The celebrity charity industrial complex

My thoughts on President Obama's Office of Social Innovation will be up starting early next week.

For the weekend, though, here's a charitable fundraiser that illustrates how the connection between charity and celebrity is extending beyond expensive benefits & spokesperson roles: Will Ferrell sunscreen, with 100% of the profits going to College for Cancer. It will be interesting to check the 990s in a few years to see how much revenue this actually generates.

If you're interested in the celebrity charity scene, there's a fair bit of it surfacing on Twitter. Kathy Ireland has self-identified with the social enterprise movement; Greg Grunberg does a considerable amount of work for epilepsy charity; MC Hammer has done some interesting work in connection with Stanford. There's lots more, actually, and whether you're a researcher or a real live do-gooder it's an interesting phenomenon to watch.