Larry James is tired.

Mr. James, who runs the Central Dallas Ministries, makes a candid testimonial on his blog about the fatigue that can hit charity leaders.

“Charity can wear you out,” he writes. “Not only does it direct attention to the immediate and persistent suffering of today, it forces those engaged in relief to work hard to bring help, but it also demands that those who do so also devote considerable time and effort to enlisting the assistance of outsiders who must be urged, cajoled, and motivated to provide funding for the enterprises of compassion.”

But, he says, he is far from quitting.

Occasionally a “breakthrough” occurs and he and his organization contribute to helping impoverished individuals or families discover a way to help themselves.

“In the breakthrough,” he writes, “I will find the renewal that keeps me going for another round.”

What do you think? ...

After three years of writing one of the nonprofit world’s most popular blogs, Sean Stannard-Stockton is creating a new company to help wealthy donors with their giving — a venture that grew out of his online discussions.

Mr. Stannard-Stockton, who writes the Tactical Philanthropy blog and is also an opinion writer for The Chronicle, announced today that he has formed Tactical Philanthropy Advisers, in Burlingame, Calif.

The company will help families or individuals with at least $1-million in philanthropic assets. So far, he says, it has signed up four clients with roughly $35-million to award to charity.

Mr. Stannard-Stockton also has agreements with the Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Calvert Giving Fund, and Foundation Source to potentially create donor-advised funds or offer other administrative services for his clients.undefined

He says...

A new advertisement by Médecins Sans Frontières UK, the British arm of Doctors Without Borders, is generating controversy— and the charity is actively participating in the debate.

The stark ad, which began appearing in British movie theaters this month, was a deliberate effort to try something different in nonprofit marketing, the group writes on its Web site.

Several blogs are debating whether the video is exploitative or stereotypes Africa.

The charity’s Web editor has joined the conversations, welcoming the discussion about the ad. “Even if we find out it doesn’t ‘work,’ the experience for MSF of directly engaging with people (and visa versa) and having a meaningful and open dialogue is priceless,” he writes on the blog of Duckrabbit, a British documentary production company.

On the Aid Watch blog, Laura Freschi, associate director at New York University’s Development...

Are you ready for a TV show that revels in the “dark side of generosity”?

Showcase, a Canadian cable channel, next month will premiere The Foundation, a half-hour comedy series that is a vicious satire of philanthropy.

It follows self-serving Michael Valmont-Selkirk, the head of a $300-million family foundation, as he bumbles through his job. In one episode he spends the night on the street to raise money for homeless people, but ends up buying alcohol for them and smoking crack cocaine.

With some foundation executives concerned that the NBC drama The Philanthropist didn’t portray charitable work in the best light, the new show will likely leave them speechless.

As a press release puts it: “The nonprofit world’s worst nightmare is coming to Showcase.”

A preview of the episode is below. It includes graphic language.

What do you think of the new show?

The question of how to determine the success or failure of efforts to solve social and environmental problems is preoccupying many blog writers.

For charities, the most important discussion about evaluation may involve Charity Navigator. The charity watchdog in Mahwah, N.J. last year said it would start rating social-service groups and other organizations on how well they fulfill their missions, instead of judging them solely on their finances and governance.

On his blog, Ken Berger, Charity Navigator’s chief executive, is holding a series of “open forums” with nonprofit experts about how the watchdog can pursue this goal.

This week Mr. Berger interviewed David Bonbright, co-founder of Keystone Accountability, a nonprofit group that helps charities develop ways to measure their work and get views from their beneficiaries.

In a similar fashion, Ideo, a consulting and design...

A growing number of nonprofit leaders are calling for Congress and states to establish a new designation for businesses that make profit as they pursue a social mission. But Jeff Trexler, a professor of social entrepreneurship at Pace University, in New York, wonders what the new status really offers.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois last week approved a law that will allow low-profit, limited-liability companies, or L3C’s.

The article says that creating such a hybrid structure would help attract loans from foundations and investments from for-profit entities. On the Just Means blog, Mr. Trexler writes that this reasoning is faulty because charities could largely receive such support already, albeit with some additional financial steps.

“Rather than simply dreaming about how the L3C could solve your organization’s money problems, you should also look into what is...

Michael R. Dove, a professor of social ecology and anthropology at Yale University, is wondering how President Obama’s late mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, may have shaped her son by examining her 1,043-page dissertation.

As an anthropologist and former Ford Foundation employee in Indonesia, Ms. Soetoro learned that entrepreneurship and access to capital were the keys to fighting poverty, Mr. Dove writes in an opinion article in The New York Times.

She concluded that the lack of capital in Indonesian villages was a political problem, not a cultural one, says Mr. Dove.

“Antipoverty programs that ignored this reality had the potential, perversely, of exacerbating inequality because they would only reinforce the power of elites,” says Mr. Dove. “As she wrote in her dissertation, ‘Many government programs inadvertently foster stratification by channeling resources through village...

In a David-versus-Goliath battle, a small education charity is facing off against Bill Clinton’s foundation in an informal online competition.

In June, Paul Buchheit, a former Google executive, kicked off a contest to find a charity to support with his personal philanthropy. He asked the public to recommend and vote on groups he should give to.

As of today, the William J. Clinton Foundation has 602 votes, while Curriki, a charity in Washington that develops educational material online and distributes it worldwide, has 433.

The competition has become a bit of a horse race. Last week, Literacy Bridge, a group in Seattle, was in second place, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.

To be sure, it is far from unclear who the winner would be. Mr. Buchheit has not set a deadline and has stated that he reserves the right to pick whatever cause he chooses.

“Ultimately,...

As they grow in wealth and influence, foundations need to be under greater public scrutiny, writes David McCoy, a senior research fellow at the Center for International Health and Development at University College London.

In an opinion article in The Guardian, a newspaper in London, Dr. McCoy focuses on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, saying he is concerned by the fund’s effect on global health.

It has the power to set health agendas, but “unlike other big global health institutions, the foundation is unaccountable,” he writes. “Though it has an advisory board and consults widely, some in the health community feel it only listens to what it wants to hear.”

The Seattle foundation, which this week reported that its assets had grown to $30.2-billion after a sharp decline, has said it is doing more to seek outside input.

In June, Jeff Raikes, the organization’s chief...

Are foundations more beholden to their trustees than the charities they support?

David Geilhufe, who manages philanthropy programs for NetSuite, a software company in San Mateo, Calif., argues this point on his Social Source blog.

“In the egregious cases,” he writes, “the value of a grantee to a trustee derives from their ability to support the trustee’s ego. Does the grantee make me feel good? Does the grantee support my religious construct of ‘giving back.’ Does the grantee connect me with other powerful people? Can I chat about what the grantee does on my private plane with my social and business associates?”

He wonders how this mentality will affect the Obama administration’s Social Innovation Fund, which will support grant makers to seek out effective and innovative charitable efforts.

“Are we OK with people who are often unaware of what it actually costs a nonprofit to...