It’s not just the start of baseball season—it continues to be open season on America’s rich, under fire for all manner of alleged sins, real and imagined. Yet another new attack has been mounted against America’s wealthy, this time for their alleged philanthropic stinginess. In The Atlantic, author Ken Stern, in an essay based on his new book With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give, asserts that those at the top of the nation’s income pyramid both give too little to charity and give to causes that don’t help the poor. Those of modest means, he says, are more generous than the wealthy, described, charmingly, in a quotation from UC Berkeley psychological researcher who told New York Magazine that “the rich are more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people,” leading him to conclude, with scholarly precision, that they are “more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Tag Archives: Ken Stern
Why Traditional Radio May Not Exist in 15 Years
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the following video, former National Public Radio CEO Ken Stern gives his take on the decline of traditional radio. Despite currently having a huge audience, Stern sees traditional radio existing for only another 15 years. Ultimately, Stern believes that new and better technology will win out and that it’s just a matter of time until the demise of traditional radio.
The full version of our interview with Ken Stern can be found here, in which Stern discusses his new book, With Charity for All. In the book, Stern discusses in detail what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference.
A transcript follows the video.
If you’re hunting for a great stock idea, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has just selected his No. 1 stock for the next year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
Brendan: I want to transition really quick. I think you have a unique perspective on radio, being the former CEO of NPR. A lot of alternatives nowadays — you have SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, iTunes. Where do you see traditional radio going over the next decade or so?
Ken: It’s a hard question. I’ve been making predictions about the demise of traditional radio for some years. About 10 years ago I said, “It has another 15 years.” Now I’ll sit here and say it has another 15 years. Someday I will be right in saying that it has 15 years.
Brendan: It’s inevitable, right?
Ken: [laughs] Right.
Let’s face it: No one would build a radio tower now. It doesn’t make much sense in terms of all the options, but in fact there’s a built-in audience for it, a huge embedded audience for it now, and the force of habit.
Someday, technology will overtake it. More efficient systems for delivering audio and information, they already exist. Someday they’ll own the habits of American listeners, but I’ll give it 15 years.
Brendan: How about those I mentioned in particular — there are obviously a lot more — I mentioned SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, iTunes. Is there a winner in that group, or do you think they can all coexist because they do different things, in a way? Do you think one necessarily takes the cake, going forward?
Ken: I think if I knew I’d be a lot richer. I wouldn’t have to write a book. I think, truthfully, there’s a marketplace now for all of them. I think a lot of them make a lot more sense. I would say to SiriusXM — which I’ll be going over to do interviews later this afternoon — it’s a pretty good business now.
It has a great marketplace, but again no one would launch a bunch of satellites today, if they had the …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Why There's More Than Meets the Eye With Some Charities
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio, discusses why some charities are popular despite little evidence of effectiveness. While this certainly isn’t to say that all charities are ineffective, Stern shares a few stories below about how some charities have played up their actual effectiveness. Stern also gives his take on how people can find charities that are making a difference.
The full version of the interview can be found here, in which Stern discusses his new book, With Charity For All. In the book, Stern takes on the charitable sector, which he says, “operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness.” Stern discusses in detail what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference. Given Stern’s unique perspective from his time at NPR, we also discussed with him the future of radio, and the technologies that are disrupting it.
If you’re hunting for a great stock idea, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for this year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report, “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report, and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
Brendan: A couple of the individual charities, or at least individual charitable sectors you talk about — one is D.A.R.E., another one is the water charities in Africa and Latin America — could you talk about those specifically, and what’s going on with them? Maybe more than meets the eye?
Ken: Yeah. I’ll tell you a couple of stories. There are lots of stories in my book. It tells you in loving detail; I’ll give you the skim read of it.
D.A.R.E., which is — sorry, I can’t actually remember what the acronym stands for — is the principle educational charity in this country for educating children about the challenges of drug abuse. There is 20 years of high-quality research that shows that D.A.R.E. is actually ineffective, and, in some cases, harmful, because it’s where kids actually can learn about drugs.
What is extraordinary to me, it’s actually on a list of social programs that don’t work, yet it still remains because it has a good public narrative, it has good political connections, and good ties to local police departments and schools. It still remains the principle charitable educational program in this country and, because no district is going to have more than one drug awareness educational program, it blocks other more effective programs from getting in.
