The news that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation received $10.4-million in unsolicited gifts last year triggered several blog articles and online comments.

• Sean Stannard-Stockton, a principal at Ensemble Capital Management, an investment-management company, said the news is evidence of a growing interest by everyday donors in making sure their donations have positive results. “When these donors think that the Gates foundation is a better donor, what does this mean? That the Gates foundation knows which nonprofits are better than others,” Mr. Stockton, who is a regular columnist for The Chronicle, writes on his Tactical Philanthropy blog.

• Joanne Fritz, a former fund raiser at the Girls Scouts and other charities, says the gifts show the power of “brands” in the nonprofit world. Gates doesn’t ask for money, but because of its well-known name and reputation, the gifts flow in. “If this isn’t proof of what branding will get you I’m not sure what is,” she writes on her About.com nonprofit blog.

• The anonymous author of Gates Keepers, a blog that is often critical of the foundation, wonders, perhaps sarcastically, if the new contributors could lead to changes in how the grant maker operates. “Do new donors to the Gates foundation get a seat on the board like donor Warren Buffett? Then the foundation might become more accountable,” he or she writes in a comment on The Chronicle’s Web site.

• Allison Fine, a social-media expert and Chronicle contributor, would like the foundation to list the names of the donors. As required by law, the foundation will list on its informational tax form the identities of contributors who gave more than $5,000, but Ms. Fine argues that the grant maker should do more. “As a community of people and organizations, we need to start, right now, today, to move beyond the letter of the law to a new level of radical transparency that all donors, board members, staff members, volunteers, and clients should expect as the norm,” she writes on her blog.

On the foundation’s 2007 tax from, the most recent one available on Guidestar, Gates lists four donors, excluding the Gateses and Mr. Buffett. They include a $128,000 estate gift from a donor in Portland, Ore., and $30,000 from Mohamed A. El-Erian and his wife, Jamie. Mr. El-Erian is chief executive of the Pacific Investment Management Company and formerly led the Harvard Management Company, which oversees Harvard University’s endowment.

What do you think? What do the unsolicited gifts to the foundation — and the fact that they grew $8.8-million from 2007 to 2008 — mean for philanthropy and fund raising? Click on the comment button below to share your views.