While California lawmakers reached an agreement this week to close the state’s $26-billion budget gap, some legislators want foundations to support social services facing the ax — a suggestion that makes nonprofit leaders balk.

According to a New York Times article, the state’s health-insurance program for children was cut by $144-million, and some lawmakers hope that grant makers will make up the balance.

On her blog, Lucy Bernholz, a foundation consultant in San Francisco, writes that she nearly spit out her coffee when she read the article.

“How can we expect to run a state on hope?” she asks. “For all the important opportunities there are for public-problem solvers, private corporations, philanthropists, and social entrepreneurs to work together to address our shared challenges, what kind of democracy depends on philanthropy?”

Daniel Zingale, senior vice president of the ...

As The New York Times searches for new revenue streams, it is working more with nonprofit journalism programs — a move that is being examined by the newspaper’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, and others.

In his column this week, Mr. Hoyt looks at the Times’s collaboration with Spot Us, a Web site that solicits donations from the public for specific journalism projects, and ProPublica, a charity dedicated to creating articles in the public interest.

Mr. Hoyt writes that any new partnership has “potential pitfalls,” but that the newspaper has pledged to disclose where the money is coming from and to maintain editorial control.

In The Huffington Post, Jeff Jarvis, an associate professor of journalism at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, applauds the newspaper’s work with charities and volunteers and says it is part of a broader change as newspapers are ...

As the debate heats up about how America will pay for proposed changes in the health-care system, a blog writer for Atlantic magazine says lawmakers should reconsider their opposition to President Obama’s plan to reduce the charitable-tax deduction for wealthy people to support health fixes.

“I realize that reducing ‘charitable giving’ sounds like a horrible and miserly thing to do. (And it will definitely curtail giving, if not by as much as critics say. Lowering the deduction for gifts necessarily reduces the incentive to give.) But as much as I like the idea of being horrible and miserly, I don’t think the consequences will be dire,” writes Conor Clarke.

One reason he believes this is because charitable giving doesn’t always have a social benefit and suggests that some philanthropy may not deserve a tax break.

“Of course, I confess that it would be difficult to arrive at a...

An international aid group has taken the unusual step of apologizing for a botched effort to distribute clothing in Africa.

Enough, a group that seeks to assist the victims of genocide, was criticized for giving New York Knicks basketball jerseys to children living in refugee camps in eastern Chad and the way it described the event on its blog.

Alanna Shaikh, a veteran aid worker and blog writer, called the clothing effort an “idiotic, dehumanizing, tacky stunt” because Enough did not bring jerseys for everyone and because the organization said the kids “devoured” the gifts, a phrase she said makes the recipients sound like animals.

In response to Ms. Shaikh, Enough, which is a project of the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, apologized in a blog article this week.

“The T-shirt distribution was not well thought out, and I should have better consulted...

The former head of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, one of the largest grant makers in the country, is raising concerns about a growing effort to survey grant beneficiaries about their views of foundations.

Edward E. Penhoet, who led the Moore foundation, in San Francisco, from 2004 to 2007, questioned the surveys conducted by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, a Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit research organization.

During a recent conversation with Matthew Bishop, co-author of Philanthrocapitalism, Mr. Penhoet said the center’s grantee-perception report “doesn’t measure effective philanthropy. It measures a foundation’s popularity with those it gives grants.”

Mr. Penhoet said Moore received mixed grades on its survey because “many of our grantees didn’t like us, because we asked them tough questions about the impact they were having and whether they were using our money ...

A recent Forbes magazine article took some shots at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work in India, but New Philanthropy Capital, a nonprofit research group in London, has come to the foundation’s defense.

On its blog, Simon Blake, the organization’s head of international research, says Forbes points out several common philanthropic mistakes Gates may have made. For example, big foundations need to have some “cultural sensitivity” when working abroad.

But Mr. Blake says overall the article displays an “underlying suspicion” about charitable efforts that are analytical, have deep pockets, and employ people from outside the nonprofit world.

“I don’t know the rights and wrongs” of the Gates program, he writes. “But I do know that the kind of approach pioneered by the Gates foundation has brought a welcome rigor to the activities of the NGOs it supports.”

He continues: “...

Hit hard by the economic downturn, a small foundation has opted to spend all of its remaining assets and close its doors — a move some nonprofit leaders have encouraged.

The Paul Rapoport Foundation, which supports gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual causes in the New York area, announced this week its decision to shut down after a precipitous decline in its endowment.

“After engaging outside consultants to evaluate its past funding and its options for continuing to support the New York LGTB population,” the fund says in a press statement, “the foundation’s board and staff unanimously agreed to seek to maximize its impact over the next five years by dramatically increasing its funding levels in the near‐term and spending out by 2015.”

The organization says it currently has about $7.5-million and is developing a plan on how it will spent its remaining assets.

Several...

Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, is stirring up a debate about nonprofit marketing.

In a column this week, he writes that international aid groups are “abjectly ineffective at selling their causes. Any brand of toothpaste is peddled with far more sophistication than the life-saving work of aid groups. Do-gooders also have a penchant for exaggeration, so that the public often has more trust in the effectiveness of toothpaste than of humanitarian aid.”

The Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter says that too often relief and development charities emphasize the dire situations in Darfur or other overseas crisis, which may turn off the public. He suggests nonprofit groups instead focus on their humanitarian achievements.

The article drew praise from some in the nonprofit world, but Allison Fine, a consultant to nonprofit groups, says it is way off base to compare...

Has President Obama declared “war on philanthropy”?

According to David Billet, associate editor of Commentary, a conservative magazine, the answer is yes.

Mr. Billet is part of a growing chorus of right-leaning pundits who argue that Obama administration policies, as well efforts by liberal advocacy groups to steer more philanthropic dollars to help disadvantaged people, threaten the independence of the nonprofit world.

The president’s proposal to reduce the tax deduction for wealthy donors, while increasing government spending, is of particular concern to Mr. Billet.

“It suggests that Barack Obama believes it would be fairer for all if the government were to do as much as possible, and that the tasks of helping the less fortunate and keeping the national conversation as full-throated and diverse as possible would be better managed under the auspices of Washington,” he writes...

Google has started a new effort to help poor Africans gain access to health and agriculture information on their cell phones.

Working with a Ugandan telecommunications company and the Grameen Foundation, Google will offer a text-messaging service that will assist rural Ugandans, who often live far away from markets and health clinics.

Rural farmers can now electronically list their crops for buyers in cities and pregnant women can ask questions about prenatal care via the phone, writes Rachel Payne, Google’s Ugandan country manager, on the blog of Google.org, the company’s charitable arm.

The new effort is an example of Google’s new philanthropic approach.

In April the Mountain View, Calif., company announced Google.org will focus more on involving its computer engineers in developing technology to help social and environmental causes. The move raised questions if technology...