Kenneth H. Zimmerman (Photo by Ed Kashi)

George Soros’s philanthropy network today named Kenneth H. Zimmerman, a civil-rights lawyer and former Obama administration official, to oversee its U.S. operations.

Mr. Zimmerman, who starts in July, is part of a second generation of leadership at the Open Society Foundations. Also next month, a new president, Christopher Stone, will replace Aryeh Neier, its president of 19 years. (See this profile of Mr. Soros and learn how he is thinking about leadership transitions now that he is in his 80s.)

Mr. Zimmerman’s legal work has focused on preventing discriminatory housing practices. He served as senior adviser to Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, chief counsel to former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, and executive director …

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America’s big companies are slowly increasing the amount they give to charity since making big cuts in their philanthropy during the recession, but they are still donating far less than they did before the hard times began in 2007, according to preliminary results of a new study that were released today.

The downturn has also reinforced a trend that has swept corporate philanthropy in the past decade, as more and more companies have decided to focus their giving to one or two causes rather than supporting a broad range of groups. Just 4 percent of the 144 companies in the study said they support a wide array of causes.

The study, by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy and the Conference Board, found that the median amount donated by companies rose slightly less than 1 percent last year, to $24.4-million. While that was just a modest rise, it is still a 7.4-percent gain…

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Grant makers need to get a lot better at speaking out about social problems and telling their stories, said speakers at Tuesday’s closing session of the Council on Foundations annual meeting in Los Angeles.

In a session that was designed to resemble a form of speed dating—experts had just five minutes to sum up what was wrong with philanthropy—Andy Goodman, a marketing consultant to charities and foundations, criticized foundations for focusing too much on numbers and data. None of that matters if the people a foundation wants to reach are not open to what the data show, he said.

“All the data in the world is not going to change people’s minds,” said Mr. Goodman. “If you want to change what people think and if you want to create change, the first thing you need to do is change the story in their heads.”

Emmett Carson of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, chided…

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Foundations have been slow to respond to the growing needs of the men and women who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families, said speakers at a session Monday of the Council on Foundations.

One reason is that so few Americans—including those who work at foundations and charities—have a connection to service members.

But grant makers could find much to do to support military families, many of whom struggle under the crushing weight of problems that result from multiple deployments such as broken marriages, domestic abuse, unemployment, mental-health issues, and, increasingly, suicide.

Unlike service members in past wars, this generation’s veterans are less inclined to seek help through formal channels like the Department of Defense or Veterans Affairs and instead go online to seek information from other sources, said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq …

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Solving society’s problems isn’t always the biggest issue new foundation leaders face. In some cases, it’s changing a foundation’s culture so it can tackle the challenge ahead, said speakers gathered at the Council on Foundations annual conference Sunday in Los Angeles.

As one veteran told Kevin Walker to recognize when he took over as head of the Northwest Area Foundation, no matter how smart a new strategy a foundation chief wants to put in place, he or she must realize “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Sandra Hernández, chief executive of the San Francisco Foundation, said the best way to get to know an organization’s culture is to listen to employees. Walk around the organization and talk to people. Eat in the kitchen once in a while, she suggests, and get to work understanding the ways a new chief executive’s lack of knowledge could harm the organization.

For Ms. Hern…

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As the nation marks the 20th anniversary of the riots that engulfed Los Angeles, grant makers say the biggest lesson the tragedy taught them about responding to catastrophe is that collaboration with governments, businesses, and other nonprofits matters more than anything else.

As 1,300 grant makers gathered in the city to start their annual meeting Sunday, they examined what foundations can do better as cities erupt in crises such natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina inflicted on the Gulf Coast or the damage the recession wracked on Detroit, or the racial tensions that inflamed this city.

In Los Angeles, one reason the city has grown stronger since the riots, said Manuel Pastor, a professor at University of Southern California, is that much of the Los Angeles philanthropy world joined together with local government, neighborhood, and business leaders to find ways to help…

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The winners of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament will cut down the nets in New Orleans on Monday night. And at least one nonprofit will also have plenty of reason to celebrate.

For a third year, the One Percent Foundation, an organization devoted to fostering philanthropy among young people, is hosting its Grant Madness basketball pool. People who do the best in choosing the winners of March Madness games are declared the winners, just like in any pool, except they have to give their money to a charity of their choice.

“We have to be able to make philanthropy really fun and really low barrier, and everyone does March Madness pools anyway, so why not do one for social good?” says Lana Volftsun, the organization’s executive director.

So far, 379 people have joined the pool, donating a total of $6,786. A matching $5,000 grant from the company MerchSource puts the total pot at…

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Editor’s note: The Gates Foundation  says the opening of an earlier version of this article, based on a New York Times article, incorrectly stated that the philanthropy had instituted a ban on whispering in its offices.  For more on the Times‘ response, see reporting by the Puget Sound Business Journal. The Chronicle has revised the headline and opening to reflect the information provided by the Gates Foundation official, Chris Williams, who says “Gates Foundation employees are free to speak as softly or as loudly as they’d like in our office space.”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation finds that its new $500-million Seattle headquarters is often too quiet, The New York Times reports.

That is one of the challenges in finding the right mix of both open and closed spaces for employees at the new headquarters, the newspaper said in a special report examining the 21st-century work …

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As charities face a continuing struggle to raise funds in the slow economic recovery, they will not find lots of new sources of unrestricted aid or other help to make it through the tough times, according to a new study.

A survey of 755 foundations conducted in 2011 by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the TCC Group found that 83 percent of foundations said they devote money to general support, compared with 80 percent in 2008.  And the median amount of foundations’ budgets devoted to unrestricted support held steady at 20 percent.

But another finding suggests that some foundations are giving more in unrestricted support. Thirty-five percent of foundations surveyed said they gave more money in general operating support in the past two years, compared with 15 percent that gave less.

Thirty percent said they spent more to help charities strengthen their operations,…

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