After stepping down two years ago as British prime minister, Tony Blair’s second act, as a philanthropist, is “getting into full swing,” write Matthew Bishop and Michael Green on their Values blog.

Yesterday Mr. Blair released a report on climate change as part of his “Breaking the Climate Deadlock” initiative, one of several philanthropic efforts he has chosen to pursue in his post-politics life.

The former prime minister will also focus on development in Africa and fostering ties among the world’s religions through his Tony Blair Faith Foundation and will continue to work as a peace envoy in the Middle East.

Mr. Bishop and Mr. Green write that Mr. Blair is following in the tradition of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former U.S. presidents who built post-governmental careers around philanthropy.

Like Mr. Clinton, in particular, the former British prime minister did not leave ...

Aid organizations are devoting more money to keep their employees safe, according to a new survey by International Medical Corps.

Michael Kleinman highlights some of the survey’s findings on the Change.org blog.

Among them:

-35 percent of respondents said their organization has a specialized safety and security department.

-Charities spend most of the money they make available for security on training and on salaries for security personnel.

-Nearly all groups have a written policy statement on security and all field sites have security guidelines available.

Mr. Kleinman notes one surprising finding: Employees based in a charity’s headquarters office were more likely to say their organization needed to heighten its awareness of security incidents than were staff members who work in the field (34 percent compared with 13 percent).

Stephanie Bowen, a spokeswoman for...

John Copps of New Philanthropy Capital, a British charity that advises philanthropists on how to give more effectively, asks on the organization’s blog whether foundations could borrow money to maintain their levels of giving during the recession.

It’s a shame that, given the increase in demand for services, many grant makers have been forced to cut their budgets, Mr. Copps says. He wonders: “Could grant makers borrow to maintain their activity over the next few years, until their sources of income recover?”

Perhaps they could borrow against future sources of income — the profits of a company or an endowment — to keep giving during the downturn, he says.

Mr. Copps notes that many foundations have decades, or even centuries, of good credit histories. “Surely they are a good bet for lending?” he says.

He acknowledges that there are practical problems, such as the culture among...

Do charities that benefited from Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme have a legal or moral responsibility to give back the money?

Steven M. Davidoff, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, asks that question on The New York Times DealBook blog. To illustrate the conundrum, he describes a lawsuit filed by the trustee of Mr. Madoff’s estate, Irving H. Picard, against Jeffry M. Picower and other affiliated entities, including the Picower Foundation.

The complaint alleges that the Picower Foundation received roughly $5-billion in profits from investing with Mr. Madoff over two decades. It also says the foundation’s representatives knew, or should have known, that Mr. Madoff was engaged in a fraud, given the incredibly high rate of returns. (See The Chronicle article on the lawsuit).

The foundation gave away more than $20-million a year — money that never really existed...

The Sierra Club is trying to build a user-generated online database of the nation’s trails. And what better way to publicize the database than by enlisting the name of a man whose face landed on the front page of just about every national newspaper this morning?

“We heard the governor of South Carolina had some trouble finding the Appalachian trail last week,” the Sierra Club’s deputy executive director writes in an e-mail to supporters today. “We don’t want that to happen to anyone else, so now’s a perfect time to let you know about our new online community: Sierra Club Trails.”

“So far,” writes Greg Haegele in the e-mail, “only two sections of the Appalachian Trail have been added by our wonders. No wonder the governor got lost!”

Mr. Haegele then asks readers to join the Sierra Club Trails community and share their photographs and information about the Appalachian trail and...

The debut of NBC’s The Philanthropist drew more viewers last night than did other network offerings in the same time slot, but the drama’s premiere was still considered merely fair.

Approximately 7.41 million people tuned in to see the show’s pilot, according to tvbythenumbers.com. A repeat of CSI: NY, also at 10 pm, attracted 7.39 viewers, and President Obama’s town-hall meeting on health care drew 4.7 million.

But the show about a billionaire businessman who catches the philanthropy bug lost about 17 percent of its audience during the hour, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The number of millionaires worldwide shrank by 15 percent in 2008, an ominous sign for philanthropy.

The survey by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch found that the recession cut the number of millionaires to 8.6 million, according to Bloomberg news service. Their assets dropped 20 percent, to $32.8-trillion, after a 9.4 percent increase the previous year, according to the companies’ 13th annual World Wealth Report.

Rich people around the globe took a beating. However, the wealth of millionaires in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to surpass that of North American millionaires by 2013, the survey found.

The very rich — those with at least $30-million in assets — were hit even harder by the financial crisis. Their wealth declined by 25 percent, the study said.

The United States still has the largest number of millionaires, followed by Japan, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom...

Have you ever considered banning a word from your charity’s lexicon?

Writing on his Donor Power blog, Jeff Brooks describes how a few years ago he worked with two nonprofit groups that sought to reduce poverty.

One banned the word “poor” from its vocabulary, he recalls. “They felt it unfairly stereotyped the people they served, undermined their dignity, and created in donors an insidious sense of superiority,” says Mr. Brooks. Instead, the organization preferred the term “needy.”

The other group shunned the word “needy.” “They felt it unfairly stereotyped the people they served, undermined their dignity, and created in donors an insidious sense of superiority,” says Mr. Brooks.

That organization’s preferred term for poverty-stricken people? “Poor.”

“We can get awfully wrapped up in the words we can and can’t use,” concludes Mr. Brooks. “But here’s a hint: If you have a list...

Angelina Jolie, arguably the charitable world’s most persuasive celebrity advocate, is helping the United Nations raise awareness about refugees ahead of Saturday’s Unicef World Refugee Day.

Ms. Jolie, whose charitable foundation recently gave $1-million to the U.N. agency for refugees, has recorded an online video to draw attention to the cause.

But Sharon Schneider, writing on the Philanthropic Family blog, thinks the video falls short.

“Refugees are the most vulnerable people on earth,” says Ms. Jolie, as the screen cuts to images of children in refugee camps and U.N. trucks delivering aid. “They deserve our respect. Please do not forget them.”

“Really, that’s it?” asks Ms. Schneider on her blog. “That’s the big payoff? ‘Remember them?’”

The U.N. should have asked Ms. Jolie to encourage people to take action, says Ms. Schneider. Ms. Jolie could have asked viewers to...

What do you call charitable giving that’s thoroughly and fundamentally integrated into a product and its marketing?

Lucy Bernholz wants to know. Writing on her blog Philanthropy 2173, Ms. Bernholz is asking readers for examples of ideas that go well beyond the simple marketing techniques companies use to show their support for good causes.

As one example, she cites Contribune, which enables a charitable organization to track the news that its potential donors read. Users enter the Internet address of a news story they care about, and the site steers donations to related charities, tracks those gifts, and sometimes elevates the article to its “front page.”

“Giving is part of this model,” writes Ms. Bernholz, “but it’s really just the action that triggers the ratings that trigger the revenue. Sort of the way Nielsen ratings have been used to set broadcast advertising rates.”...