About Gifts and Giving

FOUNDATION GIVING rose 16.4 percent in 2006 over the previous year, the Foundation Center reports.

JON L. STRYKER used much of his $2-billion fortune to create the Arcus Foundation, with the goal of lending significant support to his two disparate passions, gay rights and great-ape preservation.

TO BOLSTER HIS PHILANTHROPIC WORK, Jon L. Stryker spends a good deal of his time, and money, in support of Democratic political candidates friendly to his favorite causes.

GAY CAUSES drew significantly more foundation support in 2006 than in the previous year, though groups led by gay minority-group members did not fare so well, according to a pair of new reports.

AS HOME FORECLOSURES SOAR, charities and foundations, caught unprepared, are trying to figure out how they can help.

THE GATES FOUNDATION has come under criticism from a prominent United Nations official who says the philanthropy has created a scientific "cartel" that is hampering efforts to fight malaria.

PETER G. PETERSON, a financier and former U.S. secretary of commerce, has promised $1-billion to his newly created foundation, most of which will go toward efforts to shore up U.S. economic security.

ONE OF THE FIRST Microsoft employees, Richard W. Weiland, has left the bulk of his $175-million fortune to charity, principally to the Pride Foundation, in Seattle, and Stanford University.

PHILANTHROPY IN IRELAND is still viewed with suspicion, though the impulse to give large sums is growing, participants at a Dublin conference agreed.

EFFORTS TO REBUILD NEW ORLEANS received a significant boost from a $20-million gift from the chairman of Barnes & Noble and his wife to construct new homes for displaced homeowners.

NEWLY ANNOUNCED grant programs.

THE FACE OF PHILANTHROPY: The Tibetan Arts and Literature Initiative, in Austin, Tex., promotes Tibetan culture and literature in China.

RECENT GRANTS by foundations, corporations, and other grant makers.

About Fund Raising

BIKE RACES, WALKATHONS, and other athletic competitions raised $1.6-billion for charities last year, according to a survey of 30 of the largest such events.

TWO ONLINE COMPETITIONS sponsored by the Case Foundation yielded $750,000 in prizes for the nonprofit groups that managed to attract the most donors.

A DISASTER FUND set up by the United Nations to help nonprofit groups and U.N. agencies move more quickly in a crisis has drawn criticism for dispensing money too slowly to be of much assistance.

TO RESPOND TO DISASTERS more efficiently, a growing number of charities are creating funds to be used to pay for their efforts in the early stages of an emergency.

POSTAGE for nonprofit standard mail would go up an average of 0.7 percent in May under new rate changes proposed by the U.S. Postal Service.

MOST AMERICANS BELIEVE charities spend too much on fund raising and other administrative costs, the results of a newly released survey suggest.

GIVING TO U.S. COLLEGES rose to its highest total ever — $29.8-billion — in 2007, the Council for Aid to Education reports.

INTEREST RATES for planned gifts, issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

UPDATE ON CAMPAIGNS for endowments, capital improvements, and other needs.

About Managing Nonprofit Groups

A GENERATIONAL TUG OF WAR has broken out as the nonprofit world debates what it means to be a leader and how charities should operate.

A NEW SURVEY shows that many potential charity managers are not inclined to pursue leadership posts, demonstrating how hard it could be to replace the baby boomers now retiring from top nonprofit jobs.

MORE AND MORE STATES are passing laws to make it easier for nonprofit groups to spend money in an endowment after investment losses cause its value to drop.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH issued a report calling on the Russian government to temper tough new laws and regulations that the group says keep nonprofit organizations from doing their work.

THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE is looking into the political activities of the United Church of Christ, following a speech given last summer by Sen. Barack Obama at the church's 50th-anniversary celebration (Tax Watch).

A SEARCHABLE DATABASE of nonprofit groups that have filed the new Form 990-N informational tax form, required of organizations with annual revenue less than $25,000, has been posted by the Internal Revenue Service (Tax Watch).

A LETTER from an Internal Revenue Service official to a trustee of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital attempts to clarify the "community benefits" standard that hospitals must adhere to in order to qualify for tax-exempt status (Tax Watch).

WRITE-OFFS: The Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether Americans have tried to evade taxes by setting up foundations in Liechtenstein; the tax agency warns charities not to be taken in by an e-mail scam.

About Technology

TECHSOUP.ORG is offering prize money for the best ideas for Web sites that combine data from more than one source — or "mashups," in the language of the Web — to serve a social cause.

GOOGLE GRANTS, which gives free online advertising to nonprofit groups, has started a blog designed to help the organizations make the best use of the ads.

AARP ANNOUNCED the winners of a competition for the best short videos, to be shown on YouTube, by young people about how they envision their lives when they are 50 and old enough to join the organization.

Also in This Issue

OPINION: Sonya Behnke and Pilar Oberwetter discuss Generation Y, and Marc Freedman challenges baby boomers to serve; Pablo Eisenberg extols a Senate aide's "passion for integrity"; and Leslie Lenkowsky and Paul Brest question an effort to promote diversity in grant making.

NEW BOOKS: A guide to writing direct-marketing appeals, fund-raising ideas for public schools, a handbook to help charities detect and curb fraud, and summaries of other publications on philanthropy in the Washington metropolitan area, groups that serve gay people, andgetting colleges more involved in the towns and cities that surround their campuses.

PEOPLE: Appointments and promotions in the nonprofit world.

AWARDS: Honors for people and organizations in philanthropy.