Fund-of-funds Books

One of the best things about The Ask is it is not just about major gifts. Fredricks outlines how to seek donations for special events (auctions, luncheons, golf tournaments)and the annual fund as well as major and planned gifts and capital gifts. She also guides the reader through overcoming personal factors in money that can make a person hesitate or even indefinitely postpone an ask. She directs "the asker" to consider the prospect's views on money before asking, too. There is also an outline of the "essential elements" for any kind of ask from which both novice and experienced askers can benefit. This is one of the best of its type around!

Asking (soliciting) people for money can be a stressful or challenging endeavor. But, you know, so is just about everything we do the first time. And how do we learn to do something the first time? Someone teaches us either verbally or by way of writing a book. This book does a wonderful job of explaining "The Ask" part of not-for-profit fundraising in its 10 chapters:

1. Soliciting Money Usually Causes Jitters
2. Prospect Research and Evaluating a Prospective Donor for Gift-Giving Readiness
3. Who Should Do the Ask?
4. How to Prepare for an Ask
5. Asking for Non-Major Gifts
6. Asking for Major Gifts in Annual Campaign Setting
7. Asking for Planned Gifts (Deferred Gifts)
8. Asking for Major Gifts in Capital Campaign Setting
9. How to Respond to Prospective Donor after Making the Ask
10. Follow-Up for Each Ask

The author is certainly qualified to write the book. She has a number of years experience working in a major gift setting for a well established university in New York. It surprised me when I stumbled across this book in the bookstore that there was enough material on the subject to actually write this book. But apparently there is more than enough to talk about on the subject. I probably would have titled the book "Soliciting Major Gifts" instead of The Ask. But then I would not have included Chapter 5 either.

Let's face it, face-to-face gift solicitation is predominantly a major gift thing. There might be some face-to-face gift solicitation of donors for sizeable (but not major) gifts, but for the most part that is the exception not the rule. Major gifts as I know them are $10,000 and up. Many are six figures! Now that is something to get jittery over.

I would have liked the book better if it had not been as wordy as it was. Instead of providing the chapter titles in this review as they were written in the book I changed them a bit. I think my titles explain the contents of the book better. I also found the list of TEN (10) basic categories of responses to an ask included in the book to be way too long. I'm familiar with there being just four: (1) Yes I will give, (2) No I won't give, (3) That's too much, and (4) Let me think about it and get back to you. And there was some overlap of "guiding principles" included at page 213 of the book - so I think there could have been fewer principles included in that list.

I have a feeling this book will get its most use from board members of nonprofits and leadership teams heading up capital campaigns at nonprofits. It is my understanding that most people involved in major gift solicitations at the big nonprofits (schools and hospitals) already have a system in place for helping major gift solicitors feel at ease doing an ask and doing it well. In fact, this book is probably a public version of one of those schools' in-house guides. 5 stars!

I thought Ms. Fredricks wrote an excellent book that helped me a great deal with the basics of face to face fundraising. The step by step approach and attention to detail took my approach to a new level. I had hoped to get a bit more information on the identification of donors. I would buy and read anything else that Ms. Fredricks would write on fundraising. Myles Beck

I find this book to be very detailed and specific, giving useful examples of how to exercise the theories of fundraising covered in the book.

However, the book is extremely America-centric. Most other countries have not caught up to America in the field of philanthropy. For this reason many of the recommendations cannot be adopted or need to be scaled down for Australian fundraisers.

You have just accepted a staff or volunteer position with a prominent local nonprofit organization. One small problem: up until this point, you never have asked anyone for a dime for charity. Fund-raising is a brand new field for you, and now you must routinely solicit large donations and other vital financial assistance from local community and business leaders. Asking for money does not come naturally to most people. Well, here's some good news: As with any other established area of expertise, you can learn this skill. You can put proven methodologies to work to persuade people to make major financial contributions to your organization. We recommend this intelligent, informative manual on valuable fund-raising procedures and techniques. Laura Fredricks is a true expert on the subject and she details all her hard-won knowledge in this book. You can't ask for much more than that. Or then again, according to Fredricks, you can. Indeed, she will teach you how to ask for everything that your organization needs.

