While applauding President Obama’s effort to get more Americans to volunteer, Rachael Chong says more needs to be done to get professionals to donate their skills in accounting, computers, marketing, and other white-collar jobs.

Ms. Chong is the chief executive and founder of CatchaFire, an Internet effort to promote pro-bono services. On The Huffington Post, she said charity and business leaders need to do a better job connecting.

“The cultural gap between the nonprofit and for-profit worlds is vast,” she writes. “We need a scalable solution that helps nonprofit managers and for-profit professionals communicate effectively so that both parties get the most out of their volunteer experiences together.”

She continues: “When we’ve accomplished this, not only will service be part of the fabric of American lives, but nonprofit and for-profit professionals will be finally speaking...

BusinessWeek declared this week a “bull market” for social entrepreneurs — nonprofit leaders and others who use business tactics to further social causes.

But several people recently have questioned how inclusive social-entrepreneurship groups and the donors that support them are and whether they are seeking the brightest and most enthusiastic employees.

Last month Rod Schwartz triggered a debate on the Social Edge Web site, which is operated by the Skoll Foundation, when he asked why conferences and experts on social entrepreneurship are dominated by people from “Anglo-Saxon countries.”

If “so many voices are Anglo-Saxon (like mine, I should confess), does this not hamper growth? Are we not limiting our access to innovative ideas to only those which might spring forth from an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ mindset?” wonders Mr. Schwartz, who is the chief executive of ClearlySo, a Web site that...

Proposed new regulations in the central Asian country of Azerbaijan could greatly hinder charities and international aid groups and could be part of a growing crackdown on foreign philanthropy by authoritarian governments.

According to EurasiaNet, a Web site supported by the Open Society Institute that provides news about Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Azerbaijan parliament is considering rules that would ban nonprofit groups that received more than half of their support from foreign sources and prohibit foreigners from creating charities.

The government says the regulations would not cause problems for nonprofit groups, but charity leaders and others argue that they would hobble the development of democracy and human rights.

Azerbaijan is not alone in its effort to change rules governing charities. Belarus, Ethiopia, and other nations have sought to impose similar...

For social enterprises to achieve substantial results, they must “overcome some structural challenges,” writes Chip Feiss, a senior fellow at the Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, in Cambridge, Mass.

The term “social enterprise” has many definitions, social-enterprise efforts are often fragmented, and they are small in size, he writes in an opinion article in The Financial Times.

Despite this, Mr. Feiss, who defines social enterprise as a business with a charitable mission, could develop into an important “fourth sector” distinct from traditional for-profit companies, government, and nonprofit groups.

“Social enterprise is not meant to replace the other sectors but is another way of dealing with common social problems that have not been successfully addressed to date,” he writes. “Is it possible? When history collides with...

Foundation giving to health-related causes benefits minorities, the poor, and other disadvantaged people far more than previous research has indicated, says a new report.

The report, released by the Philanthropic Collaborative, a Washington coalition of nonprofit and local-government officials, says that $2 out of every $3 in health grant dollars helps such populations.

From 2005 to 2007, the most recent years data are available, the Foundation Center, in New York, estimates that 31.4 percent of health giving supported disadvantaged people. But the Philanthropic Collaborative says that upon closer inspection of a sample of the $7.8-billion in health awards made during those years, it is likely that 68 percent of it assisted minorities and others.

“The analysis provides robust evidence that foundations financed $5-billion or more in health-related grants in 2005 to 2007 targeted ...

With its recent decision to make small loans to fledgling businesses in America, Kiva, a San Francisco charity that traditionally has worked abroad, is assisting some unusual New York enterprises.

According to The New York Times’s City Room blog, “The requests for loans from New Yorkers come with a certain New York attitude, something not typically seen in Kiva loan requests from, say, Bangladeshi farmers,” writes Times reporter Allen Salkin.

Among the loan recipients is “Joe” from Queens­, who is asking for $2,125 to help his business that makes car covers out of fake fur. As of June 15, Mr. Salkin writes that Joe has almost received half of that amount.

New York is not the only area with interesting business ventures seeking help on Kiva.org. According to a Chronicle article about Kiva’s new effort, they include Mandy’s Korner, a mobile hot-dog stand in San Jose, Calif.; a...

In December, the nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator triggered a debate when it announced it would begin exploring how it could judge charities on their effectiveness, as opposed to their financial and governance practices.

To continue and foster that discussion, the organization in Mahwah, N.J., plans to hold an “open forum” on the Internet with nonprofit experts, writes Ken Berger, the group’s chief executive, on his blog.

“We hope to have comment and opinion offered by some of the leading thinkers in the nonprofit sector,” he writes. “We trust that our readers will both participate in and profit from the exchange of information and ideas that we anticipate will result.”

In a sense, the forum has already started. Several people commented on the blog article, debating how Charity Navigator should examine whether charities achieve their goals or even if they measure the results ...

As fund raisers and others digest the recent Giving USA report, which provides data on American philanthropy, a similar report was released this week about America’s neighbor to the north.

Statistics Canada, a research organization in Ottawa, said that in 2007 — the most recent year it examined — Canadians gave $10-billion to charity. That’s a $1.1-billion increase from 2004, when the group previously looked at charitable giving in the country.

In part because of the country’s smaller population, that total pales in comparison to what Americans gave in 2007, which equaled more than $230-billion.

But the study also showed that 46 percent of Canadians age 15 and older volunteered. By comparison, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January that 26 percent of Americans volunteered during the period between September 2007 and September 2008.

What do you think? What is...

The news that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation received $10.4-million in unsolicited gifts last year triggered several blog articles and online comments.

• Sean Stannard-Stockton, a principal at Ensemble Capital Management, an investment-management company, said the news is evidence of a growing interest by everyday donors in making sure their donations have positive results. “When these donors think that the Gates foundation is a better donor, what does this mean? That the Gates foundation knows which nonprofits are better than others,” Mr. Stockton, who is a regular columnist for The Chronicle, writes on his Tactical Philanthropy blog.

• Joanne Fritz, a former fund raiser at the Girls Scouts and other charities, says the gifts show the power of “brands” in the nonprofit world. Gates doesn’t ask for money, but because of its well-known name and reputation, the gifts flow in...

Should more charities consider merging? Two British blogs are discussing this question.

According to a new study by New Philanthropy Capital, a nonprofit research group in London, charity mergers in Britain are infrequent, usually occur in response to a fiscal or management crisis, and that nonprofit groups lack sources of information about how to do them well.

On New Philanthropy Capital’s blog, John Copps, author of the report, discusses the findings. While some have criticized the report as a call for more mergers, Mr. Copps writes, “throughout the report we say that mergers are never straightforward and should only proceed if there is a strong case. The report shows that mergers can create value for charities and their beneficiaries, but the process also carries considerable risks.”

Yet Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, co-authors of Philanthrocapitalism, are saying the...