The Council on Foundations (COF) recently released the 2011 Grantmakers Salary and Benefits Report. The sample includes 910 total foundations of which 544 are COF members. As Rick Cohen notes on his piece about the survey, the survey suffers from the limitations of self-reporting, as do most all of our sector’s data. That said, there are some important trends in the makeup of foundation demographics and compensation that are worth noting.

http://www.cofinteract.org/rephilanthropy/?p=4264

A Chinese delegation on a recent East Coast tour to learn about the U.S. nonprofit and charitable giving sectors couldn’t believe that government controls of these entities were as loose as described, according to Richard Gelles, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice, who met with the delegates.

www.advisorone.com/2012/04/18/chinese-surprised-by-us-charities-lack-of-state-co

Twelve families promised to donate most of their wealth to philanthropy, joining the Giving Pledge initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-19/buffett-joined-by-12-families-pledging-most-wealth-to-charity.html

Citigroup has become the first Wall Street bank to get a thumbs-down from shareholders over outsized executive pay.

http://business.time.com/2012/04/18/citigroup-investors-vote-down-ceos-lavish-pay-package/

Time can be of the essence in a Ponzi scheme. The longer a Ponzi scheme persists, the more funds can be lost and the more investors grow, as do the difficulties in tracing those funds for recovery and the hardships to any unwitting beneficiaries required to return the monies at a later date. By the time the curtain is pulled back and the fraud is revealed, the organizers of the Ponzi scheme generally have insufficient funds to return what they took, resulting in a hectic scramble by creditors and victims over the inadequate leftovers that remain.

http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/20163-should-charities-be-protected-from-the-claws-of-fraudulent-transfer-laws.html

In 2009, IRS commissioner Doug Shulman said in a speech that the IRS had formed a new group of auditors who were going to be directing their attention at a special group of taxpayers: the super rich. Dubbing them "global high wealth individuals," Shulman promised that his agency would be taking a hard look at people who had tens of millions of dollars worth of assets and income tied up in complicated financial dealings that often involved overseas banking and aggressive tax avoidance strategies.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/04/super-rich-still-have-little-fear-irs

What does an organization do when the donor is giving a gift of somewhere between $10 and $20 thousand? How does the organization recognize this ‘mid-range’ gift? And when a donor is contributing such an amount and requests to have their gift named after a loved one, is the nonprofit obligated to do so? In general, is there a rule of thumb for naming opportunities that are not very large donations?

http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-challenge-of-naming-opportunities-for-the-middle-range-donor/

Good news: The dramatic rise of China's market economy has driven many newly rich people to give away money for the public good.

Bad news: There is no effective way to do that in China.

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/36475

Trends in Jewish giving - among individuals as well as large foundations - are shifting. As Jews become more globally conscious, and open their wallets to more nonsectarian causes, their impact on the wider community becomes more pronounced.

http://thejewishchronicle.net/view/full_story/18135916/article-The-future-of-%E2%80%A6-philanthropy-?instance=lead_story_left_column

The biggest pay packages seem to keep getting bigger, according to a preliminary analysis of executive compensation at major US public companies.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-04-08/business/31308871_1_equilar-ceo-compensation-compensation-consultants