The Internal Revenue Service’s investigation of the United Church of Christ, which invited Sen. Barack Obama to give a speech at its 50th anniversary celebration, has prompted observers to worry that many other charities will now shy away from legitimate political activities. The denomination, which is affiliated with the church where Mr. Obama worships, has denied any wrongdoing.

Tom Durso of 501cfiles notes that Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center already had decided to avoid screening a documentary about the senator’s 2006 trip to Africa out of fear that “showing the movie could be interpreted as support for Obama, a no-no if it wanted to retain its nonprofit status in the eyes of the IRS.”

And while Mr. Durso says that the center was wise to not show the movie, he finds the current IRS investigation disconcerting.

It is not only “unusual for the federal agency to investigate a...

Corporate social responsibility “is not quite dead,“ writes Michael Skapinker, a columnist for The Financial Times.

Mr. Skapinger felt compelled to respond to Harvard Business Review’s Conversation Starter blog posting by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, authors of “Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want,“ who say that in 2008, “CSR will be seen for the sham that it is.”

In the blog, the authors say that consumers are bound to increasingly seek out “enterprises that offer transformational change as the very substance of its offerings” and will “reject initiatives that merely front as the means to sell more wares.”

Mr. Pine and Mr. Gilmore therefore anticipate that dollars will “flow less to promotional programs like Product (Red) and more to fully dedicated ventures like micro-lending site kiva.org.”

While profits will always drive a companies’ overall strategy, Mr. Skapinger...

Does the United States have too many nonprofit groups?

Rosetta Thurman, a nonprofit consultant who writes the blog Perspectives From the Pipeline, argues that the quality of work done by charitable organizations is more important than the quantity.

She writes that, “Too many people want to start their own organizations without thinking of the consequences.”

Citing tight competition for donors and a “war for talent and quality employees,” she believes that organizations operating in communities with similar missions may only be hurting each other by duplicating resources. “Now you know I’m not saying nonprofits need to go away,” she writes. “I’m just saying let’s not start any more until we can sustain and maximize the impact of the ones we’ve already got.”

Taking it one step further, Ms. Thurman offers “five reasons you shouldn’t start your own nonprofit.”

She reminds...

Why do foundations do so little to distribute the knowledge they gain from their grant making so that individual donors can benefit, asks Sean Stannard-Stockton on the blog Tactical Philanthropy.

“The point I’m making is not that foundations have some sort of obligation to fund nonprofit information for public use, but that doing so is in their best interest,” Mr. Stannard-Stockton writes. If foundations support efforts to provide individual donors with the information to make strategic decisions then “it seems to me that foundations can achieve huge returns on their grant dollars by enabling the public to gain access to the same kinds of information that they themselves use.”

In a podcast interview, Mr. Stannard-Stockton struck up a conversation with Phil Buchanan, executive director of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, about this topic.

Mr. Buchanan cited an article...

Intel and the nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, have officially parted ways, ending a collaboration that was marked by controversy almost from the start. And now some nonprofit observers are wondering whether this is a sign that charities should be more cautious in how they work with business.

The Wall Street Journal last week reported that Intel was frustrated by constraints the nonprofit organization put on the company when it was devising its own approach to selling laptops in developing countries and decided to stop working with One Laptop.

Jack Siegel, the Chicago author of Charity Governance, writes that Intel was right to put its business needs first. But more important, he says, the failed alliance is a sign that the “so-called new philanthropy” that encourages partnerships between “innovative” nonprofit groups and businesses is unrealistic and unwise.

Mr....