Advocates of increased civic involvement by young people would do well to expand the definition of the word “volunteer,” writes Janis Foster of Grassroots Grantmakers, in a posting on her Big Thinking on Small Grants blog.

Ms. Foster, writing in response to a post by Robert Thalhimer on the blog PhilanthroMedia, comments that “the word ‘volunteer’ has become somewhat of a trigger for me.”

Volunteering, she says, has come to be laden with feelings of guilt (“that I’m not volunteering enough or I’m not willing to volunteer whenever I’m asked or that I have not enjoyed some volunteering that I have done) and has become synonymous with the concept of work without pay.

“To men, volunteering also suggests a selfless quality; when you are volunteering, you are working without pay and without personal benefit or gain except the good feeling that comes with doing good,” she writes....

Donors who support health-care causes should direct more of their attention — and dollars — to ensuring that medical care is implemented efficiently and skillfully at the local level, writes Dana Variano on the PhilanthroMedia blog.

Too many doctors and clinics, Ms. Variano writes, subject their patients to “rushed appointments, long waiting periods, and sloppy preparation techniques,” which “contribute to a growing number of citizens fearing health care and pushing back against getting proper medical attention. As the 2007 Annual Report of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation states, ‘more than half [of patients] fear something bad will happen to them if they go into the hospital. Research into medical errors says their fears are justified.’”

The blogger cites a study by Peter Pronovost, a physician at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in Baltimore. Dr. Pronovost compiled a...

Young nonprofit workers should consider carefully how they communicate with their baby-boomer colleagues, and tweak their approach in an effort to build understanding between the generations, writes Rosetta Thurman on her Perspectives from the Pipeline blog.

Ms. Thurman, who recently solicited feedback from a group of baby-boom age nonprofit and business leaders, learned that “younger generations have to listen, even if we think we know the answer, and can predict exactly what’s going to come out of our older colleagues’ mouth.”

The older leaders, she writes, noted twentysomethings’ sense of “entitlement and righteousness,” and the boomers crave respect for the experience they have accumulated.

“Gen Y should not seek to tell older leaders what they should do,” Ms. Thurman writes, “but instead ask for their help in creating shared solutions to the issues we are all facing in the...

It’s a modest proposal: Doing away with the standing board committees that too often merely add layers of bureaucracy to nonprofit governance, an idea pitched on the new blog Blue Avocado.

Exceptions to this rule, the columnist writes, might include permanent finance and fund-raising committees.

The advantage of creating time-limited task committee, the columnist writes, is “the changing mix of team participants. Interaction among a variety of members on the board will...

Young nonprofit employees are bringing energy and leadership potential to the charity world, but they should take time to learn from their elders, says Audrey Alvarado, executive director of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, in an interview on the blog Perspectives from the Pipeline.

In an interview with Rosetta Thurman, creator of the Pipeline blog, Ms. Alvarado says that members of Generation X and Y — people in their 20s through early 40s — “want to get things done quickly and innovate, finding alternative solutions that might work better for us all.”

However, she adds, “they may not take the necessary time to understand the full context of the problems they are trying to address.”

She counsels patience and a willingness to listen to the experiences of older nonprofit leaders, to glean their benefit of their experience. “If we dismiss people because they don’t...

Foundations often warn their grantees to find other sources of money so they will become “self-sustaining,” notes Caroline Heine on the PhilanthroMedia blog. But maybe more should consider supporting certain charities indefinitely, she writes.

“Many community foundations say they are ‘For good. Forever,’” writes Ms. Heine. “I met with a family foundation manager this week who said that his first duty was to remember that the foundation was ‘forever.’ If this is the case, then why the need to fund nonprofits like they are ‘yesterday?’”

As an example of a longterm relationship between a grant maker and a grantee, she points to the Humana Festival of New American Plays, which has been sponsored by the Humana Foundation for 29 years. “I’m sure there are many reasons why the Humana Foundation continues to fund the Festival, but to be certain, one of the main reasons is because the...

Foundations that hold their grantees to benchmarks on the diversity of their staffs, boards, and clients may face challenges when those grantees fail to reach those standards, writes Diana R. Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, in Michigan, on her blog.

Her organization, Ms. Sieger notes, asks its grant recipients to report on their diversity: “If a grantee organization does not demonstrate its commitment to being open to all, then we do identify contingencies designed to help them. If they do not try and ultimately show positive progress, then we will not be inclined to provide funding.”

Recently, she writes, this policy has been tested by a situation with one of the community fund’s grantees.

The charity, she says, “did not follow through on a promise they had made a few years ago that would help them be more welcoming to the many diverse cultures in...

Nonprofit employers need to “get real about paying good people well,” writes Rosetta Thurman on her Perspectives from the Pipeline blog.

Ms. Thurman, who frequently writes about career issues for young nonprofit employees, writes about a recent Washington Post article about young nonprofit workers and their dissatisfaction with their employers, and an ensuing online discussion on the same topic.

The Post presented findings from a new study of nearly 6,000 up-and-coming nonprofit managers by four nonprofit organizations, which is also featured in the current issue of The Chronicle. (The Chronicle will also hold an online discussion about this topic on March 11.)

Ms. Thurman was struck by how many participants in the online discussion expressed disappointment with the salaries paid to nonprofit employees below the executive level.

She quotes one participant, from Arlington, ...

The latest project by Oprah Winfrey, the talk-show host and philanthropist, does not give charitable giving a good name, writes Diana R. Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, on her blog.

While acknowledging that Oprah’s Big Give, a new reality television series, may inspire viewers to contribute to their communities, Ms. Sieger writes, “ I am concerned when giving back is depicted as a contest.”

She adds, “I do not like the depiction of giving as a commercial act of charity and the show seems to be a takeoff on The Apprentice in its approach to giving. Good and responsible philanthropy examines needs, tests various approaches to address the needs and measures the relative success. It is long term — not necessarily depressing or sobering but frankly sometimes it is.”

What do you think of Ms. Winfrey’s new series? Do you think it will ultimately exert a good ...

This decade, more than 4.4 million Americans will be shut out of enrollment at four-year colleges due to an inability to afford the cost, according to a federal report, with 2 million of those prospective students not able to attend any college at all. But an innovative philanthropic effort in Kalamazoo, MIch., may be pointing to one possible solution to the tuition squeeze, writes Caroline Heine on the PhilanthroMedia blog.

Kalamazoo Promise,, a charity supported by anonymous donors (or, as its Web site describes them, “a small group of very nice people”), offers a scholarship to every public school student in the district. It is not only putting college within reach Ms. Heine writes, but is boosting the city — and its future labor force — along with the schools and their students.

The urban school district struggled with budget cuts and decades of declining enrollment, writes...