Chapter 15, Obtaining Substantial Financial Support with the Foundation and Corporate Request Letter, is the most dog-eared chapter of my copy. Government and non-profit colleagues whose core job and expertise is not in the area of fund raising, love this book.

I found this book to be a great overview with lots of examples. It's been shared around our office over and over again!

My pleasure in the book was minimized when I came to the sections on telemarketing, etc. . . not what I expected. The portions of the book that were helpful, were A-1.

Not only does this book offer real-life examples of letters for every conceivable fund-raising campaign and situation, it explains the structure of successful fund-raising letters. I refer to it frequently. 5 stars I reserve for anything written by Mal Warwick, who is in a class by himself. But 4 stars means I found Mr. Kuniholm's book well worth the money, repeatedly useful, practical, educational and wise.

In addition to advice on how to write successful fundraising letters, this book contains hundreds of models, samples, and excerpts of actual letters. One section covers letters soliciting volunteer help. (summary by South TX Library System)
This book has 378 pages, so chances are very good that you will find a sample letter close to what you need. Inexperienced letter writers tend to be too wordy and turn off their potential funders. I really recommend that people pay close attention to the advice in this book.

Foxfire books make you see how easy life is in the 21st century and how tough it was in days gone by. Foxfire books are a great read.

My husband got me started and we own the whole series. In fact we are now replacing some of the original copies due to wear and tear. They are more entertaining than a how to - but, I have many times consulted them when I need help with old fashioned situations. I also view them as an important segment of our history- and find that as with the rest of the world we are discovering that the old timers were more right in their thinking than some of the " newfangled" ideas". If you always wished you'd have asked your grandparents or great grandparents how they did somehting - these books might give you an idea!

I loved these books as a kid and now my kids are learning from them

I own, read and use almost all of the Foxfire books. Actually, we owe both the Foxfire people and we certainly owe the characters of a gone generation. This work, Volume III, is like the others. A wonderful history of how it was. In this day and age of having most needs meet and something for everyone on the Wal-mart shelf, we tend to forget just what it was like in our not too distant past. These books, the Foxfire books, brings to light skills, attitudes and a way of life that is all but forgotten. Do be warned though, as one reviewer has pointed out, these are not step by step "how to do it" books. But This is sort a good thing as the how to books out there are sort of a dime a dozen any more. When a people lose their history, they lose part of their soul. As the title of this work states, this addresses many of the old forgotten skills and there is so much more. The editors have done a wonderful job. They have made a very honest effort to replicate the dialect of those places and times and I feel that this is a big part of the charm of these books. I am old enough to have known many of the kinds of folks featured in these books, being only one generation past them, and have a great appreciation for what and how they did all the little things we take so for granted now. I might also suggest that you actually try some of the things mentioned in these volumes. It will give you even more of an appreciation for what they did, and hey, who knows, the skill you develope just might come in handy one of these days! Recommend this and the other Foxfire books highly.

All of the foxfire books have a similar format: interviews with elders who practice a specific handicraft. And in the telling you can learn a lot of good details, but these books are not meant to teach you how to do any of these crafts, they are simply recording the knowledge of these elders. There are much better how-to's out there for skills. For a general book, get "The Encyclopedia of Country Living", for a book on hide-tanning get "Deerskins into Buckskins", both available from amazon.com

This was an opportunity to get in the shoes of a seasoned fund raiser. I laughed at the parts where she told stories of events gone wrong and why. Well written and lots of good advice.

A good basic book for non profits. Not a lot of specific how-to's, but good principles to follow. Definitely a good read for people new to the business of fund raising. Read this one along with several other books on the subject for a broader view and more "how-to's".