Water charities to me are very interesting, because water charities are very good … what you’ll find is charities are very good at the stories that sell. The stories that sell are drilling whole wells. The stories that don’t sell is maintenance and repairs — an engineer going out to tighten …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
One Area Where Companies Can Make a Difference
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio, discusses the current state of the charitable sector and gives his take on how companies can make a difference when giving to charities, namely by giving to the less sexy, but necessary, aspects of charity like infrastructure development.
The full version of the interview can be found here, in which Stern discusses his new book, With Charity For All. In the book, Stern takes on the charitable sector, which he says, “operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness.” Stern discusses in detail what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference. Given Stern‘s unique perspective from his time at NPR, we also discussed with him the future of radio and the technologies that are disrupting it.
If you’re looking for a great investing idea, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for the next year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
Brendan: These companies — we mentioned Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil (the top three donors in 2011 according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy) — are they doing the kind of due diligence that individuals do not do, or do you find that they’re throwing their money into all sorts of charities in much the same way?
Ken: It’s actually a mixed story, with respect to corporations. I think companies tend to do a little bit better in terms of due diligence and effectiveness investigation or research than individuals do. It’s interesting to see that people who are employees of companies actually do more due diligence in their corporate role than they do in their own individual role.
One example I know of that is with the American Red Cross. One of the challenges of the American Red Cross, one of the signature charities this country has, is that people are unwilling to invest in infrastructure, and they’re really an infrastructure company. They’re a supply line company.
Think of the other supply line companies — FedEx, Wal-Mart, the United States Military — put billions into that infrastructure. No one wants to give the Red Cross money for that. When a tragedy occurs, they want to get money to the victims but they don’t ever invest for the next victim down the road — but companies do.
The American Red Cross has actually been somewhat effective in getting companies to help them invest in infrastructure and help them prepare for the next disaster. Only companies, not individuals, because I think companies think a little bit differently than individuals do.
The article One Area Where Companies Can Make a Difference originally appeared on Fool.com.
Why Companies Give to Charity
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio, discusses the current state of the charitable sector, and gives his take on the reasons that companies give money to charity, and how they should donate going forward.
The full version of the interview can be found here, in which Stern discusses his new book, “With Charity for All.” In the book, Stern takes on the charitable sector, which he says “operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness.” Stern discusses in detail what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference. Given Stern‘s unique perspective from his time at NPR, we also discussed with him the future of radio and the technologies that are disrupting it.
Brendan Byrnes: Let’s talk about companies giving to charity. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo, and Chevron were the top five that gave the most cash to charities in 2011. What do you think is the main reason for them to do this? Is it self-serving, or do you think there are other purposes overall?
Ken Stern: First, let’s put that in a little bit of context which is, corporate donations to charities accounts for about 1% of private citizen — if you can call a company a private citizen for these purposes — donations. It’s actually not a big part of the revenues for charities.
I think companies do it for a number of reasons. One is because it’s important to their employees; often we’ll see that type of investment in their local communities. Secondly, it’s often good public relations and good relationship-building for these companies. Third, I think a lot of companies now buy into the notion of social capital, “doing well through doing good.”
I think that’s why companies do that, and why I would expect and hope that companies will be putting more and more into community resources, community activities, whether it’s through charities or otherwise in the future.
If you’re looking for a great investing idea, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for the next year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
The article Why Companies Give to Charity originally appeared on Fool.com.
Brendan Byrnes owns shares of Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool recommends Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Wells Fargo. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
The Most Surprising Thing About Charities
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio, discusses the current state of the charitable sector, and gives his take on the most surprising thing about charities – how many of them operate like for-profit businesses.
The full version of the interview can be found here, in which Stern discusses his new book, “With Charity For All.” In the book, Stern takes on the charitable sector, which he says, “operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness.” Stern discusses in detail what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference. Given Stern‘s unique perspective from his time at NPR, we also discussed with him the future of radio and the technologies that are disrupting it.
If you’re looking for a great stock idea, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for this year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report, “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
Brendan: What’s the most surprising thing that you found in the book, in your estimation?
Ken: I think two things — well, there’s lots of surprising things; I could go on all day — but one is how many charities actually look, feel, and operate like for-profit businesses. The best example of that in my mind is charitable hospitals, which are more profitable than for-profit hospitals, compensate their executives in the millions and, most importantly, actually provide no more charitable services than for-profit hospitals.
There are lots of examples of charities like that. That really surprised me, as well as some of the effectiveness challenges.
Brendan: Why be a for-profit hospital instead of a charitable hospital if you can do seemingly most of the same things?
Ken: Well, for investment purposes. I think the real difference between charitable hospitals and for-profit hospitals are the ability of a for-profit hospital to distribute profits to shareholders. It’s really an investment distribution issue.
