The Internal Revenue Service has released a draft version of the form that charities and other tax-exempt organizations will use to calculate a new tax benefit they will get under the federal health-care overhaul law.

As the IRS noted in an announcement, the new law offers a tax credit designed to encourage small employers to offer health insurance coverage or maintain the coverage they currently offer their workers.

The credit, which went into effect this year, was included in the federal health-care law enacted in March. The provision applies to employers with no more than 25 full-time employees and average wages below $50,000. Nonprofit organizations can apply the credit to certain payroll taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service said nonprofits eligible for the credit should claim it on a revised version of the Form 990-T, the IRS document that groups use to report business income not ...

The Internal Revenue Service today reminded thousands of small charities that they can keep their tax-exempt status even if they missed their May deadlines to file a new online form.

"If you are a volunteer, member, or just a friend of an organization at risk of losing its exemption, please alert the organization and encourage it to go to IRS.gov and find out how the organization can come back into compliance today," the IRS said.

The IRS also released additional advice for some organizations, including those that believe they are exempt from filing because they are religious organizations.

As the tax agency announced last month, small groups at risk of losing their exemptions because they failed to file required informational tax returns for 2007, 2008, and 2009 on May 17 or later can preserve their status by filing returns by October 15, 2010, under a "one-time relief program."

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An updated guide to laws on the election-related activities of nonprofit organizations classified under Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code has been released by the Alliance for Justice, a national association of advocacy groups.

The 74-page publication, called The Rules of the Game, "reviews federal tax and election laws which govern nonprofit organizations in an election year, and explains the right (and wrong) ways to organize specific voter-education activities," according to the Alliance for Justice.

The guide answers questions such as: "Are nonprofit organizations completely prohibited from any involvement in candidate campaigns? Is there a minimal amount of electoral activity that 501(c)(3) organizations can do without risking their tax-exempt status? How can 501(c)(3) organizations educate voters about candidates and issues? Does federal election law apply to 501(c)(3)...

The final application of the 11 winners of Social Innovation Fund grants last month -- that of the National AIDS Fund -- has now been posted on the Corporation for National and Community Service's Web site. The federal agency posted the other applications over the weekend.

The AIDS group submitted its materials to the corporation on Tuesday, ahead of the agency's August 27 deadline. Kandy Ferree, the fund's president, told The Chonicle that her organization was crafting a response that highlighted its concerns about the agency's decision to make the applications public, even though it did not say it would do that when it requested proposals.

The Chronicle has created a special blog on its Web site to track the Social Innovation Fund, the Obama administration's $50-million effort to help charities with proven new approaches expand.

We're using the new section to gather applications from groups that applied for money to the fund, in the hopes they will be instructive to many people in the nonprofit world. Please join the discussion and keep up with the Social Innovation Fund.

Another nonprofit leader is headed to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Shari Berenbach, chief executive of the Calvert Foundation, has been appointed director of the Office of Microenterprise Development. The position, while a political appointment, does not require Senate confirmation. Ms. Berenbach will start on September 15.

Late last year, the president appointed Rajiv J. Shah, a former official at the Gates Foundation, to head USAID, and earlier this month, the administration nominated Nancy E. Lindborg, president of Mercy Corps, to be assistant administrator at the Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Affairs Bureau.

Ms. Berenbach has led the Calvert Foundation -- which promotes the idea of doing good through investing -- for more than 13 years.

The Bethesda, Md., organization issues low-interest notes, an investment option similar to a certificate of deposit....

A new online database -- called GuideStar Israel -- has been started in Jerusalem with the goal of making the 29,000 nonprofit organizations in Israel "more transparent" to the public through financial and other information.

A free Web site, which is in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, lists and provides official information about each nonprofit registered with the Israeli government's Registrar of Non-Profit Organizations. The site also allows groups, some of them so small they do not have a Web presence, to give additional "in-depth information" about themselves.

GuideStar Israel is a joint project of the government's Ministry of Justice, Yad Hanadiv (which acts in Israel on behalf of the Rothschild family philanthropic trusts), and JDC-Israel. It is operated by NPTech, a nonprofit "public benefit" group established by Yad Hanadiv and JDC-Israel that helps organizations use information...

More and more foundations are paying increasing attention to the role of communications in furthering their public-policy work "in ways that go far beyond the annual reports, press releases, and grant lists of yesteryear," according to a new study of 18 foundations published by the Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy at the University of Southern California.

"Communications, far from being an afterthought or occasional add-on, is at the very center of successful policy engagement for these foundations," says the report, "How Foundations Use Communications to Advance Their Public Policy Work."

Foundations use 10 distinctly different strategies to increase their engagement in public policy through communications, the report says, five of which are "within the grants program."

For example, 12 of the 18 foundations provide grantees with access to communications support, which "includes...

The Internal Revenue Service has issued two free updated handbooks for tax-exempt groups and donors.

The 14-page "Charitable Contributions: Substantiation and Disclosure Requirements," known as Publication 1771, "explains the federal tax law for organizations such as charities and churches that receive tax-deductible charitable contributions and for taxpayers who make contributions," the IRS said.

"There are record-keeping and substantiation rules imposed on donors of charitable contributions, and disclosure rules imposed on charities that receive certain quid pro quo disclosures," the IRS noted.

The 39-page "Tax-Exempt Organizations and Gaming," called Publication 3079, "will provide an exempt organization—whether it is running games already or deciding whether to start doing so—the information it needs to operate in a manner that will not jeopardize its exempt status or generate...

The Corporation for National and Community Service posted details Monday about the selection process for the recently awarded Social Innovation Fund grants and is exploring whether to make next year's process more open.

The agency, which has drawn criticism for declining to disclose more about how it awarded the money, also plans within the next three or four weeks to post online the 11 applications that won the $50-million in grants, the first time it has done that for any of its grant programs, senior officials said in an interview.

However, it will not release information about the groups that did not win grants, unlike the Education Department, which has posted on a Web site the names of all applicants for its Promise Neighborhoods and Investing in Innovation grants, along with their project descriptions.

The national-service agency cannot do that because it promised Social...