As someone who is involved in helping nonprofits do fundraising, I think Keegan's book is a fairly helpful resource. Most successful was its straightforward tips on how to involve the community-at-large in a nonprofit campaign.

Most of the nonprofit "help" books are very dry, but this one is very readable. The information is extremely helpful and directly addresses the difficulties that we have to overcome in fundraising, particularly the "I hate to ask people for money" syndrome. I love that in places, the author says, "here is the attitude you may have.. but... get over it!" and then proceeds to tell you how TO approach things with humor and good advice. If you do fundraising or work with a group that does fundraising, you will find great information and ideas in this book!

A thoughtful, humorous account of the world of grassroots fundraising. The author brings her experience, warmth and humor to this very important book on fundraising. It is an excellent tool for non profit agencies. I recommend it for any non-profit agency staff member or volunteer board member that wants to break out of the fundraising doldrums into fundraising excellence.

Lhabitant's "Hedge Funds: Myths and Limits" covers its subject from legal and tax aspects to quantitative and statistical finance. More than this, in line with the subtitle, the book debunks the myths and outlines the limits for the hedge fund industry. The critique delivered is however balanced, and the book manages to maintain a constructive as well as instructive tone. Different material is separated in a way that make the book a good read for both people outside the finance industry and quantitative analysts. Look for more on this at [webpage]

This book is a compendium of information on hedge funds starting with an instructional and basic introduction for both quantitative and qualitative investors. The first part explains in detail the basics, the legal environment, operational, and organizational structures of hedge funds. It also examines custodial and administration policies in various jurisdictions in European countries where some investment advisors of hedge funds are located. The chosen European setting is largely due to the explosion of hedge funds and hedge fund interest, which is the main engine of change in the equity finance landscape currently undergoing a revolution. The author dismisses several misinterpretations of the way hedge funds operate and contributes an impartial and comprehensive blend of both theoretical and practical underpinnings of global markets.
The second part goes into detail regarding the fundamental concepts needed to understand hedge fund strategies along with their potential positive and negative contributions to investment portfolios. It also thoroughly examines the statistical biases in hedge fund databases and indices. At the same time each chapter is supplemented with real world examples involving corporations and the use of hedge fund strategies. An overview of the major index providers is an added feature to inform investors how each database vendor has classified the hedge fund strategies and their different methods are examined. The various hedge fund strategies are presented in three chapters and an entire chapter is devoted to directional strategies such as global macro, sector, short sellers and managed futures.
In the third and final part, the author highlights the important aspects of including hedge funds in traditional portfolios, database differences, non-transparency, due diligence, selecting and monitoring hedge funds. The author clearly outlines the benefits for investors using asset allocation and how it can be applied towards hedge funds. The second to last chapter of the text educates the reader on how he can properly navigate, identify and select hedge fund managers through the maze of almost 6,000 hedge funds. Of note, the chapter on funds of hedge funds describes the benefits of investing in these products, what the author calls "meta diversification" and discusses portfolio optimization along with what the future holds.
Capital guaranteed products are addressed in one of the final chapters and the advantages of these new structured products often referred to as capital protected notes are explained. These products permit investors to get back a specified portion of capital they fully invested, enabling them to maximize their positions in hedge funds. Due to the recent creation of capital guaranteed products is sure to make the hedge fund industry grow even at a faster pace and it seems that institutional investors have bought this new idea. These new products will allow for equity style returns with less volatility and the security of cash.
The final chapter deals with multifactor models, Sharpe style analysis and Value at risk.
The author concludes with a chapter on advanced quantitative topics and follows this with an appendix on returns and risk statistics of hedge funds. This book brings the reader completely up to date with the latest developments in the hedge fund industry. The elaborate bibliography and over 60 websites found at the end of the book is the icing on the cake.
This gem of a book can serve as a handbook and a practical guide to the hedge fund industry. LHabitant has done a superb job and has provided all investors, portfolio managers, as well as professional financial advisers with a complete one stop hedge fund shopping text. It is the ultimate book about the hedge fund industry.

