For nonprofit groups and their donors, passion is out and standards and accountability are in.

“A lot of people aren’t looking to donate to some ‘mom and pop’ charity that’s operating on a prayer and hope… they want to donate to well-run, legitimate organizations,” writes Lindsey McDougle, a third year Ph.D. student at the University of San Diego pursuing a doctoral degree specializing in Nonprofit and Philanthropic Studies, on her blog Leadership as a Field of Study.

Donors, she continues “want to know that the dollars they invest into a nonprofit organization will go to the purposes for which the funds were solicited. They want to know that organizational policies, structures, and standards are in place, and that the organization to which they are donating is legitimately operating in an efficient manner.”

Have you seen this change happening at your nonprofit group? If so, how ...

Musicians and their songs have always reflected and influenced social, political, and cultural concerns, whether it’s Marvin Gaye crooning about air pollution in his 1971 hit “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)” or the marching beat of U2’s anti-sectarian violence song “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Echoing Green, a New York nonprofit group that supports social entrepreneurship, is holding a contest asking readers of its blog to name their top favorite songs that inspire them to work on making the world a better place.

Contestants can create a “mixtape” of their songs and submit them by September 12. Entries will be judged on their creativity and theme by a panel of Echoing Green staffers, and the winner of the contest will receive an iPod.

So what would be on your mix tape? Which songs do you find most inspirational or relevant to the work you do?

Should nonprofit employees bother attending graduate school to earn a masters of business administration or other advanced degrees?

Absolutely, says Heather Carpenter on her blog Nonprofit Leadership 601.

Last week the Financial Times reported that more and more nonprofit employees are going back to get MBAs.

Tracy Kaufman, who works at the Foundation Center, wrote a response to the article on the PhilanTopic blog questioning the wisdom of going back to graduate school.

“Don’t get me wrong, higher salaries and increased professionalism in the nonprofit sector aren’t bad things,” she writes. “But to suggest that what nonprofits really need to be effective is a couple of MBAs and more business discipline strikes this nonprofit employee as, well … beside the point.”

Ms. Carpenter, in a post titled “Don’t listen to them—you should go to grad school!” argues that many MBA...

Is it wrong to use social-networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter to help promote your nonprofit group?

A debate on that topic is brewing among nonprofit experts, as some people express concern that marketers show a lack of respect for the purpose of social networks by intruding with messages about their causes.

Michael Gilbert, a nonprofit consultant, recently expressed concern on his blog Nonprofit Online News, that “instead of being a platform for the organization’s support and participation in communities of practice, instead of being a tool for empowering the connections and voices of their stakeholders, to many nonprofits an online social network is just another mailing list.”

But Kivi Leroux Miller, author of the blog Nonprofit Marketing Guide. says she thinks charities have the kind of material people want to learn about through social networks.

“I strongly...

“When you can’t do it alone” “Make the most of your giving.” “All building starts with a foundation.”

Those are among the charity tag lines that won prizes in a contest for the best nonprofit tag line held by Nancy Schwartz, a nonprofit marketing consultant and author of the blog, Getting Attention.

More than 1,000 tag lines of eight words or less were submitted in a survey. Once Ms. Schwartz had narrowed down the 62 best taglines, the 12 winners were picked by more than 3,000 nonprofit officials in an online poll.

Groups using tag lines with an emotional appeal did the best, such as the Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Sarasota-Manatee, in Florida., which uses the “you can’t do it alone” tag line. The phrase “tells the story succinctly and powerfully: It’s all about getting help when life becomes overwhelming. It makes a strong emotional connection,” writes Ms. Schwartz. ...

Earlier this spring, we reported on a donor named Michael, a 31-year-old Harvard University graduate who plans to give away $70-million to charity over the next 10 years.

Sudhir Venkatesh, a friend of Michael’s and a guest writer for The New York Times’s Freakonomics blog is back with another update on the would-be philanthropist’s progress.

Recently, Michael asked Mr. Venkatesh to put him through a process similar to one he’d used with three previous donors. Mr. Venkatesh, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, had told the donors to focus on their own self interest when making their gifts intended to alleviate urban poverty. Over the course of a year, the donors regularly met with the recipients of their gifts.

Mr. Venkatesh writes that after Michael had spoken to the three donors, he said, “Each person I called told me they had more anxiety giving their money away ...

Princeton University on Tuesday announced it has received three big gifts toward its capital campaign goal of $1.75-billion, one of which was a pledge for $100-million.

This type of nine-figure gift is the “new standard” in university development, writes Stan Katz, a public and international affairs professor and director of Princeton’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School, on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Brainstorm blog.

But although Mr. Katz says he is grateful, he wonders whether these mega-gifts are being put to their best educational use.

“The question is: What is the relationship between the need to package mammoth ‘giving opportunities’ for major donors and the capacity to plan in accordance with good educational policy?” he writes. “Is there any reason to fear that the construction of buildings and the creation of endowed...

The compensation and retirement package for Gloria Pace King, president of the United Way of Central Carolinas, in Charlotte, N.C., has prompted a debate about whether salaries of nonprofit executives should mirror those of for-profit executives.

Ms. King’s compensation was $1.2-million in the fiscal year ending June 2007 and included more than $822,000 in retirement benefits, reports The Charlotte Observer. The United Way’s board chairman told the newspaper the retirement payments were larger than usual because the organization discovered it had not paid the appropriate amounts since 2000.

Tom Durso, a nonprofit communication consultant, writes on his blog, the 501c3 Files, that some nonprofit workers believe the strength of a group’s mission should “obviate the need to dangle big paychecks to attract talent.” But on the other hand, he says, some people believe that “because...