Vast and largely unexamined the world of American charities accounts for fully percent of economic activity inthis country yet operates with little accountability no real barriers to entry and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness In With Charity for All Ken Stern reveals a problem hidden in plain sight and prescribes a whole new way for Americans to make a differenceEach year two thirds of American households donate to charities with charitable revenues exceeding one trillion dollars Yet while the mutual fundindustry employs more than people to rate and evaluate for-profit companies nothing remotely comparable exists to monitor the nonprofit world Instead each individual is on his or her own writing checks for a cause and going on faith Ken Stern former head of NPR and a long-time nonprofit executive set out to investigate the vast world of US charities and discovered a sector hobbled by deep structural flaws Unlike private corporations thatrespond to market signals and go out of business when they fail nonprofit organizations have a very low barrier to entry the IRS approves percentof applications and onceestablished rarelydie From water charities aimed at improving life in Africa to drug education programs run by police officers in thousands of US schools and including American charitable icons such as the Red Cross Stern tells devastating stories of organizations that raise and spend millions of dollars without ever cracking the problems they set out to solveBut he also discovered some good news a growing movement toward accountability and effectiveness in the nonprofit world With Charity for All is compulsively readable driven in its early pages by the plight of millions of Americans donating to good causes to no good end and in its last chapters by an inspiring prescription for individual giving and widespread reform.
