Charity Governance

AN ANSWER, MORE QUESTIONS: WILL INSURING THE LIVES OF ATHLETIC BOOSTERS PRODUCE THE SWEET SMELL OF LILACS?

Dateline: May 4, 2007, Chicago

World spreads fast.  Greetings to all our new visitors from the life insurance industry.  Feel free to drop us an e-mail.  We really want to understand the planned giving device that we wrote about yesterday.

To summarize, a number of university athletic departments are considering purchasing insurance on the lives of their boosters.  Apparently, at sometime in the future, these universities will sell these policies to settlement companies (viaticals).  Note, it is the university, not the booster, that pays the premiums on the insurance policies.  Although this arrangement might be characterized as a planned giving device, the booster receives no charitable contribution, unless the booster is donating the money to pay the annual premium.  As far as we can tell, that is not part of the plan.  Yesterday, we raised...

WE ARE PUZZLED BY BRAD WOLVERTON’S ARTICLE IN TODAY’S CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: BRAD TELL US MORE

Dateline: May 3, 2007, Chicago

Click here for a second and updated post.

Brad Wolverton of the Chronicle of Higher Education has written a fascinating article entitled Athletics Programs Consider Taking Out Life-Insurance Policies on Boosters appearing in today's Chronicle. Wolverton reports that at least 40 athletic departments are considering programs involving life insurance purchased on the lives of program boosters. The idea apparently originated with Oklahoma State University. According to Wolverton, the university secured...

MADDOX FOUNDATION LITIGATION EXPLODES: NOW WE KNOW WHY ROBIN COSTA WANTS TO KEEP THE FOUNDATION IN MISSISSIPPI

Dateline, March 13, 2007, Chicago

We learned earlier today that there had been major developments in the Maddox Foundation litigation.  Sheila Burke of the Tennessean is now confirming what we heard.  See Maddox's $34M Must Return to Tennessee: Foundation Sued After Funds Moved to Mississippi, Mar. 13, 2007. 

On Monday, Davidson County Circuit Court Judge Randy Kennedy ordered...

SOUTH DAKOTA AND UTAH BECOME THE FIRST STATES TO ADOPT UPMIFA: GOODBYE HISTORIC DOLLAR VALUE

Dateline, March 11, 2007, Chicago

The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved and recommended the enactment of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA) on October 10, 2006.   It is meant to replace the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act (UMIFA).  On March 2, 2007, South Dakota became the first state to enact UPMIFA.  Utah became the second on March 7, 2007....

WILL THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE BE ENDORSING ILLINOIS' CURRENT AG LISA MADIGAN IF SHE DECIDES TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR?: THE MCCORMICK FOUNDATION AND THE TRIBUNE COMPANY

Dateline, March 6, 2007, Chicago

The Tribune Company has garnered a lot of press during the last six months over various proposals to restructure the media conglomerate, which includes the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times.  Will it sell off divisions, go private, undergo a takeover by another media company, or undergo some other major restructuring?  Who knows, but possibly under consideration is a management buyout or an effort to buy-out the interests of the dissident Chandler family (with a 20% ownership stake).  Enter the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.  The foundation, along with related entities, controls over 13% of Tribune company stock.  Steve R. Strahler of Crain’s Chicago Business reports that the foundation’s most recent filings show that somewhere  around 75% of the foundation’s holdings are in Tribune Company stock.  Steven R. Strahler, Tribune Foundation Catches AG's Eye, Crain's Chicago Business, Mar. 4, 2007.  That raises obvious diversification questions.  Guess who is looking at the duties of current foundation directors?

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO SNOOKERED BY THE L.A. TIMES REPORTING ON THE GATES FOUNDATION

Dateline: January 13, 2007, Chicago

National Public Radio ran a "rah rah" piece today regarding Charles Piller's series this past week on the investment practices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  NPR's Scott Simon interviewed Mr. Piller (but nobody else) about the series.  Mr. Piller is actually a better speaker than he is a writer, but in both cases, he spews the same biased line.  Even more troubling is the fact that NPR got the facts about the Gates Foundation's response to the Mr. Piller's series wrong, as our very own Jack Siegel pointed out to NPR in the following e-mail...

THE BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION POLITELY BUT FIRMLY RESPONDS TO THE L.A. TIMES

Dateline: January 11, 2007, Chicago

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has posted an apparently revised response (posted January 11, 2007, but undated) to the L.A. Times recent series on its Web site.  The response is polite and dignified.  It also could have been based on, shall we say, our...

L.A. TIMES SHOULD STOP GLOATING: ITS SERIES ON THE GATES FOUNDATION CONTINUES TO MISS THE MARK

Dateline: January 11, 2007, Chicago

What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down

....We want the world and we want it...
We want the world and we want it...
Now
Now?
Now!

When the Music's Over from Strange Days by the Doors (1967)

The L.A. Times is reporting today that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that is will be reviewing “its investments to determine whether its holdings were socially responsible.”  Charles Piller, Gates Foundation to Reassess Investments: A Decision to Review Its Holdings for Their Social Effects Could Lead Others to Rethink Their Policies, L.A. Times, Jan. 11, 2007. This assessment of the facts apparently comes, in part, from a posting yesterday on the Gates Foundation Web site that we would describe as tepid, at best.  It basically said, “We read the article, we understand the concerns, we will take the article’s points under consideration, and thank you very much.  We are busy and need to focus on what we were doing before you decided to pipe up with your two cents.”  For some reason, that posting has been removed so we cannot provide you a link to it.

Today’s Times article continues to reflect...

L.A. TIMES NEEDS TO KEEP ITS EDITORIALS OFF THE FRONT PAGE: MORE ON THE GATES FOUNDATION AND JOURNALISM

Dateline: January 9, 2007, Chicago

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation might want to think seriously about using a very small sliver of the foundation’s earnings to educate journalists or would-be-journalists on proper journalist ethics and standards.  A delicious idea:  Fund these efforts with the dividends the Gates Foundation receives from ExxonMobil or Royal Dutch Shell.

We decided to re read the L.A. Times series on the Gates Foundation’s investment practices (and our post yesterday regarding the series).  This series evidences seriously...

ATTACK ON GATES FOUNDATION INVESTMENT POLICIES IS CUTE, BUT TOO SIMPLISTIC

Dateline: January 8, 2007, Chicago

We read the L.A. Times story this past weekend about the investment policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a fair degree of ambivalence.  Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders, and Robyn Dixon, Dark Cloud Over Good Works of Gates Foundation, L.A. Times, Jan. 7, 2007.  We certainly understand where the critics of the Gates Foundation’s investment policies are coming from and welcome a spirited debate on this difficult and complex subject.  Unlike many quoted in the article, we have never been big fans of reducing investment returns on endowment to meet...