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Planned giving: Here’s what to consider: Many charitable techniques can help donors maximize their gifts, tax savings

If you have continuously donated money and time to specific organizations, or if you want to save some money on taxes, or maybe a little of both, planned giving might be a way to continue both of those aims. However, there are a few things to consider, such as how to set up the planned giving, what the money can or can’t be used for, who can speak for your interests after you die, and obviously how much money will…

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Advisers get more bullish on ETF option: SEC decision may lead to widespread appeal of mutual-fund alternative

ETFs have been available in the United States since 1993 and are an alternative to mutual funds that trade just like stocks. But a decision earlier this year from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could broaden their appeal even more. An ETF is a “basket” of stocks that by itself trades on an exchange just like an individual stock. ETFs contain the assets of large or small companies, real estate investment trusts, international stocks, bonds and even gold. For…

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Hitting the BIG TIME: ‘Big Joe’ Clark building national rep as investment commentator

The Anderson money manager known as “Big Joe” got his start as an independent insurance agent in Lafayette. He had been on the job just two weeks before Black Monday struck Wall Street in October 1987. The market shed more than 22 percent of its value, the largest one-day decline in U.S. history. With no clients and no money, the 20-year-old temporarily left the insurance industry and landed a job at AT&T’s old Western Electric division, helping rewire Ball State…

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TO DO LIST ART vs. ART: Destroying art for fun and profit

This isn’t a scene from a dystopic sci-fi novel, nor a recreation of a fascist act from a less tolerant time. It’s actually just one of many outlandish and exhilarating moments of Art vs. Art, an event gaining more attention with each annual incarnation. (This year’s is Sept. 26 at the Vogue). Art vs. Art is a painting competition and auction, where entering artists are each given identical canvases, art supplies, and four hours to complete a work. These entries…

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Planners to pare down commuter-rail options: Vote for light diesel trains would precede design

Goodbye elevated guideway. Goodbye buses zooming down paved-over rail beds. For that matter, forget about commuter trains running down the median of Binford Boulevard and I-69. Or along Allisonville Road or Keystone Avenue. These northeast corridor rapid-transit options, cheered and jeered by residents in the debate over rapid transit, officially get thrown from the train on Sept. 26. That’s if a regional government group votes to accept the recommendation of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization for running diesel light rail…

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Commentary: Rethinking my presidential pick

Help me, John. I’m falling off the wagon. I like you. I read your autobiography, “Faith of My Fathers.” You are a maverick, like they say, and a patriot. My old boss, Mitch Daniels, made you his early choice. I agree with most of your pronouncements on taxes and the economy, and applaud your willingness to face up to the energy crisis and our dependence on foreign oil. I tentatively decided to cast my vote for you in November. But…

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Airport hoping to double ad revenue with digital push

Indianapolis International Airport officials hope to double advertising revenue, pushing it past $1 million, when the midfield
terminal opens in November. That income, officials said, is important because it helps ease pressure on cash-strapped
airlines, allowing them to focus on offering more flights. The airport relies on non-airline revenue, such as food sales and
advertising, for about 60 percent of its revenue.

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Browser wars: Should you go for Chrome?

There’s a war being waged all around you, and I’ll bet you haven’t even noticed. Oh, you may have noticed a year or two back, when the media reported on it, but after a while even wars get dull and the press wanders off to report on Jamie Lynn Spears’ baby. There used to be two combatants in the war. One was a behemoth, one of the world’s largest, while the other was an upstart, but gaining ground over time….

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VIEWPOINT: Coach, teach, mentor, make a difference

I have in my desk a piece of notebook paper. When I unfold it, I see the handwriting of an early-teen boy. It’s a letter of apology. The young man who wrote the note played on a middle school football team that I helped coach. A kid with a lot work ing against him, he was a likable guy who worked hard in practice. Unfortunately, he had trouble keeping his grades up. When they fell below eligibility level, he was…

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Software firm finds niche catering to chambers: WebLink will expand thanks to $3.5 million investment

