Charities overseas are increasingly getting women to take their clothes off for good causes, writes Kelly Kleiman on The Nonprofiteer.

Earlier this year, Glamour magazine featured naked photos of the singer Mel B, who was posing on behalf of the Helen Bamber Foundation, which fights human trafficking, according to The Guardian, in London. The model Kate Moss recently posed naked in a French newspaper to raise awareness about inequality between the sexes. And People of the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign has featured dozens of naked women over the years.

But is this strategy a smart approach to raising money and visibility? Or merely offensive? Ms. Kleiman thinks the latter.

“Of course sex sells everything, but despite her usual if-it-raises-money-do-it attitude the Nonprofiteer really objects to having nonprofits join the line of social institutions treating women like public utilities,” she says. “And she thinks it’s ill-judged, too: the world is full of ads. Charities hoping to distinguish themselves in the public eye hardly do so by running ads that look just like everyone else’s.”

What do you think?