I started this blog, Nonprofit Chronicles, in 2015. It replaced my first blog, which ran at marcgunther.com, for eight years. This is my last post here. (No. 282, but who’s counting.) I’m returning to marcgunther.com, where the focus of my writing will be psychedelic drugs, as it has been lately. I’ve been a reporter for nearly 50 years. I’ve rarely been bored because I’ve changed beats every five to ten years. I’ve written about politics and government, television, the media and entertainment industry, corporate sustainability and the world of foundations and non-profits. For what I expect t ..read more

Many startup companies developing psychedelic medicines are struggling to raise money these days. Not Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals. Founded in 2019, Gilgamesh raised $39m in December. Its original investors came back for the Series B round. It participated in the Y Combinator accelerator for startups. Its founder, Jonathan Sporn, who I met briefly at a party during the Horizons conference in New York, has an impressive resume. So I decided to take a closer look. Lucid News posted my story about Gilgamesh the other day. What’s noteworthy about the company is that it isn’t developing any of the cl ..read more

Late in 2018, while researching a story about philanthropy and psychedelic medicine for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, I drove up to Baltimore to visit Roland Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. Griffiths was then and remains today one of the world’s leading researchers of psychedelics. Our conversation was one of a number that helped persuade me to make a late-in-life course change: I shifted the focus of my reporting from philanthropy to the business, politics, culture and science of psychedelics. Psychedelics is the most exciting story ..read more

Since I began reporting on foundations and nonprofits back in 2015, I’ve tried to make a habit of writing once a year about my own charitable giving. I’ve done so for three reasons. First, I believe in transparency. If I write a story about GiveDirectly, say, readers should know that I’m also a donor. Second, I think it would be helpful if more people shared their giving practices. We might all get smarter about where to give and, perhaps, choose to give more. Third, I have the modest hope that–as someone who has paid careful attention to philanthropy and reported on many charities–my giving m ..read more

The website Tobacco Tactics calls itself “the essential source for rigorous research on the tobacco industry.” Operating under the aegis of the University of Bath in the UK, Tobacco Tactics is funded by, among others, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic vehicle of billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg leads a global campaign against the tobacco industry and all its products, including safer nicotine products. Last month, Tobacco Tactics went after a Norwegian researcher named Karl Erik Lund, alleging that he has “ties” and “connections” to the tobacco industry. This w ..read more

Much as I would prefer not to write about smoking and vaping, I can’t walk away from the story. Tobacco control policy is a neglected topic, and it’s too important to leave alone. When people I admire like Ken Warner, the former dean of the University of Michigan school of public health, who is 75 and could be doing anything he likes, devote their time and energy to advocate for a balanced approach to e-cigarette regulation, I believe attention must be paid. Warner and his U of Michigan colleague Cliff Douglas are trying hard to overcome the polarization that characterizes the great vape debat ..read more

I’ve neglected this blog all fall as I write less about philanthropy and more about psychedelics. It is no longer “Nonprofit Chronicles” except in name. I am hoping to start a new website/blog at my old URL, marcgunther.com, but haven’t been able to begin that daunting task. If anyone reading this knows a web designer who can help me by building a simple Squarespace site, please reach out to me by email. Meantime, here are links to stories that I’ve written since last posting here, in reverse chronological order. My new story for Lucid News looks at Carey Turnbull, who exercises a lot of influ ..read more

T. Cody Swift As a young philanthropist who supports research into psychedelic medicines, Cody Swift is nothing if not hands-on. He has experimented with psychedelics.He has guided clients through trips as part of clinical trials at Johns Hopkins University. He has published in an academic journal. Most important, he has donated millions of dollars. His donations are poised to have a big impact. He’s also a leader, with David Bronner and others, of efforts to support indigenous peoples who have used these medicines for thousands of years. Cody is one of a very few private donors who kept rese ..read more

Last week, Filter, a nonprofit journalism website that covers drug policy, published my long (3,000-word) story about the Truth Initiative. Truth Initiative, which was formerly known as the American Legacy Foundation, began in 2000 as an anti-smoking group — by most accounts, a very effective one — and later evolved into a nonprofit that seeks to “inspire lives free from smoking, vaping & nicotine.” My story explains, to the best of my ability, how and why Truth Initiative broadened its mission and, arguably, took a disastrous turn in the wrong direction. The story is unavoidably detailed ..read more

The more I learn about psychedelic drugs, the more I realize how much work lies ahead for researchers who are studying these medicines. Last week, I watched How to Change Your Mind, the four-hour Netflix adaptation of Michael Pollan’s book, which explores the history and healing potential of four drugs: LSD, psilocybin (the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”), MDMA and mescaline. It’s excellent! Aside from Pollan’s book, which goes into the history, culture and psychopharmacology of psychedelics with greater depth, there’s no better way to understand what’s often called the psychedelic ren ..read more