Philanthropy Roundtable: 15 books

Recent calls for more transparency in private philanthropy have increased the need for philanthropic organizations to carefully plan and think about what information they will release to the public and how they will do it. To help organizations answer these questions, The Philanthropy Roundtable has...

Philanthropy for veterans, military servicemembers, and their families is a comparatively new and fast-growing branch of American charitable giving. Alas, there is little good information available to help donors act wisely. This book fills that gap. It was created as a how-to manual for philanthropists...

Philanthropy in America is a giant undertaking. Every year more than $390 billion is voluntarily given by individuals, foundations, and businesses to a riot of good causes. Donation rates are two to ten times higher in the U.S. than in comparable nations, and privately funded efforts to solve social...

Donors eager to offer charitable assistance to veterans asked The Philanthropy Roundtable in 2012 to establish one of the country’s very earliest advisory programs on this subject. The first product was a practical guidebook, called Serving Those Who Served, which profiled nonprofits (many of them...

Donating money to modify public thinking and government policy has now taken its place next to service-centered giving as a constructive branch of philanthropy. Many donors now view public-policy reform as a necessary adjunct to their efforts to improve lives directly. This is perhaps inevitable...

In recent years, some public officials and advocacy groups have urged that private philanthropies be subject to more uniform standards and stricter government regulation ranging from board composition to grant distribution to philanthropies' charitable purposes. A major justification cited by...

Twenty-five years ago, charter schools hadn’t even been dreamed up. Today they are mushrooming across the country. There are 6,500 charter schools operating in 42 states, with more than 600 new ones opening every year. Within a blink there will be 3 million American children attending these freshly...

Over the last generation, Catholic schools have been buffeted by a confluence of winds: changing demographics in the urban neighborhoods where many of their facilities are located, the disappearance of nuns and priests from classrooms, new competition from tuition-free charter schools. Finances crumbled,...

This intriguing book makes a powerful case for a sorely needed U.S. educational improvement that has been almost entirely overlooked. During the last two decades, philanthropists and education reformers have made urgent efforts to pull weak students up to levels of basic competency. Though that vital...

Few innovations in education today offer as much potential to transform how students are educated as the rise of so-called blended learning—the artful combination of computerized instruction (personalized for each student to make sure topics are mastered) with small-group teaching that is closer...

The need for this guidebook is clear. Donors have made large gifts to charitable causes only to have the funds eventually spent on purposes they never would have supported. All too often, the trustees and staff of grantmaking institutions drift from intended goals, lose accountability, or pay insufficient...

Social disorders are increasing. We’re economically divided. Our political process is a blood sport. Government agencies are failing to repair the key maladies that afflict us. Two thirds of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.It’s quite likely that politics and public policy...

The strongest influence on whether a student learns (and how much) is the teacher. Never mind fancy facilities, new technology, top curricula, or more school spending—research shows that the intelligence, skill, and dedication of the instructor is two to three times as important as any other contribution...

Amid debates over mobility, economic stagnation, “living wages,” and persistent unemployment, one of today’s economic paradoxes is that there are hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs that employers cannot fill—because they require “middle” level skills that are presently in serious...