Monsieur Lhabitant highly succeeded in writing a book in a very readable style with a strong academic framework for (especially institutional) investors and professionals.

HEDGE FUND OVERVIEW
history, legal environment and structures, operational and organisational structures

HEDGE FUND STRATEGIES
tools used by hedge funds, long/short strategies, arbitrage and relative value strategies, event driven strategies, directional strategies, hedge fund indices, hedge fund performance.

HEDGE FUND INVESTING
asset allocation, hedge fund selection, fund of funds and metadiversification, capital-guaranteed products, advanced topics: inside the black box.

appendix: the statistics of hedge funds

Bravo !!!

not for investors nor traders.

As a trading book fan, CFA and professional trader, I must say this is the most informative, knowledgeable, well-researched book on hedge funds I had ever read. It could be a bible for anyone working in a bank or government institutions who need to monitor risk and legal issues concerning the very sophisticated hedge fund operations. This may be attributed to the very strong academic background of the author. However, it certainly goes far beyond the need and understanding of the general investment public or even professional traders like me whose primary objective may just be to profit, and profit. Therefore the value of it depends much on who the reader is and what he wants. No matter what, the quality of the book and the sincerity of the author can be much appreciated.

More quantitative than most other books on hedge funds, this volume provides a comprehensive look at the hottest investment vehicles at the moment. Starting with the history, the book discusses the structure, operations, strategies, and performance measures of hedge funds. Unlike books written by the president of HFR, which are purely marketing turd, this book has substance and can be kept as a solid reference. Minor problems include a few critical typos, some irrevelent charts, and choppy English in a few places -- and a high price. But these do not distract from the value this book, and I recommend it to all interested in the topic.

Originally written in 1947, this is still the most powerful and elegantly written and reasoned critique of modern political thought.

Oakeshott has long been well known in the UK (Andrew Sullivan did his Doctoral dissertation on Oakeshott), but his particularly British way of writing some Americans find difficult. Perhaps that accounts for his lack of popularity here, but I suspect something deeper.

In the title essay of this collection, Oakeshott builds a devastating critique of reason as an instructive mode of knowledge for governing political behavior. The argument he constructs equally calls into question the validity of the concept, indeed the very existence, of the particularly optimistic and American belief in progress. This is probably hard for us Yanks to stomach as we've been raised on a diet rich in unlimited optimism.

Recently, an essay was published in a UK newspaper which stated that Oakeshott's popularity was increasing in the academy and compared his rising intellectual reputation with Isaiah Berlin's diminishing one. While this may not be fair to Berlin (you decide), it certainly is overdue in regard to Oakeshott. He's influenced generations of opinion makers on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Rationalism in Politics" is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the limits of human knowledge but doesn't have the time and wherewithall to read Kant and Hume.

michael oakeshott was a giant of 20th century british political philosophy, and this collection of essays is the best place for a reader interested in oakeshott to start. part of what's great about oakeshott is that he defies categorization yet makes his own kind of sense. he's conservative but not in any way that'll remind you of dumb american conservatism, he's libertarian in a way that won't remind you of wired magazine, he's liberal but mostly in the sense of being open-minded and cultured. some of the essays get pretty technical, and only specialists are likely to get through them. but a half-dozen you may find eye-opening. try the title essay, "rationalism in politics" -- it's a great study of the liberal/socialist character and mind. (ever wonder why so many political "liberals" turn out to be so darned unliberal as people? oakeshott has some insights.) and his "why i am a conservative" essay (that's not the exact title, but close enough)will have even liberals thinking, well, i guess in some respects i'm pretty conservative, and maybe that's ok. fans of hayek and sowell are likely to cotton to oakeshott. a bonus is that this liberty fund edition is very well made and well printed, and the price is great.

