Setting Up a Private Foundation - A Legal Book Review

A good many folks would like to leave money to the common good when they retire or after they have completed their life experience. Some folks would like to set up private foundations because they would like to give back to the world that has given them so much. This is quite a noble thing, and it is extremely popular in the United States. Today, there are nearly 76,000 private foundations in the US and that number grows each and every year.

If you are a financial investment advisor for the wealthy, or if you'd like to set up your own private foundation, there is a very good book that I think you should read. It is quite comprehensive, and one that I think might very much help you accomplish this goal. The name of the book is;

"Private Foundations: Tax Law and Compliance, Third Edition" by Bruce R. Hopkins and Jodie Blazek, published by John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York, New York, 2008, (768 pp).

Private foundations do not just give away money, but they give away well-placed money, and they are able to influence our society by a large degree, so whereas, some people think it's all about money and gifting, it's more than that. And the authors go out of their way to explain this in the first two chapters. Hopkins and Blazek also explain the soul searching that must be done prior to a family making the decision to set up a foundation.

The authors explain that nearly $37 billion will be given away in 2007 and this will account for nearly 13% of all the charitable giving throughout the United States. So this is a huge amount of funds that go back to help the common good. But even if you have a small foundation for just your family, you will not be alone, each year there are more and more of these types of foundation are being formed, and the amount of spending they do is also increasing.

The authors admit that during recessionary periods, the number fluctuates, but the reality is that foundations are part of the foundation of our nation. Indeed, I think you should pick up a copy of this book, read it, and think about it. Please consider all this.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes in giving back.