On June 7 and 8 I was given the opportunity to attend Landmark Ventures’ Social Innovation Summit at the JW Marriott in downtown Chicago. I was interested in the summit because social innovation is a concept that repeatedly comes up in the world of philanthropy. As people seek to develop new and unique solutions to both emerging challenges such as cyber-bullying to age-old issues like equity and equality in the education system, social innovation has become trendy. There ar

The extent to which 501(c)3 charitable nonprofit organizations can legally participate in advocacy and lobbying while still retaining tax-exempt status is not well-understood. It's a question which seems to come up a lot these days in the philanthropic/nonprofit world, especially here in Illinois where the lack of a state budget over the past two years has prevented $12.8 billion from being released, with no end in sight (Responsible Budget Coalition). I attended an education