Oxfam and other large charities are handing out money rather than emergency supplies to refugees in flood-ravaged Pakistan, continuing a recent trend that has sparked debate in the humanitarian community, writes the Associated Press.

Some aid organizations, particularly those under the United Nations umbrella, fear that distributing money will increase inflation and fuel corruption. Proponents for “cash-based programming” say it can be more efficient and effective than doling out emergency supplies and allows local people to prioritize their own needs.

“We can trust people. They are wise enough,” said Claudie Meyers, of Oxfam Great Britain, which has given checks of around $60 to 7,000 families in northwestern Pakistan.

Muslims countries, nonprofit institutions, and individuals worldwide have pledged nearly $1-billion in money and relief supplies to Pakistan, the Associated Press also...

A federal judge in Chicago on August 26 rejected a nonprofit judicial-advocacy group’s challenge to Illinois election laws on disclosure of campaign contributions and costs, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Virginia's Center for Individual Freedom, which has mounted advertising campaigns in races for judicial office in Alabama and West Virginia, sought an injunction to stop Illinois from enforcing rules requiring it to disclose its donors.

In its suit, the group stated its intent to raise judicial and policy matters in Illinois during the fall election campaign but said the disclosure requirement violates donors’ free-speech rights.

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Eight leaders of hospitals in the Baltimore metropolitan area make more than $1-million annually, according to a study by The Baltimore Sun of 27 area nonprofit medical institutions.

The compensation study, which relied on data from the hospitals’ Form 990, the informational tax return the organizations must file with the Internal Revenue Service, uncovered information about perks paid to the executives. For instance, the newspaper found that nearly a dozen hospitals cover country-club memberships for their top leaders.

The high pay and lush benefits given to hospital executives have drawn fire from critics who say that many nonprofit hospitals do not provide enough charity care to justify their nonprofit status. Some critics complain about nonprofit hospitals' aggressive debt-collection tactics in dealing with former patients.

The revelations about pay may cause a backlash among...

An American relief worker was freed in Darfur Monday after being held by her abductors for 105 days, says Reuters.

Flavia Wagner, who was working in western Sudan for the U.S. charity Samaritan’s Purse, flew to the capital of Khartoum after her kidnappers released her to authorities. Aid workers have been the target of a series of kidnappings for ransom in Darfur, but Ms. Wagner’s abductors told Reuters they were not paid for freeing her.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the head of a local aid group was kidnapped Friday, Agence France-Presse writes.

Balisi Kapumba, of Solidarity Action for Peace and Development, was abducted by uniformed men Friday from his home in the eastern city of Goma, according to the leader of a network of nonprofit organizations in the region.

A British Islamic charity is urging local Muslims to fulfill their religious charity obligation by giving money to help the poor within the country rather than sending it abroad, the Guardian reports.

The Zakat—the 2.5 percent of wealth above a certain threshold that Muslims are called upon to give to the needy each year—“is meant to be given locally,” said Azim Kidwai, general manager of Mercy Mission UK, an Islamic charity that encourages Muslims to get involved locally. Many Muslims pay Zakat during Ramadan, the holy month that ends next week.

Other faith charities, such as Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief UK, are urging that Zakat be paid to international organizations to help flood victims in Pakistan, the mother country of 43 percent of British Muslims. Mr. Kidwai said Muslims should give beyond the 2.5-percent threshold to support flood relief but that Zakat should be used “to...

The developers of a planned Islamic center and mosque two blocks from the former World Trade Center site have formed a nonprofit organization to raise money for the project, says the Associated Press.

Incorporation papers for Park51 were filed in Delaware on August 23 and subsequently submitted to New York State’s Charities Bureau. The owners of the real-estate firm that oversees the proposed mosque site are named as directors of the nonprofit group.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians have rejected final contract proposals from the ensemble’s management and authorized their union to call a strike, says the Detroit Free Press.

The financially strapped orchestra, which is expected to lose $9-million this year, has been locked in a battle with musicians over proposals to slash players’ pay. The musicians’ current contract expired over the weekend, but no strike or lockout will occur before September 24, due to a federal labor law that requires parties to file paperwork 30 days in advance of any planned work stoppage or imposition of a new contract.

In other arts news, New York’s Public Theater and Lincoln Center Theater are planning ambitious new Broadway productions for the forthcoming season, thanks to the blockbuster success of their recent revivals of Hair and South Pacific, respectively, The New York Times writes.

Also, the...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service charging that advertisements financed by a nonprofit conservative group are political and violate the organization’s tax exemption, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal report.

Commercials airing in Congressional districts in Kansas, Michigan, and Missouri—sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, an organization registered as a charity under section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code—do not identify individual candidates but attack Obama administration policies, such as the stimulus package and the health-care overhaul.

An affiliated group registered under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, Americans for Prosperity, is running ads in the same districts that do target Democratic candidates by name.

Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic group, told...

The co-founder of the U.S. branch of a Muslim charity the American government has branded a terrorist organization will go on trial in federal court Monday on conspiracy and tax-fraud charges, writes the Associated Press.

Federal investigators were unable to bring terrorism charges against Pete Seda, also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty, an Iranian-born naturalized American citizen who helped found an office of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Oregon.

Prosecutors contend that Mr. Seda, the target of a six-year federal probe, filed false tax documents and took other actions to hide efforts by Al-Haramain to channel money to Islamic separatists in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

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News-media reports last week on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $27.6-million investment in the agribusiness giant Monsanto have emboldened food activists critical of the philanthropy’s technology-driven farm programs in Africa, writes The Seattle Times.

The Community Alliance for Global Justice, in Seattle, has kept close tabs on the Gates Foundation’s Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. With the news that the foundation bought 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock earlier this year, Heather Day, the alliance’s director, said her group is teaming up with bigger advocacy outfits to organize “on a national scale” against the Gates involvement with the firm.

The alliance has raised questions about whether the Seattle foundation’s Africa work will be used to create new markets for Monsanto and promote industrial agriculture and genetic engineering of crops.

A Gates foundation...