting them talk to their lawyers, a fate meted out to a protester at the 2012 NATO summit who was never charged with anything.  Over on the Huffington Post, this is what... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
February 25, 2015 at 5:06 pm
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Black poverty and white poverty are not the same, and here's why

Black poverty and white poverty are not the same.  As Ta-Nehisi Coates demonstrates in this brilliant article in The Atlantic, African-Americans have been subjected to continuous, intentional and organized theft by a kleptocracy masquerading as a democracy.  If you’re not angry by the time you’re done reading about how the US government maintained black poverty... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
December 30, 2014 at 6:39 pm
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Crossing boundaries: the Nonprofiteer's theater reviews

Herewith the latest of the Nonprofiteer’s theater reviews. As some of you know, when not being more powerful than a locomotive about charity and philanthropy, the Nonprofiteer is Kelly Kleiman, mild-mannered (well . . .) Chicago theater critic. For years she’s kept a strict separation between her two worlds, until a few days ago when... Read more »
By Nonprofiteer,
June 6, 2014 at 3:43 pm
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    Nonprofiteer

    The Nonprofiteer is Kelly Kleiman, principal of NFP Consulting, which provides Board development, strategic planning and fund-raising services to charities and philanthropies. Through her consulting practice and in her guise as The Nonprofiteer, Kelly has spent the past 25-plus years helping small and mid-sized nonprofits organize themselves better and raise more money. These days she focuses especially on helping them use high-skill volunteers. Kelly is also a lawyer and freelance journalist whose reportage and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and other dailies; in magazines including In These Times and Chicago Philanthropy; in the alternative press; on websites including the Huffington Post; and on the radio, including the BBC and WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. She and her fellow "Dueling Critic" Jonathan Abarbanel present a weekly podcast of their reviews of Chicago theater at DuelingCritics.net. Earlier in her career she was dean of admissions of IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and Executive Director of the Chicago Children’s Choir, and practiced real estate and zoning law with the firm of Rudnick & Wolfe. Kelly holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Chicago. She was a founding Board member of the Association of Consultants to Nonprofits and also served for 5 years on the Board of the Association for Women Journalists–Chicago. She can be reached ("Dear Nonprofiteer . . .") at KellyNFP@yahoo.com.

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    • Nonprofiteer

      February 6, 2020 at 12:00 am

      In reply to Leubna Asad:
      No, they cannot make mandatory any requirement to pay or participate: it's a public school, so children can't be excluded…
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      Leubna Asad

      February 5, 2020 at 12:00 am

      so, let me understand ... my child’s booster club at a public school for a sports team has issued a…
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    • Nonprofiteer

      November 14, 2019 at 12:00 am

      In reply to Ton gen:
      I don't have enough facts to answer. It's certainly legal for a booster club to solicit contributions from parents, and…
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      Ton gen

      November 13, 2019 at 12:00 am

      So, if a booster club is asked by staff to collect student fees for art supplies, then turns the fees…
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    • KennethFredrick

      December 11, 2017 at 12:00 am

      Volunteering is the better work opportunity to help the communities. Becoming a volunteer always makes you feel better. There are…
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