Business book review: 'With Charity for All'

Americans just love feeling philanthropic. In any debate over cutting tax breaks in the income tax system, the deduction for charitable donations is always held sacred — even more than that other sacred cow, the mortgage deduction. The globe-trotting, tent-dwelling relief worker, the doctor without borders, the logistics expert getting food and medicine to camps of war refugees — all elicit unique reverence from us armchair empathizers in civilized lands.

So why, asks Ken Stern in his new book, "With Charity for All," do we spend so little time thinking about the charities we give our billions to?

Stern is a veteran of the nonprofit world, having spent nine years running National Public Radio. Thanks to his experience and a wealth of further research, "With Charity for All" makes many important points about how little we understand about the needs and the operations of even the most prominent global philanthropies.

Stern makes a strong case that the average American donor has become a sucker for any charity's glossy yarn. That's because almost no system exists for measuring a charity's effectiveness on the ground; the few efforts that have been made to hold charities to account have been overwhelmed by feel-good PR and undermined by the sector's resistance to transparency.

Stern also explores the exploitation of tax exemptions by nonprofits that don't resemble charities by any stretch of the imagination. Many are hospitals that despite their nonprofit status behave with all the chilly inhumanity of a profit-seeking conglomerate — dunning indigent patients for inflated charges, leaving emergency rooms to fall to pieces while spending lavishly on surgical facilities for wealthy patrons of high-profile specialties — and, by the way, paying their CEOs in the millions.

Alas, "With Charity for All" falters in its most important role: proposing remedies.