Alan Solomont, chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service board, could soon be off to Spain.

President Obama announced last night that he plans to nominate Mr. Solomont as ambassador to Spain and Andorra. Mr. Solomont, a Democrat who was appointed to the corporation’s bipartisan board in 2000 and became chairman in February, has helped lead the Obama administration’s push to expand AmeriCorps and other national-service and volunteer programs.

An investor in health-care companies who helped raise money for Mr. Obama’s campaign, Mr. Solomont also has a strong presence in Boston’s nonprofit world. He has served on numerous boards, including those of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Hebrew Senior Life, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation, and the WGBH Educational Foundation.

If the Senate confirms Mr. Solomont’s appointment,...

When President Obama announced in June that he was going to send aides around the country to locate promising nonprofit groups, many charities wondered where they would go and how to invite them to visit.

Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, has given some clues in a blog item that describes her visit to the Iowa affiliate of Everybody Wins!, a group offering literacy and mentor programs for elementary schoolchildren from low-income families.

“Everybody Wins! is one of the countless ‘hidden gems’ across the country that is successfully bringing together people from all sectors to address community challenges with solutions proven to work,” she writes. “Stay tuned as we search the country over the coming months for other innovative and successful community solutions.”

Ms. Barnes invites people to tell the White House about other effective...

Studies have projected that President Obama’s proposal to limit the tax break wealthy people get for charitable deductions would dampen giving by various amounts. But would all charities feel the pain, or just those in certain fields?

Two professors at the University of California at Davis have just published a paper that explores that question. Using data from the IRS Statistics of Income, they developed an economic model to examine how state and federal income-tax rates affected giving to different types of charities from 1985 to 2005.

The result: Tax incentives had little or no effect on donations to charities in the fields of health, human services, or public and social benefit. But they did influence giving to organizations devoted to animals, arts and culture, education, and the environment, as well as to private foundations.

The authors — Michelle H. Yetman and Robert J....

The Corporation for National and Community Service has posted a fact sheet about the new Social Innovation Fund, which will provide grants to help nonprofit groups expand successful social projects.

The fund was created by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act last spring, although Congress has not yet approved its budget. President Obama and the Serve America Act proposed $50-million for fiscal year 2010, but the House Appropriations Committee last week trimmed that to $35-million. The Senate has not weighed in yet.

A key House committee has voted to cut $90-million from President Obama’s proposed 2010 budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service — including trimming the Social Innovation Fund from $50-million to $35-million.

The House Appropriations Committee, which met on Friday, proposed reducing the president’s budget for the agency, which operates AmeriCorps and other volunteer programs, from $1.15-billion to $1.06 billion. It noted in a press release that plan would still represent a $169-million increase over the agency’s 2009 budget.

The full committee approved the cut that was proposed earlier by an Appropriations subcommittee.

The proposal — part of a bill covering 2010 spending on labor, health, human services, and education — now goes to the full House. A Senate Appropriations subcommittee is scheduled to meet on July 28 to consider a companion bill.

President Barack Obama said today he intends to nominate Jacqueline A. Berrien, a longtime nonprofit and foundation worker, as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Ms. Berrien has served as associate director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund since September 2004. She served from 2001 to 2004 as a program officer at the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice Program, administering grants to promote civic engagement and greater political participation by underrepresented groups.

Earlier positions included assistant counsel at the Legal Defense and Educational Fund and staff lawyer at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union.

When House Democrats issued a plan for overhauling the health-care system this week, they proposed a new surtax on wealthy people as a way to pay for expanded insurance coverage.

While that tax takes a different form than President Obama’s proposal to limit the value of itemized deductions, including those for charitable donations, its impact would be somewhat similar, according to an analysis by CQ Politics.

The reason: The surtax would apply to adjusted gross income, not taxable income — which means itemized deductions could not be used to bring down the tax bill. (In theory, that could dampen the incentive for donating to charity.)

The Democrats have proposed that the surtax start at 1 percent on income above $280,000 for individuals and $350,000 for married couples; rise to 1.5 percent for income above $400,000 (couples $500,000); and to 5.4 percent for income above $800,000 (...

The administration has started a blog about President Obama’s “United We Serve” campaign to get Americans to do volunteer work during the summer.

The Stories of Service Blog debuted this week with several items about volunteer projects at nonprofit groups.

The lead post highlights efforts by Major League Baseball to support the campaign through a benefit concert, a video, a community-service project with AmeriCorps members, and a public announcement during this week’s All-Star Game.

The blog is featured on Serve.gov, a Web site operated by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

A House subcommittee today proposed cutting President Obama’s 2010 budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service by $90-million — including trimming the new Social Innovation Fund from $50-million to $35-million.

The House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee proposed increasing the agency’s budget from almost $890-million in fiscal year 2009 to $1.06-billion in fiscal year 2010.

But President Obama had proposed $1.15-billion, partly to expand the AmeriCorps program and create the Social Innovation Fund, which will award grants to help nonprofit groups expand innovative social projects, or start promising new ones. Both were authorized by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act that was signed into law last April.

“The subcommittee will consider further expansion of service and volunteer programs once the Corporation for...

The White House has offered some details about the timing for awarding grants from the $50-million Social Innovation Fund that was discussed by President Obama at a White House event last week.

If Congress approves the money, the Corporation for National and Community Service — the federal agency that is managing the fund — will issue a “notice of funding opportunity” next fall, according to a fact sheet the administration plans to post online.

Applications will be due during the winter, with funds awarded next spring, it says.

A senior White House official also clarified the purpose of the travels President Obama said his aides would make to identify promising nonprofit groups. “This tour will not be connected to the Social Innovation Fund’s decision or funding process,” she said.

“Instead, it is designed to inform and shape the social-innovation policy agenda,” she said.

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