And The Angels Fight
Quietly, but persistently, competition among the three major recipients of planned gifts private family foundations, community foundations, and commerical donor advised funds is heating up.
The reason? Money, of course. Or to be more precise, the hundreds of billions of $$$ in capital assests which in turn yield hundreds of millions in investment and management fees.
According to Daniel M. Schley, writing in BusinessWeek Online, the commerical donor advised funds like Fidelity's Charitable Gift Fund and the Community Foundations of America, a trade association for commuity funds, aided and abetted by an army of consultants and marketing specialists are out to terminate Americas 70,000 private foundations and get a piece of the $425 billion in assests these family foundations control.
Seems as though family foundations which spend little on overhead or infrastructure represent a real competitive threat –especially to the community foundations which have a growing need for the money generated by investment and management fees. Consequently, theyve launched campaigns, including a special marketing section of their website and direct mail campaigns urging private foundations to transfer their assets to the local community foundation.
Mr. Schley doesnt think much of this polite, white-gloved competitive brawl, calling it a waste of capital and human energy that would otherwise be directed at social programs .
Sounds like a tempest in a silver teapot to us.
Behavioral Science Q & A
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