These are tough times for chambers of commerce. It’s always been difficult to show dues-paying members they’re getting a return on their investment. And now online social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are rapidly encroaching on chamber business. But chambers won’t cede their turf without a fight. That’s why D.J. Muller, 42, has been able to build a fast-growing company replicating locally what the Internet giants do best. His Avon-based IT firm WebLink International Inc. provides management software…

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Commentary: Indiana law chases away talent

The Wellness Community of Central Indiana was established in 1995 as a not-for-profit organization to provide free support, education and hope to individuals and families affected by cancer. At The Wellness Community, cancer patients can share experiences and lend one another encouragement informally or through programs facilitated by professional counselors. The Wellness Community also provides a haven to grieve together in those instances when cancer is the ultimate victor. Today, the folks at The Wellness Community are grieving over a…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Green building not over when construction finishes

“Green” has fast become the metaphor for that new world we want to live in. We’ll have green jobs, drive green cars and live in green buildings made from green materials. The link between the environment and the color may seem obvious, but most artists will tell you that green is, by far, the most difficult color to master. Green isn’t one color. It’s made by mixing yellow and blue. Different proportions of yellow to blue produce a wide range…

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INVESTING: Tough stock market brings big names back to Earth

Oh, how some of the mighty have fallen. A number of high-profile professional investors are struggling in this bear market. Perhaps surprisingly, many of these managers come from the “value investing” category, a style of investing that is supposed to outperform-or at least lose less – markets. In their heydays, when their mutual funds produced investment returns that soundly beat the market averages, these managers were often accorded star status in the financial press. Here are a few of the…

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Web site aims to help diversify work force: 70 199 233 220Diversity-One.comgetting push from Radio One

One of the city’s largest advertising agencies and a down-state software development firm have brokered a deal with Radio One Indianapolis to launch a Web site that matches minority job seekers with companies looking to diversify their work force. The site, Diversity-One.com, is the product of MZD Advertising and Batesville-based Employment Partners, a firm specializing in Web-based employee and job-search software. The partners in the project wanted a local niche site to compete with national job and employee search portals…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Laptop hell: Air travel can bounce, bungle data

Travel may broaden the mind, but it’s hell on laptops. If your laptop suffers some kind of death-dealing blow, it’ll probably be on the road. Air travel is the worst. You’re required during security screening to pull your laptop out of its snug little protective cover and submit it to the tender mercies of the Transportation Security Administration’s conveyors, X-ray machines and employees. Then there’s the jostling scramble to put it back in on the far side of the screening…

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Citizens’ new name is a gas-in a way: Parent company of local utility adds ‘energy’ to its moniker to reflect diversity of operations

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility on Aug. 25 will announce a new name and logo that reflect the diversification of its energy businesses and the closure last year of its 98-year-old foundry coke plant. Citizens Energy Group will be the name of the parent, a utility founded 120 years ago. Two units-Citizens Gas and Citizens Thermal-will retain their names. But a third, Citizens By-Products, will be renamed Citizens Resources. “We’re entering a new era,” said Citizens President and CEO Carey…

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A burned cookie cost me a fortune Commentary:

It was the chocolate chip cookies. My wife, Janie, who for years has entered her award-winning baked goods in the Indiana State Fair, was upset because she failed to earn a blue ribbon last summer. Upon inquiry, she was informed that her chocolate chip cookies were slightly burned on the bottom. (I have always been one of her official tasters, and they looked OK to me.) She blamed her lack of success on an unreliable 25-year-old oven that had to…

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SPORTS: Let the ‘greatest athlete ever’ debate begin

Back from vacation with thoughts of this, that and the other: Even as my bride and I traveled through the magnificent scenery of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, our nightly ritual was the same as that of millions of other Americans: making sure we were in front of the television to watch the Olympics. And yes, especially, Michael Phelps. Some have rushed to proclaim him the greatest Olympian of all time and, certainly, the argument can be made if you look…

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SPORTS: Our new playground is much more than a stadium

Now, I feel like the unlucky one. For the past two years, I’ve been privileged to be part of monthly media tours of Lucas Oil Stadium. I was there as the concrete bowl began to take shape, and as those steel trusses that would frame the retractable roof were put into place. I was there as the brick exterior began to climb, and when the concourses were little more than freshly poured concrete and empty spaces. I was there when…

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