Nonprofit groups that work overseas are urging Congress against cutting support for foreign aid from President Obama’s proposed budget.

Charities are asking supporters to press members of Congress to reject moves by the Senate and House Budget Committees that would trim $4-billion and $5.3-billion, respectively, from the amount Mr. Obama had requested.

Mr. Obama sought $53.8-billion for foreign assistance in his budget proposal for 2010. Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, and Richard Lugar, a Republican, have introduced an amendment that would restore the money to the level requested by Mr. Obama.

Nonprofit leaders say the decrease would hinder efforts to help poor people abroad. “Anything less than the request level of $53.8-billion will greatly hamper President Obama’s efforts to implement programs essential for millions of children and families around the world,” said Save...

The House of Representatives today adopted the Senate version of a bill to expand the country’s national-service programs, the final legislative action needed before the legislation goes to President Obama.

On a vote of 275-149, the House approved the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, H.R. 1388, which amended a bill the House had passed earlier.

President Obama, who has championed the legislation, is expected to sign it sometime after he returns from his overseas trip next week.

Rep. George Miller, Democrat of California, one of the bill’s chief sponsors, said the new volunteers who are authorized by the bill would help Americans weather the economic crisis.

“Our public needs are growing while our resources for meeting them are disappearing,” he said before the vote. “This bill will help meet some of those urgent needs.”

For more information about the Serve America Act’s...

Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, has introduced legislation that would make the estate tax permanent and at levels that are already in effect this year.

In 2001, Congress passed the current law that gradually phases out the estate tax through 2009 and repeals it for 2010. In 2011, however, the current law is set to expire and estate-tax levels that applied years earlier go back into effect unless Congress takes action.

The bill proposed by Mr. Baucus — the Tax Certainty and Relief Act of 2009, or S 722 — would permanently keep the estate tax at 2009 levels (and do away with the 2010 repeal). Heirs could exempt $3.5-million from taxes ($7-million for couples), with amounts above that taxed at 45 percent. The exemption threshold would be adjusted for inflation in the future.

“This bill would offer certainty on the estate tax,” Senator...

Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations, has issued a statement saying that President Obama’s proposal to limit some charitable deductions to help finance a plan to reshape the country’s health-care system presents a “Solomon’s choice” for the charitable world.

In wording that reflects an internal debate over how to respond to the president’s plan, the group says that the proposed limits on income-tax breaks for wealthy people would reduce charitable gifts “that are needed more than ever in these difficult economic times.”

At the same time, it says, charities are suffering from the rising cost of providing health insurance to their employees and, if they work in the human-services field, of offering care to people who do not have health coverage.

President Obama has proposed limiting tax breaks for itemized deductions, including donations to charity, to 28...

More than a quarter of the grant money awarded last year by donor-advised funds held at community foundations supported basic social services, such as hunger-relief and health-care programs, according to a new survey.

And the survey, conducted by the Council on Foundations in time for its annual lobbying event this week, Foundations on the Hill, found that despite the drop in the value of assets at many community foundations, more than half the grant makers expect giving from donor-advised funds in 2009 to stay the same or grow from last year.

“Our message from this survey and to the hill is that donor-advised funds are doing their part to address critical human needs in these tough economic times, and that people count on them,” says Sigurd Nilsen, director of policy research and analysis at the Council on Foundations, in Arlington, Va.

The findings are based on responses from 26...

The Foundation Center, in New York, has developed new tools to help identify how foundation and corporate support is distributed throughout U.S. Congressional districts, the organization announced this week.

The tools are available for anyone who is a subscriber to the center’s Foundation Directory Online, and gives users the chance to search for nonprofit groups, corporations, and grants by congressional district.

International charities may not receive as much money from President Obama’s budget as they have hoped.

In an interview with National Public Radio this morning, Kent Conrad, the Democratic senator who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said he intends to cut $4-billion in foreign assistance from Mr. Obama’s proposed budget. The president’s proposal would have increased foreign aid to more than $50-billion by 2012.

An article today in The Christian Science Monitor said the Obama administration is signaling that its pledge to increase foreign aid to $50-billion may not be met by the end of the president’s first term. “With a significantly worse economic and budgetary picture, the White House Office of Management and Budget speaks of ‘extending out’ the goal of doubling foreign aid — presumably into what administration officials envision as a second term for the president,” the...

The Senate today narrowly rejected a move to criticize President Obama’s proposal to limit tax breaks wealthy people can get for charitable gifts, instead adopting language saying only that Congress should preserve the charitable deduction on income taxes.

Sen. John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, had proposed that the lawmakers express support for the current deduction system, arguing that the president’s plan would harm charities by lowering an incentive for giving.

But the senators rejected his proposed resolution by a 48-49 vote after Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, offered an alternative text.

Senator Thune’s proposal, an amendment to a national-service bill, asked lawmakers to approve a “sense of the Senate” that Congress should preserve the “full” federal income-tax deduction “and look for additional ways to encourage charitable giving.”

Sen...

More than 260 foundation leaders came to Washington this week to meet with members of Congress — and their timing could not have been better.

Nonprofit issues were a hot topic all week. Lawmakers debated whether to expand national-service programs; President Obama on national television defended his controversial plan to reduce tax breaks for charitable deductions for wealthy people; and several senators introduced legislation that would change the way grant makers pay taxes on their net investment income.

As one foundation official put it, the stars were aligned.

Indeed, for members of Philanthropy Northwest, a regional association of grant makers based in Seattle, the annual “Foundations on the Hill” event was an exhausting, but productive, day.

In previous years, members of Congress had asked mostly about abuses in the nonprofit world, wondering whether foundations were ...

The Senate has approved a plan to create a new program to provide $25-million over five years to help small- and medium-size charities get training and management help.

The legislation was proposed by Sens. Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa — the two top members of the Senate Finance Committee. It comes in the form of an amendment to the Serve America Act, a bill to expand the country’s national-service programs. The Senate adopted the bill late yesterday by “unanimous consent” (a procedure allowing a measure to go forward if no one objects).

The amendment creates a “Nonprofit Capacity Building Program” within the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The National Council of Nonprofits, which represents state nonprofit associations and has been pushing for such legislation for several years, said in a press release that the...