Nonprofits reeling from Madoff fallout

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Legendary trader Bernie Madoff was arrested and charged with securities fraud. The reverberations of Madoff’s historic scheming are being felt far beyond Wall Street — nonprofits have been hit hard. For a look at what this means for philanthropies and those who benefit from their good works, "The Takeaway" checks in with Robert Crane, president and CEO of the JEHT Foundation. The foundation, whose funds were managed by Madoff, will close its doors in January.

Crane describes how the foundation is coping: "We’re trying to close ourselves down in an orderly way, and a way that’s respectful to the people we’ve supported over the years … it’s a tragedy obviously for our staff, but even more so for all the people we supported, so our first goal is to really try to make peoples situation as good as we can in these last days of our institution."

The JEHT Foundation focused largely on policy reform, according to Crane: "Not only do we focus on social justice issues, but we focused on some of the harder to fund social justice issues, and harder to fund segments of the American population that need support. And so I think the loss of this foundation is doubly difficult because there aren’t many funders, for example, who support criminal justice reform work in this country, juvenile justice reform work in this country, or international justice work which we also do, or frankly election reform work that we also do."

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