By Howard Husock

In what amounts to a mea culpa New York Times op-ed, Peter Buffett, Warren Buffett’s son and overseer of his own philanthropic foundation, denounces the “charitable industrial complex” as little more than a conscience-salve for the rich. His evidence: that there are more non-profit organizations than ever receiving more funds and employing more people–but human suffering nonetheless continues. “As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to ‘give back’”. His vague corrective is not, he assures, an end to capitalism– –but an infusion of “humanism”.
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Marketing & Communications in Nonprofit Organizations
David Williamson

Essays on Excellence
Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program

Marketing gets no respect in the nonprofit world. Program people tend to hold the most senior positions in nonprofits and accordingly have the most status. Fundraisers are often viewed as necessary evils, as are operations staff, including those who labor in the communications and marketing departments.

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Governing the Nonprofit Organization
Michela M. Perrone

Essays on Excellence
Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program

Boards of Directors are groups of people, and they experience all of the struggles and have all of the needs that are typical of groups. They need structures and systems. They need skillful facilitation of meetings. They need clarity of decision-making procedures and rules. They also need an occasional therapy session.

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Strategic Planning
Michela M. Perrone, Ph.D.

Essays on Excellence
Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program

Nonprofit organizations are often established in response to a societal need and the vision of its founders to address it. The strategies adopted to implement the mission also come initially from the founders’ insights and experiences. As organizations grow and the founders begin to share ownership of their vision with others, stakeholders ask questions of vision and strategies. The original founders’ plan may be in their heads and in their hearts, but the new stakeholders need a more formal representation and shared understanding of the organization’s future.

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Advocacy in the Public Interest
Gary D. Bass

Essays on Excellence
Lessons from the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program

In truth, there are few smoke-filled rooms in Washington these days. But even as cities and states clamp down on smoking in public facilities, there still is an image of lobbying as an industry that involves billion dollar deals in dark corners and arm-twisting behind
closed doors.

The 1987 book Showdown at Gucci Gulch, by reporters Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Alan S. Murray, chronicles the ups, downs, and ultimate victory of 1986 tax reform. In terms of offering insight into and conveying the drama of the Congress, the book tells an important story of lobbying. It describes how high-priced lobbyists, decked out in their fancy suits and shoes, lurk outside the Senate Finance Committee meeting room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, waiting to pigeonhole senators on their pet issue in the tax bill. Dubbed Gucci Gulch, it is a formidable showing.

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By Hammad Siddiqi
The writer is a research fellow at the Risk and Sustainable Management Institute at the University of Queensland and an associate professor of economics at LUMS.

Something quite extraordinary has been happening lately. A French economist is receiving rock star treatment in the US. Some are calling it a silent revolution in the field of economics. The economist is Thomas Piketty, and his claim to fame is a 700-page book he penned on inequality and its relationship to capitalism. The book, originally in French, has just been translated into English, and has made it to a number of bestseller lists in less than a month.
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