The debate about so-called philanthrocapitalism has jumped the Atlantic.

In an opinion article in The Guardian newspaper, in London, Tristram Hunt, a history professor, writes that Google.org, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other groups that mix philanthropy and business practices will not solve health inequities and global poverty.

Such donors have “little engagement with the kind of structural injustices — racial, economic, social — or broader environmental, demographic or strategic challenges that require political advocacy. Having made their riches from the existing free-market model, venture philanthropists see little need to confront its problematic aspects,” he writes.

But in a letter to the editor, Kurt Hoffman, director of the Shell Foundation, disagrees.

“Many of these new actors have been motivated precisely because governments and charities have...

As food riots erupt worldwide and aid groups search for ways to help the hungry, the author of the Philanthropy Action blog writes that one often-cited cause of the increase in food costs — a demand for biofuels by wealthy countries — is a “red herring.”

“The vast majority of biofuel production comes from corn, sugarcane, and palm oil — only one of which is a food crop. The countries that are experiencing the most unrest are those where the primary staples are wheat and rice, both of which hit record high prices this week while neither is used for biofuel production” writes Tim Ogden, an executive at a communications company that focuses on philanthropy.

Instead, Mr. Ogden says that charities and others need to focus on agriculture policies in the United States and Europe that encourage crop production. Such policies are “depressing prices, destroying livelihoods, and discouraging...

After the Freakonomics blog this week solicited suggestions for how a real-life donor could distribute $70-million to charity, fund raisers of all types — including arts leaders, heads of healthy charities, and even a representative of Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster chimed in online to make their pitches.

But Jack B. Siegel, a nonprofit lawyer and author of Charity Governance blog, suggests the wealthy man, identified only as Michael, “cool his jets” and wait to give his money away.

Mr. Siegel writes that the 31-year-old has his entire life to be a philanthropist and that he shouldn’t be too hasty with his giving.

“We bet there are already charities and others trying to identify Michael so that they can sink their avaricious claws into him and his money,” he writes.

Mr. Siegel would like to see Michael mature a bit more before making huge charitable decisions....

Massachusetts hospitals are under fire from state officials who argue the groups pay excessive compensation to their executives.

Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, writes that cases of excessive salaries are probably rare nationwide and that nonprofit medical institutions operate very much like commercial ones and need to offer competitive salaries to attract top talent.

But on his Running a Hospital blog he emphasizes that there is “fundamental difference” between nonprofit and for-profit entities.

“The nonprofit does not have shareholders who benefit financially from its operations. Its fundamental constituency is the community it serves,” he writes. “I know that our board and I would be making very different decisions about patient care, research, and training expenditures if we operated under a for-profit rubric.”

What do you...

Tom Durso, author of the 501c3 Files blog, is applauding the appointment of Gail J. McGovern as president and chief executive of the American Red Cross.

Ms. McGovern’s experience as a corporate executive and a volunteer fund raiser at the Johns Hopkins University and other nonprofit groups bodes well for the Red Cross, he writes.

“The Red Cross needs a stabilizing hand at the top, and one with the chops to restore both luster and funding. Gail McGovern sounds like a great person to give it a whack,” he writes.

What do you think of Ms. McGovern? Will her experience help improve the Red Cross’s financial troubles and leadership woes? Click on the “comment” link below to share your thoughts.

Meet Tracy Kaufman, the “world’s foremost expert on philanthropy” and author of the new blog Philanthropiccrap.

“I may be a piddling assistant,” she writes, “but by god I’ve read enough Chronicle of Philanthropy to coronate myself the utmost thinker of our time when it comes to the nonprofit sector.”

Ms. Kaufman’s humorous blog offers an irreverent, if controversial, look at the nonprofit world.

In a recent blog item, for example, the 25-year-old New York library-sciences student identifies three charitable causes she calls a total waste of money — churches, universities, and microfinance institutions.

In terms of giving to a religious group, she writes, “you may as well take your money, fry it in a little oil on the stove, plop some caramelized onions on top, and eat it, because whatever the church is doing with your money is probably pretty similar.”

What do you think of...

With the current economic downturn hurting California, grant makers in the state should be required to allocate more money to help needy people, writes John C. Gamboa, executive director of the Greenlining Institute, in an opinion article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We have written Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to request that half of the annual income of the state’s foundations be devoted to helping low-income victims of the recession for the next two years. In a time of recession, we hope that foundations will be vocal supporters of this idea,” he writes.

Greenlining, an advocacy group in Berkeley, backs California legislation that would require grant makers in the state to disclose the composition of their boards and employees by race, gender, and sexual orientation, as well as information about the grants and business contracts they award to organizations that help specific ...

Several major aid and human-rights groups are under fire for a report they published on the dire conditions of Palestinians.

In the report, The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Care International, and other charities said that Israel’s blockade has ruined the area’s economy and health-care system. They gave as an example the plight of Munir, a Gaza resident with thyroid cancer.

“Munir has not been able to access chemotherapy for months, as he cannot get a permit to cross into Israel or Jordan,” the report says.

But at the time the report was published on March 6, Munir had been able to travel to get medical assistance.

The groups gave an update on their Web sites to explain the discrepancy with Munir’s condition.

“The good news is that thanks to high-level Jordanian intervention he did reach Jordan for the treatment he desperately needs....

Mark Lange, a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, writes that ending extreme global poverty is within reach, but that wealthy nations, government aid agencies, and charities need to change how they help the 1 billion people who live on less than $1 a day.

In a five-part opinion series in The Christian Science Monitor, Mr. Lange writes that to successfully fight poverty, the world needs to:

• Support activists and small nonprofit groups in Africa and other poor regions to find their own solutions.
• Foster trade and property rights for poor people.
• Increase evaluations of aid work.
• Use military force when needed in humanitarian disaster, such as Darfur.

Mr. Lange writes that many governments and antipoverty groups will resist changing their operations.

“Like almost any other organization, aid agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and contractors...

The divorce settlement between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills was decided in part on matters of philanthropy.

According to the court documents, the judge who oversaw the case questioned Ms. Mills’s assertion that she gave most of her income to charity to justify the $250-million she was seeking from the former Beatle.

“In her evidence she told me that as much as 80 percent or 90 percent of her earnings went direct to charities. However, the wife had to accept in her cross-examination that there was no documentary evidence, for example letters from the relevant charities, that her fees were sent direct to charities,” writes Judge Hugh Bennett of the Royal Courts of Justice, in London.

The judge also rejected Ms. Mills’s claims that her former husband restricted her charitable activities, pointing out that Mr. McCartney had helped raise more than $8-million to charities she...