With the recession sparking greater human need, grant makers should do more than simply give the 5 percent of assets they are required to distribute by law, writes Ken Goldstein on his Nonprofit Consultant Blog.

The current proposal in Congress to collapse the two-tiered excise tax system into one flat rate, he writes, should not be a factor in foundations’ decision to open up their purse strings during hard times.

The excise tax, which grant makers pay on their investment earnings, is usually a 2-percent levy, Mr. Goldstein notes. However, during a year when a foundation gives charities more than its five-year average, it is lowered to 1 percent.

“This was meant to be...

Does America need a new call for public service?

Michelle Nunn, chief executive of the Points of Light Institute, says yes, while Brian Brown, a research associate at the Heritage Foundation, says no.

In opinion articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the two nonprofit officials debate President Obama’s support for volunteering and national-service programs.

Ms. Nunn writes that Mr. Obama’s efforts build on a long history of American civic action and would help the thousands of struggling charities that have been hit hard by the recession.

Mr. Brown counters that while the spirit of public service is strong in the United States, it is hurt when the government tries to organize volunteerism.

For now, most lawmakers seem to...

During President Obama’s press conference last week, a reporter mentioned that 1 in 50 children are homeless in America. He then went on to ask the president what message he had for families, “sleeping under bridges and in tents” across the country.

“This is one of those statistical assertions that you know is BS before you even set out to show it’s BS,” writes commentator Mickey Kaus at his Kausfiles blog at the Web magazine Slate.

The numbers come from a recent study by the National Center on Family Homelessness, in Newton, Mass., which Mr. Kaus refers to as an, “anti-homelessness advocacy group with every incentive to maximize the estimate of the...

While foundations are able to do more than the World Bank or governments to support human rights and innovative development projects abroad, they are failing to do so, writes Steven Lawry, senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

“Foundations in my view are not making full use of their freedoms to support innovation, help people claim essential rights, and pursue complex problems over the long-term. In the process, they run the danger of becoming more like conventional, public-sector donors, and adding little that is distinctive to the funding mix,” he writes on the center’s Humanitarian and International Development NGOs blog.

Mr. Lawry identifies three factors contributing to “philanthropy’s retreat from ambitious...

In her foundation’s most recent newsletter, Susan King of the Carnegie Corporation has done something that foundation employees rarely do: share information about a grant that failed.

Ms. King, vice president of external affairs who leads the foundation’s support of journalism programs, discusses a $354,000 grant made in 2000 to the American Communications Foundation, a nonprofit news organization. The grant was designed to expand news-media coverage of the foundation’s grantees who seek to improve education and promote democracy.

“I must admit that an honest analysis of my first grant leads me to conclude that I was naive in making it, sensitive as a former broadcast journalist to news media needs more than issue impact,” she writes, “and unsuccessful in really improving the coverage of nonprofit organizations and priorities...

A column about charities that support the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is stirring debate on the Washington Post’s Web site and on other blogs.

David Ignatius, a Post columnist, says that donors contributed $33.4-million in tax-exempt gifts to pro-settlement organizations and other related charities from 2004 to 2007. The United States government has for many years had a policy against spending money for settlements in the West Bank, which it regards as an obstacle to peace.

“Critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through tax-exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns,” Mr. Ignatius writes.

He says that “often the U.S. charities will specify...

Mike Burns, a nonprofit consultant, notes that leading Democrats are asking questions about how taxes affect the charitable giving of two very different types of donors.

On his blog, Nonprofit Board Crisis, he writes that President Obama this week defended his proposal to limit tax breaks for charitable deductions for wealthy people. The president said the change would have little effect on giving, in part because tax benefits do not motivate philanthropy.

Mr. Burns points out that several Democratic senators have taken a slightly different approach with foundations. They have

Should donors be able to claim a deduction for contributions they make to charities located outside the United States?

Two prominent University of Chicago professors are debating that question on their blog.

Gary Becker, a professor of economics and sociology, says he favors at least some deduction for giving to foreign organizations that do not have U.S. offices or tax-exempt status.

“Otherwise, it may just be another form of protectionism, where American services and goods are favored over foreign services and goods,” he writes. “Since protectionism arguments take many guises, it is likely that some of the opposition to allowing tax deductions for foreign charities is due to the desire to impose tax disadvantages on the ‘import’ by American individuals and organizations of...

Followers of The Chronicle‘s Twitter feed are weighing in on President Obama’s comments last night defending his proposal to limit tax breaks for charitable deductions as a way to raise money for a plan to revamp the health-care system.

President Obama told a televised news conference that the proposal, which would apply to married couples making more than $250,000 (individuals $200,000) starting in 2011, would not have much effect on giving and would bring more fairness to the tax code.

Some of the Tweets:

“I think Obama’s right. Donors give because it feels good, not because of taxes. Tax breaks don’t hurt, but it’s not the be-all.”

“In this economy any excuse not to give is bad! He may be right about fairness but it will...

On his Fundermentalist blog, Jacob Berkman is covering the annual meeting of the Jewish Funders Network, which he says is focusing on how donors can support innovative efforts.

“It almost in a sense feels like one big dare to the funders here to fund outside-of-the-box projects,” he writes on his blog, which is operated by the JTA, a Jewish news service. “One could question whether that is the right approach to take during a recession, when funds are tight and traditional charitable projects are seeing an increase in need and demand for services. I’ll let you make that call.”

During the St. Petersburg, Fla., conference Mr. Berkman has attended panels about how charitable...