Catalogue for Philanthropy                                    Catalogue for Philanthropy

Spring News, 2009
boy in centerspring flowerCommunity BoatingBird Street Community Center
Dear Friends:

There's a lot going on in philanthropy these days, and given the number and severity of challenges facing us all, both collectively and individually, it's easy to get buried in details.  We share that problem as a smaller charity ourselves, though our focus is usually on the "big picture".  In this Newsletter we'd like to share with you some work we're doing on the state of knowledge in philanthropy, which we have to be concerned about in donor education.  Both the book, Philanthropy Reconsidered, and the Directories, address "knowledge" issues; here we discuss two: how many charities exist, how they might be organized and presented more usefully and effectively for donors and others. MORE
 
Getting Facts Straight:  How many philanthropic charities are there in Massachusetts?
lilly pad The truth is, no one knows--but we shall have a fairly reliable answer this year, and you will be among the first to learn it.  

What we can report for certain (we have been saying this for several years) is that the numbers almost everyone uses are wrong and greatly inflated, because they come from IRS data on "non-profits".  Outside the IRS, that misnomer has been carelessly adopted as a synonym for "philanthropy".  In fact, there is no significant relation between the two.  MORE
 
CfP Completes Board Reorganization
michele's flower Over the past two years we have been reconstituting our Board of Trustees, following decisions made at our 10th anniversary.  Trustees added this year include: Katie Everett, Executive Director of the Lynch Foundation of Boston; Pat Gray, former Executive Director of The Food Project; Rob Hollister, Dean of the Tisch College of Civic Education, and Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Professor of Civic Education, at Tufts University; Sandy Niles, Trustee of the Manton Foundation of New York; and Julia Mott Toulmin, President of Mott Philanthropic in Boston.  Continuing veterans on the Board are Susanah Howland of Lincoln; George McCully, President of the Catalogue; and Larry Phillips, President of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation of Boston.  Two of our founding Trustees--Melinda Marble, now Deputy Director of the Barr Foundation; and Kathleen Fay, Executive Director of the Boston Early Music Festival--have moved this past year to our Board of Overseers. 
 
CfP Re-Presentation Project
teen kids playing Just as the Catalogue's original publication in 1997 marked an outstanding and award-winning upgrade in the quality of print media about philanthropy, so our current transit to the Internet should "make a difference" and set new standards in philanthropy's presentation to the public on the Web.  The Directories will do that for philanthropy as a whole in particular markets--e.g., all charities in Massachusetts--but shouldn't a special effort be made for the more than 900 excellent smaller charities that have already been listed in the Catalogue?  MORE
Philanthropy Reconsidered

If you haven't had a chance to get your own copy of our first book, Philanthropy Reconsidered, you can purchase one through our website.

This primer helps guide present and future philanthropists in this period of rapid change--a brief (150 pp.) overview at the strategic level, from its origins as an educational, cultural and philosophical ideal in Classical antiquity; to its "finest hour" in shaping the American Revolution and Constitution; to its professional and technical maturity in the 20th century; to its current paradigm-shift and foreseeable future, driven by technology and the Internet.


Our Price: $20: Purchase a signed copy now.
Help Support the Catalogue

We are about to launch our Spring Appeal to raise much-needed funds for the Directories and the Re-Presentation Projects.  We thank you for helping to promote philanthropy in Massachusetts.

Click here to support the Catalogue today.
In This Issue
Dear Friends:
Getting Facts Straight
CFP Expands its Board
Taxonomizing Philanthropy
Charities speak up
Quick Links
Taxonomizing Philanthropy
Mom and baby
We have now a mid-career volunteer who is working with us because she is interested in learning more about philanthropy for her own professional purposes. To help her with that, she is helping us translate the IRS 990 data on Massachusetts "nonprofits" into what will become our on-line Directories to all the philanthropic charities in Massachusetts--the first of its kind for any major market.  MORE
Charities Speak Up
musicIn February the Catalogue conducted an on-line survey of the 900 excellent small to mid-sized charities we have previously listed.  Our goal was to understand, and to illuminate for donors and grantmakers, how the current economy is affecting this extraordinary group of selected charities, and how we and others might best help.  We anticipated, in light of current media discussions, that our findings would show that the precipitous decline in the economy had lead to increased vulnerability among small charities, forcing reductions in budgets and staffs, even elimination of some programs and of charities themselves.  Instead, a different picture is unfolding. MORE
 
Charity Credits:

In each newsletter we present a sub-group of charities that were selected for the Catalogue.  Click on images to see: 


Barnstable Land Trust, Inc.
Beacon Academy
Bird Street Community Center
Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston
COGdesign
Community Boating Center
Infante Sano
Ipswich River Watershed Association
SuAsCo Watershed Community Council
Photo Credits:

We would like to offer special thanks to the following photographers for their contributiuons:

Kit Howland
Michele Mittelman
Maura Kate Moore
Thomas Palmer
Catalogue for Philanthropy