A valuable and thorough resource for aspiring philanthropists.
A brief primer focuses on the laws governing charitable giving.
Hopkins (The Law of Tax Exempt Organizations, 2015, etc.) has devoted nearly half a century to advising nonprofit, tax-exempt corporations how to negotiate the legal landscape of philanthropy. But in recent years, the author has noticed more individual clients seeking his counsel, and it is that crowd to whom this guide is addressed. Hopkins begins at the elemental level, taking nothing for granted, including a basic definition of the philanthropist as “an individual who contributes large sums of money for charitable purposes.” For someone who wishes to engage in considerable giving, the legal options available are dauntingly complex: One can form a private foundation, create a public charity, start an account called a donor-advised fund, or confect some hybridized version of all three. The author methodically helps readers articulate what precisely they want to accomplish and carefully weigh the options most conducive to the achievement of those goals. For example, if philanthropists insist on creating organizations over which they can assert maximum control, private foundations are probably the wisest vehicles. But if maximizing charitable deductions is one’s principal objective, a public charity likely makes more sense. Hopkins also discusses the possibility of garnering public recognition for charitable giving without the legal burden of institutionalization by virtue of naming gifts. Furthermore, he assesses the various ways all these options can be structured, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each, and includes detailed analyses of illustrative case studies. His book is both remarkably concise and exhaustive—it’s difficult to imagine a more comprehensive introduction to the topic of comparable brevity. Especially considering the dense, intimidatingly technical nature of the subject matter, the author writes in mercifully lucid prose of the kind one would expect from a veteran teacher. In addition, he points out, with a wry charm, the ambiguities and omissions that bedevil the law: “What is the minimum amount that should be contributed in forming a private foundation? No one knows.”
A valuable and thorough resource for aspiring philanthropists.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4809-9916-9
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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