Customer Reviews

Creating a Private Foundation: The Essential Guide for Donors and Their Advisers

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Unwitting new philantrophists sometimes end up with bureaucratic creatures that do exactly what the donor did not want. This book is full of practical advice on how to avoid unpleasant surprises if you set up a foundation of your own, such as finding out that you have no control over its activities.

It also gives a succinct review of investment problems. Foundations can potentially last for many generations. But they can easily mismanage themselves into oblivion in short order. The authors identify seven deadly investment sins.

For example, foundations don't need to frequently redeem their investments, but some mistakenly invest in liquid assets and lose returns as a result. They would be better off with non-traditional investments like private-equity, income producing real estate, hedge funds, and timber.

Many foundations fail to diversify, unwittingly taking on risk. THey start with stock from the founder's company and continue to hold a concentrated position, exposing themselves to the vagaries of that business. In 2002 the David and Lucille Packard Foundation was forced to cut its donations drastically when Hewlett-Packard stock fell.

IN short, an easy-to-read, useful guide.

A great great book to give to your existing Private Foundation clients, as well as those considering their options. The book hits on several key points among many others - which are the reason to formalize your investment policy statement(IPS) and donor intent issues. The author is correct that too often good intentions fail to result in effective results. It deals with other vehicles like charitable lead trusts (CLTs) and charitable remainder trusts (CRTs) as well as donor advised and support organizations. It is a big picture book not a technical how to for the attorney!

The author provides ample information to help a person understand the ins and outs and the starting point for creating a foundation.

This book is clear and well written. It tends to emphasize the difficulties and pitfalls that await the unwary, but it does set out the advantages also. It makes it clear that setting up a Foundation is not for amateurs, the laws being so complex.

The book is more for donors than advisors. I does not provide enough of the necessary essential legally technical information.

A lot of Pres O's nominees apparently read this book, or one like it. I seem to remember that a number of them were directors of private foundations or charities that owned fancy houses that the directors got to live in without paying property taxes... or some other such thing.

As long as the tax laws are being used to take money from those who are doing the things lawmakers don't like and to give money or preferences to those who are doing the things lawmakers do like, a book like this seems to be simply required reading if you have to manage some money. It's like having a smoke detector if you live in a wooden house or having a gun if you live more than five minutes from the police hdq - all are just things you do to be reasonably prudent.

I have no idea if everything in the book is all up to date - and considering the proclivity of our legislators and jurists and bureaucrats to change, it almost certainly is not. But it does give you some ideas of what people have done and are doing to minimize the costs of taxes in our lives.