What can corporate philanthropy teach individual donors?

The Wallet, a Wall Street Journal blog about personal finance, asked that question to three corporate leaders — Christina Gold, chief executive of the Western Union Company; Steve Case, co-founder of America Online and chairman of the Case Foundation; and Sidney Taurel, chairman emeritus of Eli Lilly & Company.

Mr. Case suggested that donors have a personal connection to the causes they support. For example, he has contributed to cancer research in part because his brother died of the disease.

Ms. Gold suggested donors do thorough vetting of charities, and Mr. Taurel said that with the tight economy hurting household budgets, Americans should consider volunteering more.

Journal reporter Mike Spector and Dow Jones Newswires reporter Shelly Banjo spoke with the three leaders during the annual meeting of the Committee...

During his speech last night to a joint session of Congress, President Obama praised the generosity of Leonard Abess Jr., a Miami banker who gave a $60-million bonus to his 399 workers and 72 former workers.

The president said Mr. Abess represented the “responsibility” Americans want to see from executives at financial institutions. Philanthropy experts are also calling on bankers to be more charitable as a way to quell public anger.

Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, the authors of Philanthrocapitalism, write, “Bankers keep telling us how sorry they are for getting the world into the current economic mess, but the public doesn’t seem to want to accept their apology. To show they mean it, the rich need to discover philanthrocapitalism and start to give back to society — for their sakes and ours.”

In an opinion article published by Reuters, the authors call on corporate leaders to ...

Sparing no punches, Heather Mac Donald, a conservative thinker, takes on the growing effort to push foundations to give more to minority organizations and to be more diverse in their hiring.

In City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank in New York, she criticizes the Greenlining Institute, in Berkeley, Calif., which has been requesting that grant makers provide information about the racial make-up of their employees and how many charities led by minorities benefit from their philanthropy. The group has asked state and federal lawmakers to make such disclosures mandatory.

But Ms. Mac Donald argues that foundation support for the arts, disease research, and other efforts that at first blush seem not be focused on benefiting minorities, help blacks, Latinos, and minority populations.

She also chastises the Council on Foundations and others for ...

As the Obama administration pushes banks that receive federal aid to be more public about how they spend government money, two professors suggest a simple idea: “[T]he beneficiaries of taxpayer financing should have to keep track of their money in the same way nonprofits must.”

In an opinion article in The New York Times, James Deitrick and Michael Granof, professors of accounting at the University of Texas at Austin, write, “Nonprofits use what is known as ‘fund accounting.’ Fund accounting requires that a separate set of books be maintained for all grants that are designated for a specific activity. The aim is to ensure that the resources are spent for their intended purpose.”

Some financial institutes have balked at such an approach, arguing that “[m]oney is fungible … and therefore they cannot readily distinguish between outlays of their own resources and those provided by the...

Paris Hilton turned 28 this week, and her birthday party reportedly turned into a celebration of philanthropy.

Ms. Hilton’s friend Scott Lazerson, founder of the Interface Foundation, which helps celebrities contribute to fighting world hunger and poverty, used the event to promote charity work with the Hollywood stars, who included actress Hayden Panettiere, actor Kevin Connolly, and entertainment mogul Russell Simmons.

“In the midst of cotton candy, sliders, sweet potato fries, and a huge birthday cake, we hit a home run in sharing the vision of Interface,” Mr. Lazerson writes on his blog.

He writes that party-goers were very interested in giving their time or money to good causes, and that Mr. Connolly volunteered to go on a trip to Central America or Africa to aid the poor.

“Happy birthday, Paris, and thanks for letting your party be a chance to share our philanthropic...

Did Melinda Gates exaggerate the success of antimalaria efforts?

In a video interview with The Financial Times, Ms. Gates said that “malaria incidence is down in countries such as Zambia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. It’s down in some countries by over 50 percent and some by 60 percent.”

But William Easterly, an economics professor at New York University and frequent critic of foreign-assistance programs, questions her data on his Aid Watch blog.

“Real victories against malaria would be great, but false victories can mislead and distract critical malaria efforts. Alas, Mr. and Mrs. Gates are repeating numbers that have already been discredited,” he writes.

While Rwanda is a success story in the fight against malaria, Mr. Easterly writes that the World Health Organization in September said the results in Ethiopia and Zambia were unclear.

The Gateses had likely gleaned the...

The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic lay organization, is calling on charities and volunteers nationwide to help the country’s needy people during the current economic crisis.

“Government can’t do everything. And to get our country back on track, government and volunteer and charitable organizations must work with each other, to reach those most in need in our communities,” Carl A. Anderson, the Christian group’s leader, writes in an opinion article in The Advocate, a newspaper in Stamford, Conn.

“While government engages in the lengthy process of implementing a response to the economic crisis, volunteers can reach out today to change the lives of those in need in their neighborhoods. And they must if we are to begin moving our nation in the right direction,” he writes in the article, which was published last week.

The Knights of Columbus are calling on the Red Cross, Salvation ...

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, recently announced a $500,000 program designed to help struggling arts groups by providing them with free emergency advice.

But some nonprofit blog writers are raising questions about the effort.

Andrew Taylor, a professor of arts administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, writes that the program is a “wonderful” idea, but he says neither the Kennedy Center nor its president, Michael M. Kaiser, has “the capacity (or full range of insight) required to engage the tidal wave of cultural leaders who need help.”

On his blog, the Artful Manager, he encourages the Kennedy Center to work with universities, state and local arts councils, and other organizations that have traditionally helped cash-strapped organizations.

The theater manager who writes the blog Butts in the Seat seems to...

Despite the sour economy, organizations that use the Internet to make microloans appear to be thriving, reports The Wallet, a Wall Street Journal blog on personal finance.

Several nonprofit and commercial groups use Web sites to allow users to make low-interest loans of about $100 to $1,000 to entrepreneurs in developing countries. On the blog, Shelly Banjo, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, writes that Kiva.org, a charity lender, and MicroPlace.com, a business operated by eBay, are appealing to philanthropic Americans during the current financial crisis.

“Credit markets world-wide are tight, and charitable donations are down. But Web sites that specialize in ‘microlending’ — small loans mainly to the working poor — say they’re thriving as they address both issues. They’re doing it by allowing people who want to do good but are strapped for cash to lend instead of give,” she...

Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core, in Chicago, last week joined the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and in a blog for The Washington Post, he explains why.

Mr. Patel writes that the president impressed him during a meeting with the members of the group, which is composed of secular and religious charity leaders who will advise the president on antipoverty policy and other issues.

“He talked about the front-line work that so many organizations are doing to keep people fed and clothed and sheltered in America, and how much more acute the need is during an economic crisis. He talked about how many of those front-line groups are faith-based, and how we needed to do as much as possible to support each other and our fellow Americans in need right now,” writes Mr Patel.

“This is not the time to argue between...