This handsomely-bound expanded Liberty Fund edition of Michael Oakeshott's essays features some material not included in the earlier edition (notably, but not only, Oakeshott's introduction to Hobbes's _Leviathan_). But the greatest treat is still the title essay.

In "Rationalism in Politics," Oakeshott sets out to dissect the sort of modern "rationalism" that reduces reason to explicit technical knowledge and has no place for the sort of "traditional" knowledge we soak up through imitation. (Readers of F.A. Hayek will find a parallel here, though not an exact one, with Hayek's own view of implicit knowledge and its role in market processes.) His deft characterizations of such "rationalism" will no doubt remind many readers of many leading lights of the political left, but they also remind me -- perhaps surprisingly -- of someone else.

I have a friend who insists, with much justice, that Ayn Rand was essentially a "leftist" despite her defense of views that have generally belonged to the political right. In support of his claim, he cites a number of well-known features of Rand's thought, including (of relevance here) her utter rejection of tradition and religion, her deep distrust of "implicit" reasoning, and her almost messianic plans to "remake" the world in accordance with her own explicit conceptual scheme while riding roughshod over basic human realities that might interfere. (For more on this general topic, see Paul Johnson's _Intellectuals_. Though unfortunately he does not take Rand as one of his targets, his remarks on what happens when such "intellectuals" put their ideas into practice could practically have been written about the "Objectivist" movement.)

This thesis gains a great deal of plausibility from a reading of Oakeshott. Rand's hideously inadequate understanding of "reason" is remarkably consonant with the variety of "rationalism" which he skewers here, and which she more or less enshrined in her own feeble attempts at epistemology.

And as her journals and letters show, she deliberately pitched her philosophy of "Objectivism" toward left-liberals, presenting it as a non-Statist replacement for traditionalism and conservatism while basing it on essentially the same "radical" empiricist-nominalist-materialist-secularist worldview (up to and including a remarkably similar view of "reason") as Marx and Lenin. (Readers will find further discussion of this last point in John Robbins's imperfect but helpful _Without A Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System_.)

Now, I certainly don't mean to suggest that the _only_ reason for reading Oakeshott is to disabuse oneself of Rand-worship! Far from it; all of Oakeshott's immensely learned essays sparkle with insights that will be of interest to political thinkers of all stripes. But I do think he will be of special interest to the growing number of conservative libertarians who wish to recover classical liberalism from the spell of one of its most dangerously bewitching "defenders."

The enemies of liberty on the political left are fairly obvious, and most classical liberals are unlikely to be taken in by them. The greater hazard is posed by those "friends" who borrow more or less classical-liberal _conclusions_ and try to place them on a foundation which will not hold them, indeed which leads to their very opposite if (unlike Rand) one starts from the allegedly foundational premises and works forward.

I also don't mean to imply my own complete agreement with Oakeshott. But those who wish to exorcise Rand's demonic influence from the politics of classical liberalism will have a hard time finding a more powerful antidote than the opening essay in this volume.

It's always interesting how different readers can react so differently to the same book. Unlike some of the reviewers below, I found Rationalism in Politics to be gracefully written and vastly more learned and interesting than most political philosophy these days. It's a great book for a rainy afternoon, with essays that can be read (and reread) in any order, illuminating every subject they touch on, whether Hobbes, or poetry, or historiography. Oakeshott was pigeon-holed as a "conservative" during his life but his thought is too wide-ranging and nuanced to be shoved into simple categories. He was not as profound or influential as Isaiah Berlin, another great philosophical essayist -- but anyone who likes philosophical and political essays will enjoy and learn from this book.

Before this book, I'd only heard of Michael Oakeshott through name-dropping from conservative friends. No one but that small conservative circle ever mentioned him and after reading this, I can and can not see why.

As noted below, this is an expanded collection of essays ranging from Oakeshott's views of political rationalism's follies to exegesis of Hobbes. The common thread of all of these essays is Oakeshotts distaste for the rationalistic tendency of, not faith in reason, but overconfidence in it. Reason, Oakeshott reasons (ha-ha)is an instrument. Life is a collection of emotions, faiths, conquests, mistakes, and a vast array of experiences that may or may not have to do with reason at all. Thus, the mistake made in political thought is its overreliance on utopian, "I know better than you" reason. Oakeshott, with this as a springboard, makes his case for a conservative libertarianism.

Oakeshott hints that this rationalism is all the most relevant on the 'left'. I'm not sure this is quite accurate, after all, how could we explain John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse and Richard Rorty, but as I said, Oakeshott only hints. Scott Ryan brilliantly points out that someone like Ayn Rand and I'd suggest, Plato, give the 'right' a tainted legacy of rationalism as well. The problem with Oakeshotts essays in the section on rationalism in politics is that after he expounds his view that with rationalisms inadequacies, political philosophy becomes muddy, he spends 300 more pages on political philosophy. It's like a bad joke!!

What this book is good for is section 3 (on Hobbes) and section 4 (on conservatism and politics). As Oakeshott is more conservative that liberarian, this book is a great exposition of why conservatives (or those true to the label) are how they are preferring big government where social tradition is concerned but small government in economics. Why does conservatism put such high value on tradition? Why does it see welfare centralization with skepticism? Why the religious tendencies? All of these are, advertently or not, elucidated in section 3 and 4.

Beware, Oakeshott has a tendency to be wordy - not in the sense of content, but in the, "If I can say it effectively in 100 words, I'll tack on an extra 300 for kicks," kind of way. About the physical book; as noted below, "The Liberty Fund" makes a habit out of publishing inexpensive, impressively beautiful books. The print and binding quality are phenomenal and if this is available in "Liberty Fund" hardcover, spend the extra money - it's worth it!

This book really has all of the information that most investors will need to build a mutual fund portfolio using ETFs or index funds. Gastineau explains how ETFs work, and makes recommendations for creating mutual fund stock portfolios with either ETFs or index funds. Gastineau's approach is conservative, and seems to take a fairly orthodox modern portfolio theory approach to investing, ie., preference for index funds over actively managed funds, and emphasis on controlling risk through asset allocation. When I say conservative, the author says that most portfolios under a million dollars don't need to worry about international funds. A year ago, this would have been considered wildly heterdox, and perhaps still is. Even Vanguard's target retirement funds, a rather conservative fund branch in their family, include some international allocation. But if one followed Gastinieau's advice this year, one would have been spared some pain. For me, this is one of the more useful books out there for mutual fund and ETF investors who are going to take a patient, rather basic approach to investing and growing their money.

This is one of the better short guides to fund investing. Although the title emphasizes exchange-traded funds (ETFs), in fact the book covers much more. Gary L. Gastineau reviews the basics of mutual-fund investing with a particular emphasis on risks and expenses of which many retail investors are unaware. He is frank about the scarcity of reliable comparative information about funds, but offers some useful pointers for investors aiming to assemble a portfolio. He covers index funds, actively managed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, pointing out the relative advantages and disadvantages of each. He provides useful insight into the tax and expense advantages of exchange-traded funds, but he never gives the impression of becoming a salesperson or promoter. His style is low key, sometimes to the point of dullness. However, exciting investment writers are usually not the most credible. This author gives an impression of sound good sense and steady balance. getAbstract recommends this book to new investors in particular, but old hands may also encounter a few new ideas.

Gary is an expert in the field of index funds and ETF's. The book is a critical review of the products on the market to use passive investing techniques.The book however lacks clear direction for the average investor as compared to a book I recently added to my investing library.

I also recommend a little book titled How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 different stocks for $1000 - Pay no Commission This book is a must for those wanting to find out about indexing (passive investing) and why it is the superior method for the small investor (and big one too). This book is an outstanding guide to personal investing. It will be useful to all investors from novices to highly the highly experienced. This book prepares the reader to approach investing from the standpoint of the underlying science. It is the antithesis of a 'get rich quick scheme'.How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 Different Stocks-Pay no Commission

All aspects of Modern Portfolio Theory and passive (index) investing are explained in a through and easily understood manner. The aspect I like most is that as well as a solid theoretical foundation the book is very practical and shows the reader how to create (and more importantly) and manage over time a successful portfolio. This is a great book- for the beginning investor, it's a great place to start and for the experienced investor there are many valuable suggestions.

While Gastineau is helpful on managed and index mutuals, his authoritative treatment of EFTs is the most detailed and useful I know of. Of particular, immediate use was specific recommentations of stable inexpensive EFTs in Chapter 8 for both taxable and tax-deferred portfolios. I also appreciated his deep consideration of many other investment problems and solutions. This book will always be at hand.

I would have given it five stars if the book had been better paced; after a gentle warm-up it's continuously intense. He tells the reader to skip over dense sections but who wants to do that? By page 169 I was too mentally tired to continue. All that said, I STRONGLY recommend this book to anyone who ever wanted to listen to an financial services insider explain the real problems with today's financial "sausage". The book gives the best overview of the complex issues facing the financial services industry today. This book doesn't baby its readers, that's its strength and weakness.

Short and sweet and full of meat, Richard Rodman's book is divided in 17 brief chapters that give you an incredible financial education. Whimsical illustrations make it fun to read. If you're into building your wealth, don't miss this one! And if you want to promote your business better, get a copy of Shameless Marketing for Brazen Hussies.

A must own. If you only buy one book buy this.

This very short book can be read in a single sitting. It gives 17 pieces of sound advice for the conservative investor. Much of the advice is fairly obvious to anyone with more than six months of investing experience. Not a book for the daytrader or the system trader.

This book answered all the questions I had after reading all the other books. It told me everything I needed to know, in a simple, straight-forward way. I live by this book, now, and have done very well by following the advice it contains. I bought a copy for my brother-in-law who also thought it was the best book on finance he'd ever read. I loaned my copy out, didn't get it back and had to buy yet another copy and it's still the best money I've ever spent. I keep hoping Mr. Rodman will write another book that covers market cycles and other more in-depth issues - just for our education.

Good book for someone getting started in major gift fundraising. Also a good refresher for the old pro, but same information is availabe in other books at a significantly lower price.

I loved this book. It came highly recommended from another development director and I checked it out from the library. But I see that Amazon does not carry it. Where can I purchase a copy of this book?

This book was loaned to me and now I have got to have a copy for my own library! Sturtevant not only tells what he is doing he tells us why and starts at the very beginning. He draws extensively on other heavyweight fundraising authors so reading this book is really giving you the info from 3 or 4 of the top fundraisers in the country. A "must have" in any development office.

If you believe that the best fundraising comes from personalized stewardship, you should read this book. Sturtevant takes his years of experience in the higher education fundraising circle, and translates many of the best practices into a format that anyone can use. He offers a great understanding to the novice fundraiser (be they board, staff or volunteer) and really helps humanize an otherwise scary endeavor.

Even the seasoned fundraiser will learn much from his experience, though you may notice redundancy toward the beginning of the last half of the book. Skip over the stuff you know, and you will still be pleased with the outcome.

I've successfully used this book to help train members of my board and to aid in the development of a pro-fundraising philosophy around the office.

Jorion gives a good text book account of the Orange County debacle, concluding that this was a gross but purely human error, and not a failure of the financial system or the derivatives market.

The first part of the book introduces the problem quickly then proceeds to give the reader a crash course in risk management theory, explaining among other things the concept of Value-at-Risk (VaR). Many types of derivatives are described and their proper use explained. We are given a manager's working knowlege of finance.

