Web sites like Groupon.com, which offer online coupons to local businesses if enough people sign up for them, aren't just a good deal for consumers. Some charities are benefiting, too.

A new group-purchasing Web site called CauseOn, unveiled today, is committing 20 percent of its revenues to local nonprofit groups. Users will have some say in where the money goes. And Groupon, the father of such online-coupon companies, has tried a handful of ways to bring nonprofits to the attention of the approximately 12 milion people who subscribe to its daily e-mails.

Perhaps the most fruitful partnership has been with DonorsChoose, the nonprofit group that provides teachers a chance to publicize classroom projects for which they need money. In May, Donors Choose raised $162,000 when it was Groupon's featured daily deal.

The nonprofit group used a grant from Pershing Square Foundation, the...

Investor Warren Buffett's annual charity lunch sold for $2.62-million on Friday -- the largest amount in the 11 years Mr. Buffett has been dining out to benefit the Glide Foundation.

Exuberance reigned at Glide's office during the final minutes of bidding on Friday. "There were people rejoicing, people standing together shouting, people opening up," the Rev. Cecil Williams, founder of the Glide Foundation, said in a statement.

Glide is a social-service group in San Francisco. Its annual budget is about $16-million. 

This year's highest bidder, like some past winners, has chosen to remain anonymous. But it's unclear whether he or she can stay that way.

Mr. Buffett typically dines with the winner and seven guests at Smith & Wollensky, in New York, roughly a year after the auction. Last year members of the Canadian wealth-management firm Salida Capital won the auction. They initially...

The price tag for lunch with the investor Warren Buffett? $1.5-million, and counting.

Each year, Mr. Buffett auctions a lunch on eBay and donates the winning bid to the Glide Foundation, a social-service group in San Francisco.

Bidding doesn't close until 10:30 Eastern time tonight, Friday. But it seems likely that this year's winning bid could top last year's -- $1.68-million -- given the flurry of bidding that typically takes place at the last minute, said Tod Thorpe, associate director of development with Glide.

Winning bids have ranged from $25,000 to 2008's eye-popping $2.1-million. Mr. Buffett started the auction in 1999.

"People who are followers of the investment strategies of Mr. Buffett are very interested in having time with him and each year that interest increases," Mr. Thorpe said.

The annual Buffett gift is a significant source of income for the medium-sized charity, ...

Teenagers report that their parents are the biggest influence on whether they give to nonprofit groups -- but many parents are not raising their children in a way that seems to encourage philanthropy and volunteerism, according to a study released today.

The study was based on a poll of 500 parents and 500 young people between the ages of 13 and 18. Conducted by Harris Interactive in behalf of the Pearson Foundation and Penguin Group, the study distinguished between teenagers who regularly volunteer, raise money, or donate versus those who do so infrequently or not at all.

The study identified several parenting techniques that are more common among parents of children who give frequently.

Thirty-three percent of teenagers who give often (referred to in the study as "givers") said their parents explained how their actions can help others; 19 percent of teenagers who give less often...

A few weeks ago, Cary Kimble stumbled upon an unusual envelope while opening mail at the international-medical charity where he works as director of development.

The envelope contained no letter -- just a check for $15,000 made out to the Haiti relief efforts of Mr. Kimble's charity, Project Hope.

After a little research, staff members at Project Hope, in Millwood, Va., learned that the donation had been given by a group of women at an Ohio prison, known as the "Life group," who are serving terms of 15 years to life.

The group of roughly 130 women earns money by selling photographs of inmates with their family members when they come for visits. The photographs, which they sell for $3 to $5, earn them about $6,000 each month.

Ginine Trim, warden at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, says the inmates saw and read news reports about the earthquake in Haiti and wanted to help. Staff members...

The British affiliate of SOS Children's Villages has pledged not to spend any of the money it raises for Haiti on administration--and it is encouraging other British relief groups to do the same.

The group asks organizations to sign an online petition saying they will not put any Haiti gifts toward advertising, administration, fund raising, advocacy, or any other work in the United Kingdom, except for the purchase of goods delivered to the Caribbean nation.

Andrew Cates, chief executive of SOS Children's Villages, says in an e-mail message that while his group has long encouraged other groups to spend less on fund raising, Haiti is a "bit of a special case" because charities have already set their fund-raising goals and budgets for the year.

"It just doesn't seem right for the charitable sector to 'gain' from something like this and use it to pay for our own targets," he says.

Mr....

Having trouble deciding between the Valentine's Day card with the cute puppies or the one with the witty message?

What about the one that could help the Salvation Army win up to $1-million -- or maybe the card that could help St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital do the same?

Target, the retail-company, is giving Internet users the chance to decide how much of a $1-million gift five charities could win, based on a selection they make when sending an online Valentine's Day card.

Target's Facebook page features the cards, all of which have videos with a football theme to help people get in the Super Bowl spirit.

The five charities -- Kids in Need Foundation, United Through Reading Military Program, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, United Way, and the Salvation Army -- will get a portion of the $1-million that corresponds with the percentage of cards that endorse them.

The...

Voting opened on Monday in Pepsi's Refresh Project, the latest effort by a company to let consumers have a say in how its philanthropic dollars should be spent.

Visitors to the project's Web site can choose among more than 700 ideas submitted by individuals and charities. Top vote-getters as of Monday afternoon were a proposal by an elementary-school teacher's assistant to form a club to promote self-esteem among girls, and camping trips for disadvantaged young people that are run by a charity connected with the University of Arizona.

Pepsi plans to give away $1.3-million each month, with grants ranging in size from $5,000 to $250,000.

In the last few years, more corporations have been experimenting with ways to give consumers a chance to help direct their charitable money. Last May, the retail-company Target started an online campaign to let voting by its Facebook fans determine how ...

Add online generosity to the list of things notable about the nation's capital and its suburbs.

People in Alexandria, Va., a city located just outside of Washington, donated more money online per capita to charities that use Convio software in 2009 than Americans in any other large city.

For every 1,000 people, they gave $20,244.

Residents of Cambridge, Mass., donated the second-largest amount ($14,729 per 1,000 people), followed by Arlington, Va. ($14,362), another Washington suburb, and by Washington, ($13,746).

Convio, a company that provides software to charities, based the rankings on an analysis of online contributions it processed for 273 large cities. The company estimates that it processes about 10 percent of all online giving.

Other cities on the top 10 list were Minneapolis; Seattle; Berkeley, Calif.,; St. Louis; Bellevue, Wa.; and Ann Arbor, Mich.

Friday's star-studded telethon has raised more than $66-million so far for Haiti relief and recovery efforts - more than three times the amount raised via telethon after the 2004 Asian tsunamis.

So what's happening with all that money?

An "advisory committee" of nonprofit and Haiti experts has been formed that will, along with the Entertainment Industry Foundation, help decide that question.

The committee includes people like Diana Aviv, the head of Independent Sector; Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti; and Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The committee members will meet this week to review information submitted by the charities already chosen by the Entertainment Industry Foundation, with help from the Bridgespan Group, to get a share of the telethon money.

The beneficiaries are the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam...