This is what I (I run a small not-for-profit) call "Outcome Inflation" and it is a big problem for the sector.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing:

1. Foundations ask for excessive outcomes in their grant guidelines
2. Nonprofits agree to those outcomes knowing they can't meet them (or naively believing they can)
3. The nonprofit runs their programs as usual
4. The nonprofit returns a glowingly padded report
5. The Foundation uses that report to set next year's giving guidelines.
6. Rinse and repeat.

Nonprofits need to be more honest (and objective) with what they can accomplish. Foundations need to know what is realistically achievable and provide better oversight.

Also, those Craigslist Foundation functions are great. I highly recommend the Nonprofit Bootcampe (SF and NYC):

http://craigslistfoundation.org/index.php?page=Boot_Camp

You can read about Mark Twain's subsequent testifying before Congress here:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9502E4DD1331E733A2575BC0A9649D946797D6CF

With the full transcript here:

http://www.bpmlegal.com/cotwain.html

Copyright during the 19th century and into the early 20th was an fascinating affair. The pirates (the term originated from Rudyard Kipling's "Rhyme of the Three Captains") in this sense were actually large book publishers (strange in this day of effortless digital copying) like Harper Brothers. You can read about it here:

http://island94.org/articles/copyright-and-nineteenth-century