Where Most Needed

Harvard, Unbuilt and Unloved

Civil society (the local Cambridge version) puts a damper on architectural visions, while on the other side of town MIT manages to soar with the eagles. 

Small Groups Push for Recognition of Slavery in Philadelphia

A tiny nonprofit and an unincorporated group kept the pressure on the National Park Service to tell the story of how President George Washington held on to his slaves in the original US capital after Pennsylvania abolished slavery. 

Funding Failure Hides Anne Frank Documents for Thirty Years

A part-time volunteer runs across a file with correspondence from Anne Frank's father while cataloging documents that sat in a warehouse for decades. 

Hermitage Museum Responds with Surprising Transparency to Insider Thefts

Musuem publishes list of 221 missing items in the newspapers and on the Internet, which seems to have led to at least two recoveries and arrests that may lead to more.   

LA Times Op-Ed Questions Smithsonian Funding

Luking in the background is the obvious question: why not charge admission?

Preserving a Little Frank Lloyd Wright House Takes a Big Commitment

A 900 square foot workers home in Milwaukee becomes a university architecture project.

LA Museum Merger Leads to Custody Battle Three Years Later

Neighborhood groups fight the transfer of Southwest Museum artifacts to the Autry Center in Griffith Park.

IRS Busts Historical Society for Payroll Tax Nonpayment

Organization agrees to dissolve in exchange for waiving of penalties—but $14,000 in taxes will be paid.

Nonprofit Gets the Lighthouse, Government Cleans the Restrooms

A lighthouse can be a powerful metaphor.  Here, it's a metaphor for the relationship between charities and government.  The county commissioners of Currituck County, North Carolina, have come to an agreement with Outer Bank Conservationists (EIN 58-1424689 Form 990) over the operation of the Currituck Beach lighthouse after taking them to court. 

The OBC had restored the lighthouse and keeper's house under a 20-year lease from the Federal government it received in 1991.  But in 2000, Congress changed the law to allow the government to turn over lighthouses outright.  OBC competed for the title against the county and won in 2003.  At that point, the county sued to require the nonprofit to meet county codes about parking and restrooms. Both of these were on adjacent land, owned by the county, but managed by a different charity, the Whalehead Preservation Trust  (EIN 56-6424298 Form 990). 

The difference between the two charities is this:  the OBC receives about a half million dollars a year in fee income (admissions from 80,000 annual visitors and rentals for weddings and the like).  The form 990 shows that about half was used for operating expenses last year, leaving the organization with a hefty surplus.  The Whalehead organization gets over a million a year, but that is almost exclusively government funding.  So this appears to be the classic case where a nonprofit organization is getting the cream while the government is expected to provide the infrastructure (at its most basic: restroom maintenance). 

Under the agrement, OBC will start paying 17% of its gross income to the Whalehead group, to be put in trust for maintenance of the parking lot and restrooms.  Pure poetry.