On the charitable side, the question is really whether the government and donors should be supporting these hospitals, which are really essentially for-profit businesses.
The article The Most Surprising Thing About Charities originally appeared on Fool.com.
Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
(function(c,a){window.mixpanel=a;var b,d,h,e;b=c.createElement(“script”);
b.type=”text/javascript”;b.async=!0;b.src=(“https:”===c.location.protocol?”https:”:”http:”)+
‘//cdn.mxpnl.com/libs/mixpanel-2.2.min.js’;d=c.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
College Football Bowl Games Are … Charities?
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio, discusses the current state of the charitable sector, and gives his take on how so many seemingly for-profit entities are allowed to be classified as charities — including college bowl games.
The full version of the interview can be found here, in which Stern discusses his new book, “With Charity For All.” In the book, Stern takes on the charitable sector, which he says, “operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness.” Stern discusses in detail what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference. Given Stern‘s unique perspective from his time at NPR, we also discussed with him the future of radio and the technologies that are disrupting it.
If you’re looking for a great investing idea, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for this year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.
Brendan: One of the things that surprised me about the book is you talked about the college bowl games, which were actually described as non-profit entities, as well, despite the multi-million dollar contract with ESPN, through Disney there.
Why are they allowed to do that and still make a profit? Do you see any signs of this changing in the future?
Ken: They’re allowed to do it because no one’s watching. The IRS, which is the exclusive entry point to become a tax-exempt charity, approves 99.8% of all applications to be public charities. If you have a form, you have a pen, and you have a stamp, with a small check, you can start a charity, essentially today.
The results are, not surprisingly, a lot of charities don’t really look like charities. The bowl games, the organization that governs the US Open golf tournament, roller derby, beer festivals. are all actually organized as charities.
The bowl games are, to me, a stand-out example of that. They are really, essentially large-scale parties with large contracts with TV organizations. They put on cruises, they entertain the commissioners and big sponsors. That’s what they’re about — nothing to do with charitable purposes as people ordinarily know it.
The article College Football Bowl Games Are … Charities? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Brendan Byrnes has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of Walt Disney. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Ken Stern: What's Wrong With the Charitable Sector, How to Fix It
By Brendan Byrnes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio, discusses his new book, “With Charity For All.” In the book, Stern takes on the charitable sector, which he says, “operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness.”
Stern gives his take below on what’s broken in the charitable sector, how to fix it, and how Americans can best make a difference. Given Stern‘s unique perspective from his days at NPR, we also discussed the future of radio and the technologies that are disrupting it. A full transcript follows the video.
Brendan Byrnes: Hey folks, I’m Brendan Byrnes and I’m joined today by Ken Stern, the author of “With Charity for All.” Ken, thank you so much for joining us.
Ken Stern: Thanks for having me.
Byrnes: My first question is — this is maybe an under-appreciated topic, with charities. A lot of people just put their money into it and don’t think about it, or at least think they’re doing the right thing. Why did you decide to get involved with this, and why did you decide to write the book?
Stern: A lot of the reason I got involved was my past experience with the charitable world. I actually ran a charity, National Public Radio, for about eight years, first as a COO, then as a CEO, and I saw some of the challenges I faced. When I left, I wondered whether those challenges were unique to NPR or really more broad-based.
What I found out actually really surprised me. How large the charitable sector is — 1.1 million charities, $1.5 trillion in annual revenues, 10%-15% of the American workforce — and a lot of what I saw as problems was in terms of effectiveness, and that really led to this book.
Byrnes: What’s the most surprising thing that you found in the book, in your estimation?
Stern: I think two things — well, there’s lots of surprising things; I could go on all day — but one is how many charities actually look, feel, and operate like for-profit businesses. The best example of that in my mind is charitable hospitals, which are more profitable than for-profit hospitals, compensate their executives in the millions, and most importantly, actually provide no more charitable services than for-profit hospitals.
There are lots of examples of charities like that. That really surprised me, as well as some of the effectiveness challenges.
Byrnes: Why be a for-profit hospital instead of a charitable hospital, if you can do seemingly most of the same things?
Stern: Well, for investment purposes. I think the real difference between charitable hospitals and for-profit hospitals are the ability of a for-profit hospital to distribute profits to shareholders. It’s really an investment distribution issue.
On the charitable side, the question is really whether the government and donors should be supporting these hospitals, which are really essentially for-profit businesses.
Byrnes: One of the things that surprised me about …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance