Co-Editor, @GivingReview; Senior Fellow, @capitalresearch
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Articles by Michael E. Hartmann
Telling takedown: a big philanthropy critic self-censors
Editor’s note: as part of a series of essays rated “Best of 2026” by our staff, this is a repost of an article that appeared earlier this year. *** This essay originally appeared at The Giving Review. On February 26, Stupski Foundation president and author Glen Galaich published an intriguingly thoughtful response on Substack to an Atlantic magazine article earlier that month. By Tyler Austin Harper, the article described the Andrew W.
The Giving Review : The Ford Foundation’s new strategy, and what it isn’t saying about the old one
This article first appeared in the Giving Review It acknowledges that previous grantmaking, “in many instances,” failed to produce sufficiently enduring change. Will it now reflect a reconsideration of why? Last week, the 90-year-old Ford Foundation announced its much-anticipated new strategic plan. Under the previous strategy, introduced during Darren Walker’s presidency roughly a decade ago, Ford identified inequality as the defining challenge of its time.
The Giving Review : If the “nonprofit-sector” tree falls in the forest …
This article first appeared in the Giving Review “When asked broadly about their use of nonprofit services,” according to a survey of 1,790 people by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy for its recently released What Americans Think of Nonprofits & Philanthropy 2026 report, “just 7.4% of respondents indicated that they or someone in their immediate family had received or used services from a charitable organization or nonprofit in the past year.
A conversation with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center’s Elena Patel (Part 2 of 2)
Economist Elena Patel is co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and holder of the Pozen Director’s Chair and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Her research generally explores how tax policy, government programs, and institutional governance influence economic behavior.
A conversation with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center’s Elena Patel (Part 1 of 2)
Economist Elena Patel is co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and holder of the Pozen Director’s Chair and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Her research generally explores how tax policy, government programs, and institutional governance influence economic behavior.
Amidst historical nescience, recalling the Black, Minton, Anderson, and Buchanan Committees
Editor’s note: as part of a series of essays rated “Best of 2026” by our staff, this is a repost of an article that appeared earlier this year. *** This essay originally appeared at The Giving Review.
A conversation with the Finding Common Purpose Foundation’s Andrew Wolk (Part 2 of 2)
Andrew Wolk, founder and lead donor of the Finding Common Purpose Foundation, has spent more than two decades in the world of social entrepreneurship, nonprofit consulting, and philanthropy. After an earlier career in business, he started several nonprofit groups—including, in 2004, Root Cause. A Boston-based consulting group, Root Cause advised foundations, nonprofits, corporations, and government agencies on strategies for addressing social problems.
A conversation with the Finding Common Purpose Foundation’s Andrew Wolk (Part 1 of 2)
Andrew Wolk, founder and lead donor of the Finding Common Purpose Foundation, has spent more than two decades in the world of social entrepreneurship, nonprofit consulting, and philanthropy. After an earlier career in business, he started several nonprofit groups—including, in 2004, Root Cause. A Boston-based consulting group, Root Cause advised foundations, nonprofits, corporations, and government agencies on strategies for addressing social problems.
The Ford Foundation’s new strategy, and what it isn’t saying about the old one
Last week, the 90-year-old Ford Foundation announced its much-anticipated new strategic plan. Under the previous strategy, introduced during Darren Walker’s presidency roughly a decade ago, Ford identified inequality as the defining challenge of its time. The new one, under Walker’s successor Heather Gerken, makes the protection and strengthening of democracy its central organizing concept.
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If the “nonprofit-sector” tree falls in the forest …
“When asked broadly about their use of nonprofit services,” according to a survey of 1,790 people by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy for its recently released What Americans Think of Nonprofits & Philanthropy 2026 report, “just 7.4% of respondents indicated that they or someone in their immediate family had received or used services from a charitable organization or nonprofit in the past year.
The Giving Review : Philanthropy in Divine Disruption
This article first appeared in the Giving Review Fritz Steiger is a businessman, philanthropy professional, and longtime conservative public-policy and school-choice activist. A storied figure among those in and around the initial grantmaking that supported choice as it was being introduced in America, he recognizes many of them in his newly revised and republished memoir Divine Disruption: Restoring America to God’s Providence—nicely including Giving Review co-editor Daniel P. Schmidt.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Aaron Renn – Part 2
This interview first appeared in the Giving Review. Aaron Renn is a prolific writer and cogent cultural and policy analyst based in Carmel, Ind. He is a senior fellow at American Reformer, a former senior fellow in urban policy at the Manhattan Institute, and a former managing director at Accenture. He authored 2024’s influential Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Aaron Renn (Part 1 of 2)
This interview first appeared in the Giving Review. Aaron Renn is a prolific writer and cogent cultural and policy analyst based in Carmel, Ind. He is a senior fellow at American Reformer, a former senior fellow in urban policy at the Manhattan Institute, and a former managing director at Accenture. He authored 2024’s influential Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture.
Philanthropy in Divine Disruption
Fritz Steiger is a businessman, philanthropy professional, and longtime conservative public-policy and school-choice activist. A storied figure among those in and around the initial grantmaking that supported choice as it was being introduced in America, he recognizes many of them in his newly revised and republished memoir Divine Disruption: Restoring America to God’s Providence—nicely including Giving Review co-editor Daniel P. Schmidt.
A conversation with Aaron Renn (Part 2 of 2)
Aaron Renn is a prolific writer and cogent cultural and policy analyst based in Carmel, Ind. He is a senior fellow at American Reformer, a former senior fellow in urban policy at the Manhattan Institute, and a former managing director at Accenture. He authored 2024’s influential Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture.
A conversation with Aaron Renn (Part 1 of 2)
Aaron Renn is a prolific writer and cogent cultural and policy analyst based in Carmel, Ind. He is a senior fellow at American Reformer, a former senior fellow in urban policy at the Manhattan Institute, and a former managing director at Accenture. He authored 2024’s influential Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture.
“Trust, Tax Policy, and the Future of the Nonprofit Sector” examines major questions facing sector
The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center’s “Trust, Tax Policy, and the Future of the Nonprofit Sector,” event at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., last week explored some of the many major questions facing the sector about its role, responsibilities, and relationship to government, including in the context of tax policy.
The Giving Review : Flat-tax proposals and the charitable deduction
This article first appeared in the Giving Review Defenders of what they would call “donor freedom” against populist efforts to condition or curtail the tax benefits accorded nonprofit organizations often invoke the Tocquevillian tradition of American civil society. But Tocqueville was describing habits of association, religion, local self-government, and voluntary cooperation decades before there was a federal income tax, charitable exemption, or deduction.
The Giving Review : Philanthropy and The Counterrevolution
In Victor Davis Hanson’s just-released The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement, establishment philanthropy plays a recurring role. By Hanson’s description, major American grantmakers and their grantees were among those on the left whose tactical errors and overreaches helped return Donald Trump to office. Such errors and overreaches, he argues, have continued during Trump’s second term.
The Giving Review Flat-tax proposals and the charitable deduction
This article first appeared in the Giving Review Defenders of what they would call “donor freedom” against populist efforts to condition or curtail the tax benefits accorded nonprofit organizations often invoke the Tocquevillian tradition of American civil society. But Tocqueville was describing habits of association, religion, local self-government, and voluntary cooperation decades before there was a federal income tax, charitable exemption, or deduction.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Notre Dame’s Patrick J. Deneen – Part 2
Patrick J. Deneen is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame who teaches and writes about the history of political thought, liberalism, conservatism, and constitutionalism. Before joining Notre Dame in 2012, Deneen taught politics at Princeton University and government at Georgetown University, where he founded the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Notre Dame’s Patrick J. Deneen – Part 1
This interview first appeared in the Giving Review Patrick J. Deneen is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame who teaches and writes about the history of political thought, liberalism, conservatism, and constitutionalism. Before joining Notre Dame in 2012, Deneen taught politics at Princeton University and government at Georgetown University, where he founded the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy.
A conversation with Auburn’s Peter C. Weber (Part 1 of 2)
Peter C. Weber is an associate professor and program coordinator of the Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies Program at Auburn University. He also currently serves as president of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. Among other things, Weber researches nonprofits’ organizational capacity and history.
A conversation with Auburn’s Peter C. Weber (Part 2 of 2)
Peter C. Weber is an associate professor and program coordinator of the Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies Program at Auburn University. He also currently serves as president of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. Among other things, Weber researches nonprofits’ organizational capacity and history.
Philanthropy and The Counterrevolution
In Victor Davis Hanson’s just-released The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement, establishment philanthropy plays a recurring role. By Hanson’s description, major American grantmakers and their grantees were among those on the left whose tactical errors and overreaches helped return Donald Trump to office. Such errors and overreaches, he argues, have continued during Trump’s second term.
A conversation with Notre Dame’s Patrick J. Deneen (Part 2 of 2)
Patrick J. Deneen is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame who teaches and writes about the history of political thought, liberalism, conservatism, and constitutionalism. Before joining Notre Dame in 2012, Deneen taught politics at Princeton University and government at Georgetown University, where he founded the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy.
A conversation with Notre Dame’s Patrick J. Deneen (Part 1 of 2)
Patrick J. Deneen is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame who teaches and writes about the history of political thought, liberalism, conservatism, and constitutionalism. Before joining Notre Dame in 2012, Deneen taught politics at Princeton University and government at Georgetown University, where he founded the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy.
Flat-tax proposals and the charitable deduction
Defenders of what they would call “donor freedom” against populist efforts to condition or curtail the tax benefits accorded nonprofit organizations often invoke the Tocquevillian tradition of American civil society. But Tocqueville was describing habits of association, religion, local self-government, and voluntary cooperation decades before there was a federal income tax, charitable exemption, or deduction. Civil society neither originates in nor depends upon the Internal Revenue Code.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Cardus’ Andrea Mrozek and Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard – Part 2
This interview first appeared in the Giving Review A June report from the Canadian think tank Cardus, From Advocates to Insiders: Government Funding and Advocacy Groups in the Child Care Debate, envisions a healthy civil society that depends on voluntary organizations rooted in the citizenry, funded primarily by it and thus from private sources, and able to speak independently of government.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Cardus’ Andrea Mrozek and Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard – Part 1
This interview first appeared in the Giving Review A June report from the Canadian think tank Cardus, From Advocates to Insiders: Government Funding and Advocacy Groups in the Child Care Debate, envisions a healthy civil society that depends on voluntary organizations rooted in the citizenry, funded primarily by it and thus from private sources, and able to speak independently of government.
The Giving Review : The 1964 Civil Rights, ’65 Voting Rights, and ’69 Tax Reform Acts
Opponents of policy reform that would seek to return nonprofit tax law to the legislative intent of the 1969 Tax Reform Act (TRA), specifically including its provisions against the partisan political activities of private foundations, sometimes argue or imply that those provisions were borne of or motivated by a racist reaction to the civil-rights movement’s successes, including its legislative ones, in the ’60s.
The 1964 Civil Rights, ’65 Voting Rights, and ’69 Tax Reform Acts
Opponents of policy reform that would seek to return nonprofit tax law to the legislative intent of the 1969 Tax Reform Act (TRA), specifically including its provisions against the partisan political activities of private foundations, sometimes argue or imply that those provisions were borne of or motivated by a racist reaction to the civil-rights movement’s successes, including its legislative ones, in the ’60s.
A conversation with Cardus’ Andrea Mrozek and Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard (Part 2 of 2)
A June report from the Canadian think tank Cardus, From Advocates to Insiders: Government Funding and Advocacy Groups in the Child Care Debate, envisions a healthy civil society that depends on Canvoluntary organizations rooted in the citizenry, funded primarily by it and thus from private sources, and able to speak independently of government.
A conversation with Cardus’ Andrea Mrozek and Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard (Part 1 of 2)
A June report from the Canadian think tank Cardus, From Advocates to Insiders: Government Funding and Advocacy Groups in the Child Care Debate, envisions a healthy civil society that depends on voluntary organizations rooted in the citizenry, funded primarily by it and thus from private sources, and able to speak independently of government.
:The Giving Review : A conversation with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s Matthew Putnam Part 2
National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) policy manager Matthew Putnam’s research and writing focus on state and local tax and fiscal policies, practices, and proposed reforms.
:The Giving Review : A conversation with National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s Matthew Putnam Part 1
The paper uses Boston as a case study. Last month, Boston University agreed to pay a total of $104.3 million to the city under a five-year PILOT agreement—the largest such commitment in the city’s history. Rather than treating PILOTs as a threat to nonprofit status, Putnam presents them as a pragmatic response to the fiscal pressures created when large portions of valuable real estate are removed from cities’ tax rolls.
The Giving Review : A conversation with Defense of Freedom Institute’s Jay P. Greene: Part 1
The education scholar and reform advocate talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the K-12 school-choice and higher-education reform efforts, including philanthropic support of them—as well as the structural challenges for, and tax-advantaged status of, nonprofits involved in reform. Jay P. Greene is a senior fellow at the Defense of Freedom Institute, where he focuses on combating antisemitism in K–12 education, higher education, and teacher unions.
A conversation with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s Matthew Putnam (Part 2 of 2)
National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) policy manger Matthew Putnam‘s research and writing focuses on state and local tax and fiscal policies, practices, and proposed reforms.
A conversation with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s Matthew Putnam (Part 1 of 2)
National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) policy manger Matthew Putnam‘s research and writing focuses on state and local tax and fiscal policies, practices, and proposed reforms.
A conversation with NYU School of Law’s Daniel J. Hemel (Part 2 of 2)
Daniel J. Hemel is the John S. R. Shad Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, where his scholarship includes focusing on tax law and policy and nonprofit organizations, among other subjects. Before joining NYU Law’s faculty in 2022, he taught at The University of Chicago Law School and held visiting appointments at the Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and NYU law schools.
A conversation with NYU School of Law’s Daniel J. Hemel (Part 1 of 2)
Daniel J. Hemel is the John S. R. Shad Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, where his scholarship includes focusing on tax law and policy and nonprofit organizations, among other subjects. Before joining NYU Law’s faculty in 2022, he taught at The University of Chicago Law School and held visiting appointments at the Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and NYU law schools.
The Giving Review : Watching grantmakers more closely, intelligently
This article first appeared in the Giving Review. Philanthropy is entering an era of increasingly sophisticated observation and analysis of it. While it, and the nonprofit sector of which it is a part, may not welcome the era, it is upon us. Artificial intelligence is going to allow more new, and enhance already-existing, tools to help better track its funding flows.
A conversation with the Defense of Freedom Institute’s Jay P. Greene (Part 2 of 2)
Jay P. Greene is a senior fellow at the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI), where he focuses on combating antisemitism in K–12 education, higher education, and teacher unions. A leading education-policy scholar, Greene has spent more than three decades shaping debates over K-12 school choice, education reform more generally, and the civic effects of schooling through influential academic research, policy analysis, and public commentary.
A conversation with the Defense of Freedom Institute’s Jay P. Greene (Part 1 of 2)
Jay P. Greene is a senior fellow at the Defense of Freedom Institute, where he focuses on combating antisemitism in K–12 education, higher education, and teacher unions. A leading education-policy scholar, Greene has spent more than three decades shaping debates over K-12 school choice, education reform more generally, and the civic effects of schooling through influential academic research, policy analysis, and public commentary.
Watching grantmakers more closely, intelligently
Philanthropy is entering an era of increasingly sophisticated observation and analysis of it. While it, and the nonprofit sector of which it is a part, may not welcome the era, it is upon us. Artificial intelligence is going to allow more new, and enhance already-existing, tools to help better track its funding flows.
The Giving Review : Thinking small is a big idea
This article by Frank Filocomo originally appeared in the Giving Review. Today’s Zoomers—on both the progressive left and the populist, or rather, new right—want to fundamentally change America. That is, today’s iteration of America, at least. Their thinking is macro. It’s national. Parochialism? Subsidiarity? That’s small potatoes. They can’t be bothered with such trivialities.
Edwards Lifesciences Sapien 3 Ultra shines as trusted TAVI classic for Sunday heart patients
Edwards Lifesciences, US28176E1082 The Edwards Lifesciences Sapien 3 Ultra remains a cornerstone transcatheter heart valve for patients and cardiology teams seeking a proven, meticulously engineered TAVI solution that has stood the test of time in demanding real?world practice.
Subaru Forester e-Boxer Sport 2026 brings rugged hybrid confidence to everyday drivers
Sumitomo Corp, JP3401400001 Subaru’s new Forester e-Boxer Sport 2026 aims at drivers who want a practical family SUV with real off-road talent and a more efficient hybrid powertrain. Sumitomo Corp, JP3401400001 By Michael Hartmann, ad-hoc-news, June 17, 2026 The Subaru Forester e-Boxer Sport 2026 targets drivers who want a no-nonsense hybrid SUV that still feels ready for rough tracks, wet cobblestones, and long family trips without drama.
Roland TD-27KV2 positions as the compact e-drum kit that feels closer to acoustic
Roland Corp., JP3983400004 Roland TD-27KV2 brings flagship drum feel into a compact, midrange electronic kit aimed at serious home players and studio users. Roland Corp., JP3983400004 Roland TD-27KV2 positions as the compact e-drum kit that feels closer to acoustic By Michael Hartmann, ad-hoc-news, June 17, 2026 Roland TD-27KV2 is designed for drummers who want an expressive electronic kit that still fits into a spare room or project studio.
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