Quincy Jones, the musician and record producer, recently told a radio interviewer he plans to ask President-elect Barack Obama to create the position of Secretary of the Arts. That prompted arts lovers to start an online petition asking Mr. Obama to take up that suggestion.

Almost 1,200 people have so far signed the petition, which refers to a November 15 interview with Mr. Jones on “Soundcheck,” a program produced by WNYC, a public-radio station in New York.

“My passion in life now, and one of the first conversations I’ll have with President Obama, is to beg for a Secretary of the Arts,” said Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones initially endorsed Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, but he released a video in support of Mr. Obama shortly before the November 4 general election.

Advocates for international aid are expressing their support for Barack Obama’s top two picks to lead his economic team, saying they are stout antipoverty leaders.

Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is Mr. Obama’s choice for secretary of the U.S. Treasury, while Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration and a former president of Harvard University, was tapped to lead the White House National Economic Council.

Both are board members of the Center for Global Development, a think tank in Washington and “are tremendously knowledgeable about the problems and challenges faced by the world’s poor and are committed to policies to help address those problems — both in the interests of the poor in the developing world and of the United States itself,” writes Nancy Birdsall, the center’s president, on its blog.

In...

ServiceNation, a coalition of nonprofit groups that is promoting community and national service, and MTV, the music cable-television network, plan to hold an inaugural ball to celebrate the high turnout of young voters in the presidential election and highlight young people who are volunteering for social causes.

The “Be the Change Inaugural Ball,” which MTV plans to broadcast live on the evening of January 20, will feature performers, celebrities, government officials, and hundreds of young volunteers, the two organizations said in a statement.

The event, which will be held in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, will include live broadcasts from locations around the world where young people are participating in community-service projects. MTV said it will also broadcast stories about young volunteers every day from January 1 through...

The Internal Revenue Service today announced the projects related to tax-exempt organizations it plans to pursue in 2009, including a long-term study of fund raising and spending by charitable organizations, a broad effort to educate the agency’s employees about governance issues, and an examination of nonprofit student-loan organizations that have related for-profit arms.

Lois G. Lerner, director of the exempt-organization division of the IRS, told reporters that it is especially important to monitor the nonprofit world during the current economic downturn as demand for charitable services rises and donations fall.

“We believe that compliant organizations are better positioned to serve the public interest and meet the growing demand for their services,” said Ms. Lerner, in a letter accompanying the ...

Harlem Children’s Zone, the New York charity that President-elect Barack Obama has held up as a model for fighting poverty, laid off 10 percent of its staff this month because of the deepening economic crisis.

“We thought this was a fiscally prudent move given the economic conditions in the country,” says Marty Lipp, the group’s communications director.

While on the campaign trail, Mr. Obama announced a plan to fight poverty that included creating “promise neighborhoods” in 20 cities modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone Project — an effort that provides a comprehensive set of education, medical, and social services to residents in a 100-block area of Harlem.

Geoffrey Canada, the charity’s president, told The Chronicle in October that he was working with education experts to propose a way to take his program national should Mr. Obama win the election. Now, says Mr. Lipp, “We a...

Sonal Shah, head of global development at Google.org, the search-engine company’s philanthropic arm, has been named co-chair of a working group that will propose policies for President-elect Barack Obama’s administration in the areas of technology, innovation, and government reform.

Ms. Shah, also a member of the Obama transition project’s advisory board, is co-founder of Indicorps, a nonprofit group that offers fellowships to Indian-Americans working on development projects in India.

The transition project has announced the leaders of seven policy working groups to propose priorities for the new administration when it takes over on January 20. The others will focus on the economy, education, energy and environment, health care, immigration, and national security.

The head of the education working group — Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University – -is ...

Technology experts are drawing attention to the fact that the Internal Revenue Service is raising questions about the Mozilla Foundation’s tax exempt status.

Revenues for the organization, which is behind the Web browser Firefox, were $75-million in 2007. Search-related royalties from Google accounted for 88 percent of that income, says Erick Schonfeld on Tech Crunch.

The Mozilla Foundation argues that search-related fees should be treated as royalties, and thus not count as business income under the tax code. If the IRS rules against it, the organization will lose its status as a charity and will have to become a private foundation.

Mr. Schonfeld says that Mozilla is “pretending to be a nonprofit foundation when everyone knows it is a charitable arm of Google.”

He says another question remains: How Google counted the $66-million it paid to Mozilla last year. He says: “Was...

A U.S. District Court judge has rejected an effort by the Internal Revenue Service to force a Minnesota Church to comply with an audit, ruling that the agency violated a 1984 law that raises the bar for examining churches.

The tax agency was trying to get the federal court to enforce a summons, issued in March, against Living Word Christian Center, in Brooklyn Park, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis, after the church refused to turn over documents about its financial operations and governance.

The tax agency began investigating the center in 2007, following reports that the church may have been involved in improper political activities, according to court documents.

Instead the IRS said it found financial transactions that may have benefited the organization’s pastor, the Rev. James M. Hammond. Living Word...

As Bill Clinton seeks to decrease concerns about his foundation work so that his wife potentially can lead the State Department, another possible pick for a cabinet position is under scrutiny for his nonprofit ties.

Tom Daschle, a former Democratic senator from South Dakota, has been tapped to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to The New York Times.

But the newspaper writes that some concerns have been raised about Mr. Daschle’s role as a lobbyist for the health-care industry and as a board member of the Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit health center.

To be sure, the newspaper says the positions may not prevent Mr. Daschle from accepting the post and that such work is common for ex-lawmakers. But given that Barack Obama has set stringent conflict-of-interest rules for his appointees, Mr. Daschle may test them, it says.

Some nonprofit observers say such...

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, which is in the process of preparing for a change of power on January 20, includes a number of representatives of nonprofit groups, foundations, and think tanks.

Most are members of “agency review teams” that are charged with examining particular government bodies and offering advice on policy, budgetary, and personnel matters. Members from the nonprofit world, and the agencies they will review, include:

Robert Beers, president, National Security Network. (Homeland Security Department)

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president, global development program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)

Barbara Chow, director, education program, Hewlett Foundation. (Office of Management and Budget)

Bill Corr, executive director, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. (Health and Human Services Department)

Stephen...