This year’s conference marks the second year that the Council on Foundations has opened its doors to bloggers.

In 2007, the organization broke with tradition and offered bloggers such as Tactical Philanthropy’s Sean Stannard-Stockton and Susan Herr at Philanthromedia the opportunity to cover the meeting on their Web sites.

This year, that coverage will probably explode.

Mr. Stannard-Stockton reports he has 18 writers who have who have volunteered to write dispatches from this week’s conference.

The blog Epiphanies is also posting items during the conference — as is Lucy Bernholz on Philanthropy 2173.

Are these blogs generating a more open conversation about foundations and philanthropy? Post a comment to share your thoughts.

Hispanics in Philanthropy, a nonprofit group in San Francisco, and Fundemex, an alliance of businesses devoted to eradicating poverty in Mexico, have formed a partnership to promote the rights of children who cross the Mexican border alone in search of their families. Many of these children face human trafficking, detention, and long separations from relatives.

“A child isn’t concerned with national borders; a child simply wants to live with his family,” said Margarita Zavala, the first lady of Mexico, in announcing the partnership at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hispanics in Philanthropy. “We must be true to our humanity by helping these children reunite with their families.”

More than 44,000 children are deported from the United States to Mexico every year, roughly half of whom are unaccompanied by parents or other adults. Children who are detained in juvenile...

While foundations that support gay causes have significantly increased their giving to charities led by minorities over the last five years, not all such grant makers make racial equity a priority in their giving, according to a new report by Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues.

The report, which was released today at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations, showed that giving to minority-led charities by 19 foundations supportive of gay causes jumped from $173,000 in 2002 to $2.9-million in 2006. But only nine of the 19 foundations surveyed had made a grant to help communities of color in 2006, according to the report, LGBTQ Grantmakers 2008 Card on Racial Equity.

“The responsibility is not being shared among foundations,” said Robert Espinoza, director of research and communications with Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues, a New York group that seeks to increase donor...

Professional sports foundations are becoming increasingly sophisticated in how they approach their giving, said speakers at the annual Council on Foundations meeting.

“I see it being seen as part of their business model for the first time ever,” said Greg Johnson, executive director of the Sports Philanthropy Project, in Bethesda, Md.

Mr. Johnson said that sports foundations are no longer looking at their philanthropy simply as an exercise in improving community relations, but as a means to making a lasting and strategic impact on the communities where they work.

Jane Rodgers, director of strategic initiatives at the Cal Ripken, Sr., Foundation, in Baltimore, described how the charity developed a curriculum in 2005 to promote leadership skills and healthy lifestyles among inner-city youths.

The organization relies on the former Baltimore Orioles player Cal Ripken, Jr., to he...

The leaders of the Skillman Foundation in Detroit recognized an important obstacle in the foundation’s efforts to help needy children in its home city.

The children whom it sought to serve lived in some of the Motor City’s most hardscrabble neighborhoods.

But the foundation’s offices were housed in a high-rise office building in the city’s more prosperous business district.

As a result, it was physically disconnected from the problems it was working to solve — and it was not as effective as it could have been in fulfilling its mission.

In recasting the foundation’s efforts, one of its first early steps was to move out of the downtown digs — and set up a much more humble office, said Stephen Ewing, the Skillman Foundation’s chairman, during a session here.

Welcome to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s coverage of the Council on Foundations annual meeting, which kicks off tonight just outside of Washington.

Our reporters and editors will be posting updates from the meeting throughout the next few days on this blog.

We will also be playing host to a live online discussion focusing on foundations and diversity this Tuesday at noon.

If you are at the meeting, please feel free to stop by the Chronicle’s booth, No. 703. in the exhibit hall. And if you have any suggestions or questions, please send an e-mail message to our Web editor, Peter Panepento.