Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

On the bottom of this post I’ve been updating the status of the referenced posts while publishing them, one by one over the past ten days (Nov. 22 – Dec. 1: see post archives for November 2017 for dates).  Once published each post is then re-viewed, clarified, sometimes extending it, sometimes just correcting layout.  I’m posting more frequently now, but it’s still an intense process which ALWAYS uncovers more information to blog, OFTEN further illuminates my own understanding of some situations (typically, organizations placed in the intersection between public and private — and the board members’ ownership of, or investment in, subcontracting organizations) I may have been aware of for years, which I look forward to explaining as I can. Maintaining the anchor (mental commitment) to those already in draft, shown below, sometimes provides conflicting currents as a writer.  I write best typically while most focused on the present research in the overarching context of my own learning curve and desire to communicate clearly what I am seeing and hearing, and watching continue to evolve over the years.  //LGH, Dec. 1, 2017.

Posts in the pipeline or “spin-off posts” are portions of some writing in process* with a blog “street address” but still in draft status, felt to be significant enough for more attention under their own titles. *Typically they come up as I am writing some post, and are related but I feel they may seem extraneous to a reader covering the subject matter for the first time. Other times, less often, I start them from scratch on their own post when I realize the topic should be handled before it almost writes itself on some other project I want published sooner.

Sometimes these off-ramped finds, like my  more consistently noticing the presence of independent subcontractors as  major part of some charities, are a key which puts the larger picture together, i.e., opens double-wide doors to understanding.  Examples:  Bridgespan as a subcontractor (and its relationship to “Bain”); or, further back in its  corporate existence (and in my blog’s history), NCCD (National Council on Crime & Delinquency) as an Oakland, California-based subcontractor taking government grants from around the world, or I should say, around the “Commonwealth Nations” and around the USA, on a “Children’s Rights, Inc.” charity based in New York.

There is a recent example also on these blogs, too, although it’s not as a subcontractor of some charity, but a listed partner among others in on certain website offering multi-state filings for charities.  One of the listed partners was bought out within six years of its creation, leading to my better understanding of a (different) company historically significant to the practice of corporate law in the United States (!), and as we have (already) turned the century into the digital age and the professionalization of services to and “software AS a service” companies to the philanthropic / nonprofit sector.

Typically also posts in the pipeline were nearly complete before I moved them under their own titles, with “nearly” still meaning “not yet..” in blog administrator terms.  Parallels to baking bread, or, (to borrow from my more familiar, experiential points of reference), preparing and rehearsing a musical ensemble for a concert, may help explain a sense when 90% “done” isn’t good enough. It’s not about complete perfection, it’s about having enough vital components to complete the course and “deliver the goods” for better understanding of the evolving”playing field” in which this blog became necessary.

Navigation:  Blog sections, by Subtitle.  It seems there are six main sections.  Any section may contain text in a variety of formats, and/or images.  I only posted one table of Forms 990 (for a change!). The longer Sections 2 and 5, especially, set up the Posts in the Pipeline as being along the same concepts but just applied to different organizations.  There is overlap of type, and (future posts will show) also overlap of entities and personnel involved — hardly surprising because I’m looking at some of the more powerful foundations around, and major causes with public policy in transition…There is also some overlap of material below between some of the sections.

I don’t want us to lose sight of what some of these influential groups have themselves lost sight of — the requirement of holding to some real ethics, reason, and at least an attempt to keep their collaborating colleagues honest, instead of just “going for the jugular” on some groups which might be in competition for the same audiences.  Which I say happened in the recent prosecution of a sham (fake) cancer charities.  Not that they weren’t sham (I read — seems like they certainly were) — but they ALSO were in competition with the tobacco mega-fund money coursing triumphantly through government and the philanthropic sectors both, and often in partnership.

That last comment will make more sense in the context of reading up on “NAAG” and “NASCO” (see Outline here):

1. About This Post (you’re in it…)
2. Concentric Circles of Investigation, Common Themes – To Review 
   1. WestEd (MIA financials on both old and new websites; see prior posts on this).
   2. AISR at Brown and Annenberg Foundation-Related
   3. NGA
   4. NAAG, NASCO (current project and research themes)
   5. Multi-million-dollar MIA grants (overlaps with some of the above and below groups)
   6. Multi-million-dollar Grants not MIA, but it sure seems the projects are, and don’t look remotely that classy when parts of them show up, either…
   7. NCALP at Capital University (Columbus, Ohio) (transformed into) Family & Youth Law Center / and its IPV Collaborative personally assisting David Mandel’s career path through curricula marketing.
      1. Basic conclusion to the “Concentric Circles / Review” section:  “The more you look, the more of such situations surface.  How much is acceptable? It is really something which is subject to being controlled and monitored — or not?”
3. “The Same Basics One Year Ago, ” (brief, only one image)
4. More Recent Discoveries (contents include BizFilings, Guidestar, short section — but Guidestar info cont’d in another section)
5. Brief Recap of the recent Nov. 18 post and Nov. 11 page significance, and more images from “Guidestar, Inc.” (formerly “Philanthropic Research, Inc.”) and a bit on (Paul) Newman’s Own Foundation, Inc. (versions 1 & 2, based in Connecticut), also referenced as involved, or to be involved, in the MRFP and Single Portal Initiative… 
   1. Contains narrative and many images, plus a Form 990 table for GuideStar USA, Inc.
   2. Summarizes the most recent post and page, obviously.
6. IN GENERAL (barely a section, but it is a heading)
7. Six Posts (at least) in the Pipeline, Pre-Thanksgiving 2017 (looking back, looking forward…)
   1. In image format (not interactive)
   2. In texts (bulleted, with titles, links and some surrounding descriptions from the context where they were first referenced).

As you can see above, the actual list of posts is on the bottom in two formats:  Images (from my WordPress Admin site showing titles of post started in November and still in draft) and, for later convenience, text & titles with active links.  And some surrounding abstracts or reminders of the context.  And it’s at the bottom of the post.  FYI there were nine ten (10) in all, not six (6).  One more showed up which hadn’t been imaged (on the historic basis of “Sovereignty” concept, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).*

*That is, after all, a big question (despite it having become a “dirty word” and negative- or positive-only values-laden descriptor for certain people with certain beliefs in the USA — the question in any form of government is “Who’s the boss?” (legally, and effectively/administratively which will often show up economically).  So, national “sovereignty” as a concept has origins in contrast to, it seems the Holy Roman Empire.  Worth thinking about in the historic sense. This post just provides some resources (links) for further reading.

An image looks like this (the example only has one title showing, though).

#3 of 3 (My Blog Posts Started Nov. 2017 in Draft, by when last modified (not originated). This one more of a study project from recent headlines on Puerto Rico debt and hurricane recovery 2017, transferable info.

A title with link looks just like what you see at the top, or will see if you scroll to the bottom of this post, below the images, to see those in the pipeline listed in bullet format, with some nearby fine-print summaries for most of them.  Why?  Because with enough memory pegs for the months or even possibly years of writing ahead (further down the FamilyCourtMatters road), I expect my head may be buried either deeper into this theme, or into a related one. I sometimes even dream about material I am currently working; it gets under one’s skin…Once it’s published, a previous multi-post project is buried less deeply in my psyche (so to speak), but is better available for mental recall when there’s enough surrounding context.  As with advertising, to a degree also with teaching (and learning): repetition helps comprehension, but better that the repetition is also tied to context.

My Annenberg-related posts published so far; The names speak loudly. Click image to enlarge and see. Only one has tabs (and not all shown on this image)

An Annenberg-related FamilyCourtMatters post + publication date (but no tags), title also shown with link nearby (Nov. 21, 2017 new post)

Challenging the Annenbergs’ Public Education Challenge Grants, Still Searching for AISR@Brown as a Form 990 filer, Still Scrutinizing Why We Accept that Privately Controlled, Synched, Billion-Dollar, Tax-Exempt Foundations Care about the Public as Much as About Controlling Their Collective Assets (and the Public, Lest We Start Demanding a Better Look at the Books!) with case-sensitive short-link ending “-6yC”

The first several paragraphs here overlap from the originating post, before I “get into it,” scrutinizing some of the Forms 990PF and relationships between various Annenberg projects and their main foundation. *** [see below next para. and link]

As previously explained (on the last post, above), this is a large family foundation (well, at least one) whose primary wealth came from ownership of publications/media field — the sale of “Triangle Publications,” by a second-generation business success, Walter H. Annenberg.