Opinion | Private foundations: spotlight spurs sharper focus, less secrecy | Seattle Times Newspaper

Opinion | Private foundations: spotlight spurs sharper focus, less secrecy | Seattle Times Newspaper: "n the year since Warren Buffett announced his historic $30 billion commitment to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, philanthropists — and especially this country's largest charitable foundations — have found themselves under the spotlight to an unprecedented degree. With more than $500 billion in charitable assets and annual grants exceeding $40 billion to nonprofit organizations around the world, what are foundations, anyway? What kind of impact have they made — and might they make — on our most pressing social problems? Are they effective?"