Philanthropic practice

2006, 196 pages. Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NJ, 08540, (609) 258-4900, press.princeton.edu

Last fall after the Taos Journey conference, Anne Focke and I got together to (as we say in California) process the event. She gave me a journal for my writing and a copy of a beautiful little chapbook, A Pragmatic Response to Real Circumstances, originally published by the back room, Portland, Oregon.

2008, 26 pages. Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School, 106 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8TZ, UK, www.cass.city.ac.uk/cce/

http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/cce/pdf_files/famfoundationphil.pdf

2008, 104 pages. The Urban Institute, 2100 M Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20037, www.urban.org; The Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10003, www.foundationcenter.org; GuideStar, 4801 Courthouse Street, Suite 220, Williamsburg, VA, 23188, www.guidestar.org

2005, 11 pages. TCC Group, 31 West 27th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001, (212) 949-0990

http://www.tccgrp.com/pdfs/per_brief_impact.pdf

2008, 130 pages. Published by Heyday Books, P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, CA, 94709, O(510) 549-3564, www.heydaybooks.co

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London, 2008, 297 pages, Edited by Diane Grams and Betty Farrell.

20 pages, 2008. Atlantic Philanthropies. http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org

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2008, 141 pages. Council on Foundations, 2121 Crystal Drive, Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22202 (703) 879-0600, www.cof.org

This robust report features a series of essays on aspects of rural philanthropy from a diverse range of perspectives. The conclusion, by Sherece Y. West, alone is worth the price of admission. The report concludes with a summary of funding recommendations from the Council on Foundations Conference on Philanthropy and Rural America: A 21st Century Agenda, held in August 2007 in Montana.

Working at a busy foundation involves a lot of reading and listening to smart people who are working hard to improve the world we live in. One thing comes across loud and clear: how little value added is being contemporaneously realized from the definitional leaps of our unsustainably complex verbiage.

In other words, it's time for us nonprofit people to learn to MAKE IT PLAIN.