• This week’s Social Capital Markets meeting, in San Francisco, will feature important ideas about how to improve philanthropy and how business investments can produce social and environmental benefits, writes Julia Moulden, author of We Are the New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World, on the Huffington Post. The Chronicle will offer regular updates from the event on its Conference Notebook blog.

• International aid groups too often focus on the needs of donors rather than the needs of the poor overseas, writes a veteran aid worker who is the anonymous author of the Tales From the Hood blog.

• Beth Kanter, an expert on social media, reflects on last week’s Summer of Social Good conference hosted by Mashable, a blog about technology. You can also read The Chronicle’s coverage of the event.

• Frustrated in the first year after Hurricane Katrina by what he calls an “uncertain and overly conventional response from the foundation world,” Tony Pipa, founder of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, writes on the Philanthopic blog that the subsequent three years have also provided “several instances of philanthropy at its best.”

• Matthew Bishop, an editor at the Economist magazine, argues on his Values blog that satire about philanthropy—in the form of a new television comedy called The Foundation—could be a good thing for foundations. Nathaniel Whittemore, director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, examines the argument on Change.org.

• Rick Cohen, who writes for The Nonprofit Quarterly, previews the magazine’s discussion of immigration in its next issue with a blog post arguing that more charities need to be speaking up about...

• Newspapers nationwide are writing about charities facing tough economic times, but the articles frequently paint a simplistic picture, writes Elizabeth Clawson, former coordinator of communications and development at the National Council of Nonprofits, on her new blog, which examines how the news media look at the nonprofit world.

• Writing in the Huffington Post, Richard Walden, president of the international-relief group Operation USA, describes a private meeting between North Korean officials and aid groups.

• How can a charity appeal to foundations that don’t take unsolicited applications or are on a giving hiatus? Arlene Spencer, a fund-raising consultant, has some ideas on her blog.

• Will efforts to improve global health suffer with the decline of the mainstream news media?, asks Mara Gordon, a student at Bryn Mawr College, on Change.org’s blog about...

• To survive — and even expand — in the bad economy charities need to recruit “highly committed, talented, and generous board members,” says Alice Korngold, a nonprofit consultant, on her Fast Company blog.

• Small and midsize charities should utilize cloud computing — using the Internet to obtain software and hardware from a third-party provider like Google — because it can lower technology costs, help employees save time, and benefit the environment, writes Anna Jaeger, co-director of TechSoup Global’s effort to get more nonprofit groups to use environmentally friendly technology.

• Charities can generate revenue with discount coupons through CommonKindness, writes Calandra Cruickshank, president of the company, on the Huffington Post. CommonKindness allows members to print coupons from its Web site, companies pay a fee to CommonKindness when their coupons are used, and...

• Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, authors who focus on trends in giving by the wealthy, ask, “When is a charity not a charity?” on Philanthrocapitalism.

• Bob Ottenhoff, president of Guidestar, says that if the idea of “nonprofit cooperatives” to provide health care takes hold, it will probably “spill over into the already heated debate about describing what is a ‘nonprofit health organization’ and how they differ from for-profit hospitals.”

• Jeff Skoll, the eBay entrepreneur and philanthropist, writes on his blog about his travels in the Middle East with a nonprofit group made up of world leaders called the Elders.

• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Giving Back, a new how-to book about philanthropy, mostly fails to provide useful advice about how to evaluate a charity, writes Diane W. Bennett, executive director of the Development Research Institute at New York...

• An editorial in The Nation, a newspaper in Thailand, suggests that the country’s philanthropy focuses too much on temples and not enough on “intangible ideas” to advance knowledge and improve people’s lives. The newspaper says Thailand has not done enough to help poorer countries in the region and that the Thai government should do more to encourage wealthy people to give.

• Marc A. Pitman, a fund-raising expert, points out that Twestival is back with plans for local charity fund-raising efforts. Twestival is a fund-raising event organized through the social-networking site Twitter.

• Nonprofit groups must “pick up a drum and start beating it loudly” so they get a voice in crucial policy debates like the one over health policy, says Tim Delaney, chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofits, in The Nonprofit Quarterly. He faults the Council of Economic Advisers for ...

• Mitch Nauffts, editorial director of Philanthropy News Digest, makes a case on the Philantopic blog as to why the nonprofit world might just come out of the recession stronger than before.

• The marketing expert Seth Godin explains how nonprofit groups need to develop “patient capital” to solve major problems rather than working in a state of endless emergency on Seth’s Blog.

• The nonprofit effort One Laptop per Child has run into financial and technical trouble, but is that really a bad thing?, asks Timothy Ogden in an article in Miller McCune Online Magazine. Mr. Ogden, editor in chief of the publication Philanthropy Action, argues there are cheaper and more effective ways to help children in poor countries than providing them with laptop computers.

• The Nichi Bei Times, a Japanese-American newspaper, announced yesterday it will close as a business but may return a...

• Ryan Singel, a writer for Wired, reports on an effort by Yahoo to persuade people to voluntarily put a one-cent stamp on outgoing e-mail messages, with proceeds going to charity, in an attempt to reduce spam. Readers discuss whether the plan might work.

• Peter Schaefer, the head of GlobaLand Group, which registers property in developing countries, argues in Foreign Policy that the “brilliant ideas” of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the microfinance pioneer, and Hernando de Soto, a leading advocate of property rights for the impoverished, have had limited real-world impact. He proposes a different approach: “micromortgages,” or long-term, secured, low-interest loans.

• Amy Sample Ward, who blogs about nonprofit groups and social media, offers her five steps for an effective social-media strategy on Socialbrite.

• Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of GiveWell, the...

• Steve MacLaughlin, a consultant at the technology firm Blackbaud, outlines five common mistakes found on nonprofit groups’ Web sites on Connections.

• Ryan Tate, a writer for the blog Gawker raises concerns about MSNBC’s purchase yesterday of EveryBlock, a journalism project supported by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

• Beth Kanter, a technology consultant to charities, offers a look at some of the proposed sessions on nonprofit organizations at the forthcoming SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Among our favorite titles: “Can Double Clicking Save the World?”

• Michael Bear Kleinman kicks off a series of posts on the best and worst aspects of working for international groups with a write-up about CARE. Readers said among the best things about CARE were the organization’s commitment to social justice and autonomy provided to workers; ...

• Beth Kanter analyzes how foundation officials are using Twitter to spread the word about their activities on Beth’s Blog.

• What did you think of Sunday’s 60 Minutes piece on the return of Michael Vick, who was convicted of dog fighting, to the National Football League? Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, shares his thoughts on A Humane Nation. You can also view a segment from the report in which Mr. Pacelle was interviewed below:

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