2025 Lane Reports
Monday, December 1, 2025
If you are planning to make a significant contribution to charity, this month – December 2025 – may be a particularly good time to do so. Admittedly, charitable donations reach their peak in December every year – not just because of the holiday spirit, but also because taxpayers are seeking to claim deductions for charitable contributions...
Monday, November 3, 2025
Just a few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled “Are there any stock market gains left for the fourth quarter?” Although we still are bullish for the intermediate and for the long term, we think that it is foolish to try guessing what any ensuing three-month period will do. Stocks don’t have a fixed ceiling for...
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
It’s been 15 years since Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, along with Warren Buffett, encouraged billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity, either while alive or upon their death. Yet three-quarters of the original U.S. Giving Pledgers have collectively gotten far wealthier since they signed the Pledge while just 8 of...
Monday, September 1, 2025
Many thanks to our friend and client Dr. Aadeel Akhtar for his innovative and disruptive leadership . . . and to his Psyonic Institute L3C for its extraordinary social impact!
Reprinted from Forbes article with permission: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2025/07/30/l3c-helps-maker-of-bionic-hand-serve-those-who-cant-afford-it/
L3C Helps Maker...
Friday, August 1, 2025
Our financial system wasn’t built with equity, sustainability, or positive social and environmental impact in mind, but – with committed funders, innovators and technical experts -- it’s adapting and improving. The financial marketplace and the marketplace of ideas demand no less.
The Innovative Finance Initiative (IFI) is seeking to...
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
United Way Worldwide, the Freedom Together Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, The Skillman Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and CFLeads have joined forces to form an new national coalition to recognize those...
Monday, June 2, 2025
In the early 1980s Congressional leaders were lamenting our trade deficit with Japan and were calling for protective tariffs. President Ronald Reagan would hear nothing of it and he invoked the memories of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the Great Depression, and the dark side of protectionist trade policies. That was a half-century earlier back then...
Thursday, May 1, 2025
The May 2025 Lane Report appears in our In The News section:
An Office for the Impact Economy...
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
When: Friday, April 4th, 2025, 8 a.m. to 12 noon Where: UIC Student Center East, 750 South Halsted Street, Chicago Register for the event Social Enterprise Chicago and the Cook County Commission on Social Innovation cordially invite you to attend Social Enterprise 2025! Join us for breakfast and a morning of insightful discussions, networking, and...
Monday, March 3, 2025
Immediately after taking office, President Trump summarily halted most diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the federal government. But the Administration continues to support the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office’s National Strategy for Inclusive Innovation which it sees as critical to maintaining America's competitiveness throughout...
Monday, February 3, 2025
For tax-exempt organizations, preparing a Form 990 tax return should be about more than simply punching in numbers and checking boxes – it’s also an opportunity to evaluate existing governance practices and consider how to improve them.
The Form 990 asks about a number governance practices and policies that, while not explicitly required by the...
Thursday, January 2, 2025
A number of Illinois laws took effect as of January 1, 2025. Here are some that are of particular interest to business owners and managers.
First off, the state minimum wage has increased to $15 per hour. This increase has been phased in, pursuant to a 2019 amendment to the Minimum Wage Law which has raised the state’s minimum wage every year since...
