Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'charity'

June 16, 2006

Donors have responsibilities

A recent NYT article outlines some recent research showing that many people who give to charity “often tolerate high administrative costs, fail to monitor charities and do not insist on measurable results — the opposite of how they act when they invest in the stock market.” Continue Reading...
June 14, 2006

Penitence in the penitentiary

Joe Knippenberg, who blogs at No Left Turns, provides a thoughtful and engaging analysis of the particulars of the recent Iowa court decision finding against InnerChange Freedom Initiative, an outreach of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Continue Reading...
June 09, 2006

The new urban Christians

“Should I not be concerned about that great city?” asks God of the prophet Jonah about Nineveh, which “has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well.” Continue Reading...
May 03, 2006

Coercing charity

This section from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics strikes me as quite true: The coercive factors, in distinction to the more purely moral and rational factors, in political relations can never be sharply differentiated and defined. Continue Reading...
April 20, 2006

Talking about the tithe

Here’s an article in the Washington Post recently that I want to pass along, “Tithing Rewards Both Spiritual and Financial,” by Avis Thomas-Lester. Among the highlights are the Rev. Jonathan Weaver of Greater Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church, who says, “Some people have a sense that pastors are heavy-handed . Continue Reading...
March 30, 2006

Equipping the armies of compassion

Pat Nolan, president of Justice Fellowship, writes about the challenges that non-profits face in seeking funding, in the latest Justice eReport, “Equpping the Armies of Compassion.” Nolan highlights the Acton Institute’s Samaritan Guide and We Care America, which has a grant center that assists charities in getting proposals together. Continue Reading...
March 23, 2006

Faith in the faith-based initiative

Joe Knippenberg raises three issues with respect to my critique of the faith-based initiative (here and here). He writes first, “any activity that depends upon money is potentially corrupting, whether the source is governmental or private…. Continue Reading...
March 23, 2006

More on the faith-based initiative

My commentary last week on the situation of the Silver Ring Thing has occasioned some conversation on the LewRockwell.com Blog (here, here, here, and here). The consensus on the faith-based initiative seems to be that, in the words of William L. Continue Reading...
March 15, 2006

A golden opportunity for ‘The Silver Ring Thing’

Touting the success of his faith-based initiative last week, President Bush noted that faith-based charities received more than $2 billion last year from the federal government. But even as Bush announced that the Department of Homeland Security would be the 11th agency to establish an office for the faith-based initiative, some groups are finding the money to be a mixed blessing. Continue Reading...
March 15, 2006

Among the little giants of effective compassion

Last Wednesday, I was privileged to attend the Samaritan Awards Gala in Washington, D.C. I have to say up front that Acton’s Effective Compassion events are probably the most enjoyable for me to attend because invariably one comes into contact with a group of very special, very dedicated people who are completely devoted to what our society would term “lost causes,” and having great success. Continue Reading...