Jorion then moves to the Orange County debacle proper and his conclusion is frighteningly simple: the financial managers of Orange County, entrusted with billions, did not know what they were doing. They were ignorant of what we learned in the first few chapters. They were amateur money managers playing roulette.

The book is still topical. The Basel II banking agreements mandate strict capital reserve requirements for a variety of risks, such as market and liquidity risk, so that understanding the concept of VaR is more important than ever. Most importantly however, Basel II requires preparation and reserves for operation risk, which most often has to do with the people side of finance rather than the mathematical vality of the models used. Jorion's book is thus also a good introduction to the human side of risk.

This book tells the story of a 1.4 billion$ financial loss by the Orange County municipality.
The author explains very clearly what happened.
The municipality, through its treasurer, speculated that interest rates would stay the same or fall. Into the bargain, he leveraged his position with a factor 3. The means for the speculation were repos on bonds.

When the interest rates went through the roof (from 5,25% to 8% = + 52%), the value of the collateral (the bonds) for his position fell (with a factor 3). He got a margin call, but couldn't pay it. The biggest part of the investment (held by FBCS) was liquidated with a phenomenal loss. Only Merrill Lynch didn't cover their position.

The author gives excellent explanations on some very specialized investments like reverse floaters and other high tech financial operations of which the value can only calculated by partial integrals.

Food for investment bankers.

Readable account of the Orange County financial blow-up. Particularly interesting is the description of Robert Citron, the hapless college dropout who controlled billions of dollars of public money. Also fascinating are the prescient comments of the obscure accountant who ran against unbeatable Citron in the election prior to the disaster. Jorion manages to educate the reader, in a very painless way, about the institutions of the bond market (such as repos).

On the minus side, the book is not particularly well documented (in terms of, for example, the graphs and the sources of the data) and some chapters seem suspiciously like lecture notes, hastily adapted to a book format. Still, an enjoyable trip to the dark side of financial market.

Jorion should be commended for his insightful, first-class treatment of this history making event. Big Bets... is a fast, fluid read that is devoid of technical terms and is written in an active, conversational and explanatory voice that the typical layman can readily understand. In this book, which reads more like gripping fiction, we are treated to an excellent character sketch of the key culprit in the Orange county financial fiasco, Robert L. Citron, his rise to power, the environment he worked in, the exotic financial tools he carelessly wielded, an unforgettable cast of financial hucksters and ill-advised power wielding greedy misfits, and the ultimate downfall of the Orange county financial safety net and its after-effects.

From this book, we learn that Robert L. Citron was head of a large portfolio, had no oversight, and an inflated ego. His superiors and fellow investment participants (such as the county school district) knew full well what he was doing, but allowed him to continue unsupervised because of his past stellar performance- much of which was due to pure luck and favorable market conditions. We also learn that Citron, much like Nicholas Leeson, the orchestrator of the fall of Barings, was a financial neophyte. While on the one hand believing that he was fully invested in bonds, Citron had taken a heavily leveraged position in very exotic derivative securities, proving to Jorion's point that he really did not have a clue as to what he was doing.

We also learn that Citron (nor the people above him and his investment participants), who had no real background in finance, did not know the difference between market price and face value, nor did he know the difference between an option on an asset and the outright ownership of an asset. Based on one very bad bet on the movement of interest rates, Citron fully invested Orange County's finances in derivative securities that he did not understand at all, and compounded the problem by leveraging his position (basically using a little money to borrow a lot of money) to the extreme.

After reading this book, those of us who believe that our investments, from the retirement funds managed for us by fund advisors and our places of work to our bank accounts and our kids' education funds, are safe should have our heads examined. People such as Citron were not financial gurus, that is certain, but as the more recent derivative led failures at hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (which included the two Nobel laureates who literally wrote the book on derivative pricing on its stellar team of rocket scientists) and Bank of America demonstrate, no one is truly safe.