• Charity leaders, celebrities, foreign ministers, and other high-profile people should postone their visits to Haiti because their trips would take resources away from help for the victims of last month's earthquake, says Kara C. McDonald, a former American diplomat who now works at the Council on Foriegn Relations. Her views appear in Foreign Policy magazine.
  

• Jeff Brooks, creative director at TrueSense Marketing, which works with nonprofit groups, says that charities sometimes deny their missions in a misguided attempt to make it seem like their work is more elaborate than it is.

• President Obama should be applauded for his effort to end childhood hunger in America by 2015, says Billy Shore, executive director of Share Our Strength, on his blog.

• New leaders in the nonprofit world need to get informed about important topics, speak up about them, and "be firm, but not rigid...

• America's wealthiest people are "getting a slap on the wrist for not being generous enough" in 2009, says Shelly Banjo, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.On the Journal's Financial Adviser blog, she says that The Chronicle of Philanthropy's new list of the 50 biggest donors of last year only includes 17 people from the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans.

• President Obama's decision to again propose a limit in the tax deduction for wealthy donors means that he can no longer "claim to be a champion of the nonprofit world," says Michael Gerson, a columnist for The Washington Post.

• Is philanthropy undergoing a new paradigm shift, moving towards more "crowdsourced" ideas? Mark Kramer, founder of FSG Social Impact Advisers, raises this question on a Duke University blog.

• Passion. Connected. Juicy. Sean Stannard-Stockton, a donor adviser and Chronicle...

• With Bill Gates starting his own blog, officials at his foundation should do the same to share their thoughts about grant making, says Philippe Boucher, a health advocate. On his blog, Mr. Boucher tracks efforts to curb smoking in Africa and says the Gates foundation needs to be more public about its programs to decrease tobacco consumption.

• Can Pepsi's Refresh Project, which uses crowdsourcing to pick grant recipients, avoid the problems of a similar competition held recently by JPMorgan Chase? Nathaniel Whittemore, founder of Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement, says that early signs are good: Pepsi, for example, will have a "leaderboard" showing in real time which charities are leading the pack.

• Mr. Whittemore also highlights a post on the Harvard Business Review Web site by Umair Hasque, director of the Havas Media Lab, who reminds readers that the Pepsi ...

• Catalyst. Impact. Capacity. These and three other words should be avoided by nonprofit officials, writes Dan Gunderman, director of copy writing for Big Duck, a nonprofit communications consulting company. On the blog for Network for Good, he says the words are either misused, overused, or have simply outlived their usefulness.

• With hundreds of millions or dollars being given to assist Haiti, the fund-raising success is a sign of what nonprofit groups could do if they received more news-media attention and were not frowned upon for spending more money on advertising, says Dan Pallotta, author of Uncharitable, on the Harvard Business Review.

• How can charities use Twitter to effectively raise money? On his blog, Steve Drake, a nonprofit consultant, looks at some previous Twitter fund-raising efforts and offers lessons groups can learn from them.

• The term social entrepreneur is "ego-flaming at best, and sector-defeating at worst," says Kjerstin Erickson, the founder of Forge, on the Social Edge blog. She writes that the trendy phrase puts too much emphasis on the individual and ignores the team-building efforts required in charitable work.

• The earthquake in Haiti is unlike previous international disasters in part because it hobbled the Haitian government, hit the United Nations representatives in the country, and killed employees of aid groups working there, writes Neal Keny-Guyer, the chief executive of Mercy Corps, in an opinion article in The Seattle Times.
  

• Large homeless shelters that sometimes fit 200 or even 1,000 people should be closed and replaced by smaller ones, argues Dominic Mapstone, director of Rebeccas Community, an Australian charity. Writing on Change.org, Mr. Mapstone says his organization, which...

• Just because charities are asking for money to help in Haiti doesn't mean they need more or they can spend it effectively, says Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of the nonprofit-evaluation group GiveWell.

• As Bill and Melinda Gates spend millions of dollars on research about what makes teachers effective, James D. Starkey, a retired teacher in Colorado, says the answer is simplier than they think. In an Education Week opinion article, he writes, "Great teaching is not quantifiable. As dorky as this sounds, great teaching happens by magic."

• Public radio stations are gearing up for their spring fund-raising drives, and they "must be smarter at asking smart people to part with their money," writes Jack Allen on his blog about classical-music radio. He recommends they emphasize the importance of building long-term supporters and explaining how donations help maintain the quality of...

• As aid groups assist with the recovery of Haiti, it is crucial charities empower Haitians to help themselves rebuild their country, writes Patrick Solomon, senior vice president of global support services at CARE. In the Huffington Post, he describes how CARE, in Atlanta, is taking this approach.

• Will Goldman Sachs's $500-million effort to help small businesses rehabilitate the investment company's tarnished image? Georgia Levenson Keohane, a philanthropy consultant, says no because the charitable venture is not aimmed at nonprofit groups that were hit hard by the recent recession. Her views appear on the blog of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

• Is there anything really new about so-called Catalytic Philanthropy? The idea -- which refers to projects started and supported by a single donor, who takes full responsibility for it -- has been hailed as a new...

• As California and other states face widening budget gaps, foundations and charities need to push for changes in state fiscal policies and defend important programs that face cuts, writes Peter Manzo, chief executive of the United Ways of California. His views appear on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog.

• On the blog of Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog, Kamran Razvan, the chief executive of Click & Pledge, responds to questions about how his company is processing gifts made to the embattled Yele Haiti Foundation.

• Jim Hopkins, a former Gannett reporter, examines on his blog the giving of the Gannett Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the news media company, asking why its 2008 giving seems to have supported groups not located in areas where the corporation does business.

• On his blog, William Easterly, an economics professor at New York...

While there is tremendous work being done by charities, the United Nations, and governments, their coordination "remains unclear," writes Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, who this week traveled to Haiti as part of the relief effort. Mr. Brin writes about his experience on his personal blog. "It is critical to have top level command and control across the entire breadth of efforts in order to maximize effectiveness," he says.

The majority of donors would not text gifts for non-disaster causes, according to the early results of an online poll by Charity Navigator, a charity watchdog group. The poll is asking donors how they supported Haiti earthquake relief groups and their views on text messaging.

• Scrutiny of the musician Wyclef Jean's Haiti charity should be a "cautionary tale" for the nonprofit world and a reminder to get annual audits, follow proper accounting procedures, and avoid conflicts of interest on boards, writes Alice Korngold, a nonprofit consultant, on her Fast Company blog.

• Alison Fine, a Chronicle contributor who writes about social change in the digital age, says it's time for a "Nonprofit National Disaster Game Plan," namely a list of the best charities to contribute to when a disaster strikes.

• The response to the Haiti earthquake suggests that the proliferation of charities isn't necessarily a bad thing, writes Mike Burns, an expert on nonprofit boards, on his blog. Many new nonprofit groups have been developing innovative solutions to aid and development challenges that are assisting relief efforts in Haiti, he says.

• Can corporate giving...