Finally, on page 69 of the DAF report, we get this: "This report is based on research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We especially thank Jasmine Morrow, our program officer, and Victoria Vrana, previously at the Gates Foundation, who shepherded this project in its early stages."
The subterfuge regarding the Gates Foundation's essential role in producing the report is indicative of the furtive DAF industry as a whole.
Why should we have to rely on industry-funded studies to better understand how the DAF tax-exemption is playing out? Why can't we have an open and honest discussion about DAFs?
Of course, the Gates Foundation's DAF report is not intended to enable a greater understanding of what's going on in the DAF industry.
The DAF report's impressive and slick array of graphs, charts, callout boxes, academic biographies-all of the scholarly rhetorical devices-distract us from its real intent: to sell legislators and their staffs on the goodness of DAFs.
Released to coincide with the annual migration of the professional philanthropic class to Washington, D.C., to lobby elected officials for industry-beneficial legislation, the Gates Foundation DAF report-otherwise known as marketing collateral-will be circulated to legislators and their staffs during the industry-funded Foundations on the Hill: "Make sure to bring copies of the DAF report to your legislators, we have extra copies on the tables near the breakfast buffet."(*). The report will be cited one day in the Congressional Record.
National DAF sponsors included in the Gates Foundation DAF report account for a mere 1.6% of the national DAF sponsors reported on by NPT. The Gates Foundation DAF report is not a robust sampling, even if it's the largest sampling of individual DAF accounts heretofore.
https://capitalresearch.org/article/why-cant-we-have-an-honest-discussion-about-donor-advised-funds/
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