What should the next U.S. president do on his first day in office? Make a pledge to eradicate nuclear weapons? Build more bike lanes? Create a national sales tax and eliminate all other federal taxes?

A Web site, On Day One, is asking Americans to make their suggestions for what the next resident of the White House should commit to. The Internet project is run by the Better World Fund, an advocacy group in Washington that seeks to improve U.S. relations with the United Nations.

Aside from ideas from everyday people, the Web site includes video interviews with politicians and other well-known figures. Walter Mondale, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984, says that the next president on his first day should promise to build better relations with other nations, while Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat from Washington, wants the new commander-in-chief to pull troops out of...

The Clarion Fund, an advocacy group with a mission “to educate Americans about issues of national security,” has been accused of violating rules that prohibit nonprofit organizations from direct partisan political activity.

On its Web site, the fund says it is a nonpartisan organization.

The controversy erupted when the fund distributed millions of copies of a DVD about Muslim terrorists titled, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.”

The move prompted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Washington, to file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission that says the DVD was meant to benefit Sen. John McCain’s election efforts.

Gregory Ross, a spokesman for the Clarion Fund, told The Chronicle that the organization has not been contacted by the elections commission and denies any wrongdoing. “We have maintained to the letter of the law what we can and ...

With both John McCain and Barack Obama promising to expand national service, a former president applauds their efforts.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Bill Clinton said the next president should make volunteerism an integral part of citizenship.

“In an interdependent world, being a good citizen involves more than being an informed voter and paying your legal taxes,” he said. “You should make contributions, not just of money, but of time.”

Mr. Clinton said that expanding AmeriCorps — the national service program he founded while in office — would be a good way to encourage philanthropy.

Listen to The Chronicle’s interview with the former president, in which he discusses the upcoming Clinton Global Initiative meeting, the controversy about anonymous donors to his presidential library, and why he enjoys philanthropy more than politics.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced today its “I’m a Constitution Voter” campaign, which seeks to get Americans to pledge to consider civil-liberty concerns when they enter the voting booth in November to choose the next president.

On its Web site, the group asks visitors to sign a petition that demands that the next occupant of the White House close the Guantánamo Bay prison, among other moves.

In issues related to the nonprofit world, the organization also wants the next president to examine government-supported religious social-service programs to make sure they do not violate the Constitution and end “monitoring” by law-enforcement agencies of political activists.

In a related move, the ONE Campaign, an antipoverty group in Washington, is trying to influence next week’s presidential debate in Mississippi. The group wants supporters to sign a petition to persuade the ...

Gov. Sarah Palin’s remarks about community organizers during the Republican National Convention last week continues to rile the nonprofit world, sparking a debate on The Chronicle’s Government and Politics Watch.

Partisan publications are also taking up the fight.

The liberal Nation magazine provides a thorough defense of community organizing, arguing it is a bedrock principle of American life dating back to the Boston Tea Party.

“At a convention whose theme was ‘service,’ GOP leaders ridiculed organizing, a vital kind of public service that involves leadership, tough decisions, and taking responsibility for the well-being of people often ignored by government,” says co-authors Peter Dreier, professor of political science at Occidental College, and John Atlas, president of the National Housing Institute.

The conservative Weekly Standard, however, says Ms. Palin was not...

A civil-rights group and others are protesting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s jab at community organizers during her speech at the Republican National Convention, where she accepted the nomination for vice president.

Defending herself against those who say she has little experience in government, Ms. Palin described her work as mayor of a small town, saying, “Being a mayor of a town is like being a community organizer but with responsibilities.”

The line, which was a thinly veiled attack on Sen. Barack Obama’s previous job as an advocate for poor neighborhoods in Chicago, drew laughter from convention delegates, but anger from others.

Wade Henderson, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, responded in a press statement: “We’re a nonpartisan coalition but we do take exception when anyone disparages the vast contributions of community organizers to American...

Nonprofit groups set up under 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code are playing a larger role in this year’s presidential election and may face greater scrutiny because of it, writes Paul Kiel onTPMMuckracker, a left-leaning political blog.

Mr. Kiel writes that with the Federal Election Commission’s crack down on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other groups established under Section 527 of the tax code, political partisans are turning to the advocacy groups — classified under the 501(c)(4) section of the code — to influence this year’s race for the White House.

The 501(c)(4) groups can advocate for policy changes during elections as long as they do not specifically coordinate their efforts with political campaigns or parties. They can also endorse candidates.

Unlike charitable organizations and churches, which can allow their donors to take a tax break, donors to advocacy...

America’s presidential candidates need to think more about how to help the world’s poor adapt to climate changes, writes Nicki Bennett, an Oxfam aid worker.

In On the Ground, a blog by The New York Times, she writes that the White House contenders have proposed cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but “none are talking about the impact of climate change on poor people -– or what they might do about the fact that places like Bangladesh and New Orleans are already being bashed by climate-related disasters and slowly losing land to rising sea levels.”

Bangladesh, where Ms. Bennett works, may lose 20 percent of its land in the next two decades thanks to rising sea levels and melting Himalayan glaciers, forcing millions of people to leave their villages, she writes.

A headline-grabbing tax scandal in Germany is raising questions about how European countries regulate foundations.

According to The New York Times, German authorities are investigating hundreds of people for possibly evading taxes. The investigation’s most prominent target has been Klaus Zumwinkel, who resigned last week as the chief executive of the German postal service after the police charged him with evading $1.46-million in taxes by forming a foundation in Liechtenstein.

According to news reports, Mr. Zumwinkel’s foundation, with assets of $17.5-million, had the mailing address of his vacation home in Italy.

Mr. Zumwinkel and his lawyers have not commented publicly on the allegations. However, the German news media said that shifting assets to foundations abroad is a well-known method of dodging Germany’s high tax rate.

In Liechtenstein, foundations are not required to ...

Is the White House looking for ideas from the foundation world?

Yesterday the Bush administration announced it hired John P. Bailey, a former senior policy officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to be special assistant to the president for domestic policy. At the Seattle-based foundation, Mr. Bailey focused on ways to improve public schools.

The jump from Gates to a government job, especially one in a Republican administration, is unusual. The Gates Foundation is better known for hiring former White House staff who served under Democrats. For example, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the fund’s president for global development, was deputy chief of staff for President Clinton, and David Lane, who leads Gates’s advocacy efforts in Washington, served as the head of the White House’s National Economic Council under Mr. Clinton.

What do you think? Will Mr. Bailey’s appointment help...