Items relevant to more than one category may appear more than once in this summary. From the issue dated September 1, 2005 About Gifts and Giving HELPING THE TROOPS -- in ways the Pentagon and larger charities often neglect -- is the mission of some two dozen military-oriented groups that have sprung up in the last few years. OPERATION FIRST RESPONSE, a Northern Virginia charity, aims to meet the simple needs of wounded soldiers recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington. TO HELP MILITARY FAMILIES keep in touch with members deployed overseas, Dan Shannon created Operation Homelink to provide them with refurbished used computers donated by U.S. companies. DESPITE DEEP DIVISIONS in America over the war, grass-roots charities have managed to raise millions of dollars, often just by word of mouth, in support of military personnel and their families. A PHOTO CONTEST sponsored by InterAction aims to counteract the often grim news from overseas with images showing the good that charities do around the globe: a selection of the winning pictures (Good Works). AN IMMIGRANT who defected from communist Czechoslovakia has promised $105-million to New York University's medical school, where he helped invent a profitable anti-inflammatory drug. THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY has received a $25-million pledge for its business school; other recent gifts to nonprofit organizations and institutions. FACE OF PHILANTHROPY: The Free State Theatre Organ Society, in Maryland, is preserving the instruments that used to accompany silent movies. About Fund Raising BABY BOOMERS now contribute more to charity than their elders do, a new survey has found. THE MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION, having taken the matter to court, will participate in the federal government's annual charity drive this year after all. DIRECT-MAIL APPEALS are garnering gifts from fewer people, but those donors are increasing the size of their contributions, according to a study presented at a conference for fund raisers (Conference Notebook). THE USO is under scrutiny over its deal with a fund-raising consultant who has family ties to the leader of the charity. UPDATE ON CAMPAIGNS for endowments, capital improvements, and other needs. INTEREST RATES for planned gifts, issued by the Internal Revenue Service. About Managing Nonprofit Groups DIVISIONS IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT, as several large unions split from the AFL-CIO, could cause problems for charities that work with labor unions or rely on their donations. AN INTERNATIONAL AID CHARITY has sued the U.S. Agency for International Development for denying the group a grant because it refused to sign a pledge opposing prostitution. THE SILVER RING THING, a charity that promotes sexual abstinence, has had its federal grant suspended following charges that it used the money for religious purposes. THE NUMBER OF CHARITIES and private foundations registered with the Internal Revenue Service rose to more than a million in 2004, according to statistics published by the tax agency. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has asked nonprofit groups to comment on drafts of revised forms of interest to charities (Tax Watch). THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE is considering a bill that would require churches to file reports with the state similar to those other charities must submit (Tax Watch). THE BEST WAY to get started as a fund-raising consultant and how to make the leap from a for-profit to a nonprofit job: advice from the experts (Hotline). RELIGIOUS GROUPS do not face many barriers in getting aid from state and local government officials, a new study has found. About Technology A NEW WEB SITE created by a New York advocacy group called the Community Service Society aims to be a place where New Yorkers can debate issues important to the city. GLOBALGIVING, a Washington organization that uses the Internet to put potential donors in touch with grass-roots projects in the developing world, will be able to expand its operations thanks to two large grants. TECHNOLOGY BITS: A new Web site provides information about economic development and a Webcast discusses the future of community foundations. About Grant Makers STEVE GUNDERSON, a former member of Congress with little experience in foundation work, takes over the Council on Foundations at a time when Capitol Hill is looking hard at the practices of grant makers. STORYTELLING isn't just for kids anymore, as a growing number of family foundations use it as a way to hone their mission and their grant making. WHEN HE TAKES OVER as head of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Sterling K. Speirn will have achieved the "triple crown" of working in corporate, community, and private philanthropy (New on the Job). WILL KEITH KELLOGG invented cornflakes and founded one of the country's largest grant makers. Now he's the hero of a comic book (Dispatches). RECENT GRANTS by foundations, corporations, and other grant makers. Also in This Issue OPINION: Mark R. Kramer writes a letter of advice to the new chief of the Council on Foundations; and Paul C. Light looks at what separates the "haves" from the "have-nots" of the nonprofit world. BOOKS: A handbook on applying for tax-exempt status, a guide for nonprofit groups on how to follow the Sarbanes-Oxley accountability law, and a look at the impact women have had on philanthropy and social change, plus a summary of a publication on the debate over nonprofit health-care institutions. LETTERS: on Congressional earmarks, corporate social responsibility, charities' membership numbers, tomorrow's nonprofit leaders, and the folly of foundations' search for an "exit strategy." PRESS CLIPPINGS: Worth checks out university wealth-management programs; Time looks at Muslims in the Boy Scouts; and New York measures the accomplishments of Bill Clinton's foundation. PEOPLE: Appointments and promotions in the nonprofit world.