The author of of The GiveWell Blog wants to turn one of the basic tenets of giving on its head.

Donors tend to give to causes that offer them a personal connection to those they help.

But the author says donors should be encouraged to find ways to help the most people possible with their contributions. Charity, after all, is not about the donor.

“Chances are, you and those you love have never been affected by malaria or (severe) diarrhea – but those who are affected suffer in ways that are both severe and cheap to fix,” the anonymous author argues. “If you can look beyond ‘someone I love suffered from disease X, so I want to fight disease X’ to ‘someone I love suffered, so I want to fight suffering’ – you can make a bigger impact on more people’s lives.”

While such an approach might not offer as much direct gratification for donors, it would lead to more change, the author...

Efforts to put affordable laptops on the desks of every child are being slowed, in large part, because many teachers are not yet sure how to integrate them into their lesson plans.

But the Geneva Global Forum doesn’t think the push to bring technology into classrooms should be scrapped.

The organization, on it’s Beyond Philanthropy blog, argues that these efforts simply need to be adjusted to become more effective.

“The role of the teacher still seems to be a major differentiator in the value of computer-assisted learning,” the Geneva Global Forum argues on its blog. “This is a lesson that those promoting one-laptop projects for schools in the developing world should heed: Nothing happens without well-trained, well-motivated teachers”

So, instead of the $100 laptop, perhaps philanthropists should be seeking ways to provide a $10 laptop and $90 in training teachers on how to use ...

Would your organization be more productive if you didn’t require your employees to be in the office during set hours each week?

Michele Martin, a consultant to nonprofit groups on personnel issues, raises that question, and many others, in her Bamboo Project Blog.

Some businesses have been experimenting with a system in which employees are trusted to get their work done under the honor system. They don’t have set schedules and they are trusted to do their jobs on their own time.

One of the most closely watched is an effort by Best Buy to offer employees such freedom.

“Employees know what work needs to be done and their managers assume that because these employees are competent and responsible, they will get it done,” Ms. Martin writes of Best Buy’s strategy. “If it’s work that can be done over a cellphone or on a laptop in your bedroom, so be it. Feel free to do it that way....

Charity officials can often learn a lot by watching how politicians handle solicitations and other communications with their constituents.

Katya Andresen in Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog points to an idea she thinks nonprofit groups should emulate: a Food Stamp Challenge issued by the House Hunger Caucus.

The caucus invited members of Congress to live on $21 in food stamps for one week, just like the average food-stamp recipient.

The political challenge, notes Ms. Andresen, generated a lot of publicity for the lawmakers who participated — and helped them win attention to their efforts to get $4-billion added to the annual $33-billion the federal government spends on food stamps.

And they were deluged with comments from Americans, many of them food-stamp recipients, after creating a blog about their experience.

“If you have any idea that you are trying to convey,...

The 2008 Presidential campaign will probably produce some interesting debates about how far government should go in its support of religious charities.

Albert Ruesga dives into the debate head first on White Courtesy Telephone, as he writes about the two sides of the faith-based debate.

Mr. Ruesga, vice president at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, in Washington, freely describes himself as a secular grant maker.

But he also sees great value in the work done by organizations that have clear ties to religion. These groups — both large and small — are doing important work in their neighborhoods.

At the same time, though, Mr. Ruesga worries about the dangers of government aligning too closely with charities that have a religious agenda.

“There’s always been a fuzzy line between the religious and public domains in this country,” Mr. Ruesga writes. “Although many public...

The environmental advocacy group Greenpeace is heating up the debate over global warming by taking aim at claims by ExxonMobil that it has stopped financing organizations that work to prove that climate change is not happening.

On its Greenpeace Weblog, the organization points readers to its recent look into Exxon’s tax records.

After looking at the company’s books, Greenpeace determined that Exxon is still financing “climate skeptics”, even though it has said publicly that it is no longer spending money on such research.

“When our researchers looked into their tax records we discovered that Exxon was in fact lying,” Greenpeace’s Brian Fitzgerald writes on the blog. “They’d abandoned a couple of high-profile institutes, but continued funding 14 organizations in the ‘crisis? what crisis?’ racket.”

Greenpeace’s journey into the records determined that Exxon is still providing...

Dan Prives, a nonprofit finance expert, is the latest voice to come to the defense of special events in the wake of Charity Navigator’s recent study on the efficiency of fund-raising events such as walks, dinners, and golf tournaments.

The charity watchdog evaluated the IRS 990 forms for more than 5,000 charities to analyze their special events fund-raising efforts and determined that the events are grossly inefficient.

But Mr. Prives, writing on Where Most Needed, says the study fails to recognize that people are more likely to give in social settings than they are when they sit at home.

“Event fund raising persists because most people are social rather than analytical,” Mr. Prives writes. “And the thing that drives the giving at walkathons, galas, and dinners is the social pressure of competition and wanting to fit in.”

To further challenge Charity Navigator’s findings, Mr....

Council on Foundation members were “very pleased” with the coverage by bloggers at the organization’s annual conference in Seattle.

Jeff Martin, the Council’s director of media relations, tells Sean Stannard-Stockton’s Tactical Philanthropy that he believes there was some apprehension among some members about plans to open the meeting’s doors to bloggers.

But he says that apprehension faded once the conference began and members were able to see considerable coverage of the event in real time.

“There was some confusion or misperceptions of even what the bloggers would be doing,” Mr. Martin told Mr. Stannard-Stockton in an interview, the transcript of which was posted on Mr. Stannard-Stockton’s blog. “My response was that, How would you handle it if The New York Times were there or any of the major newspapers or any of the major media? It’s the same medium. I just think that we need...

Nonprofit groups will need to look in new places to find leaders to replace the current generation of executives who will soon retire.

But how will they find them?

The anonymous author of Change Is The Only Certainty found some possible answers to that question this week at the annual Westchester Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit during a speech by Thomas Tierney, chairman of the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit group that focuses on leadership issues.

The author reports that Mr. Tierney believes the strategy of “hiring a friend” from another nonprofit group will not work for many organizations.

Instead, many organizations should follow the lead of businesses and find ways to groom talent from within. Nonprofit groups can do that by offering training and coaching — and by having staff members rotate jobs to learn about different aspects of their organizations.

Do nonprofit groups ...

The recent scandal surrounding World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is more than just a case about questionable ethics.

It’s also illustrates the importance of trust between nonprofit boards and their top executives, writes Mike Burns on Nonprofit Board Crisis.

Mr. Burns writes that even if Mr. Wolfowitz takes steps to correct his behavior moving forward, he may have forever lost the trust of his board of trustees.

And if he can’t win back that trust, he’s essentially doomed, even if he is wildly successful in his other job duties, Mr. Burns writes, citing a recent Chronicle of Higher Education survey that shows trustees at colleges and universities often place trust ahead of performance when analyzing the value of their presidents.

“The next set of actions is focused on whether the (World Bank) board can believe that Wolfowitz will correct what could possibly be a pattern and...