John R. Hunting, heir to the Steelcase office-equipment fortune, has donated $122-million to charity.

Richard Howard, for The Chronicle

Scott Nichols, of Boston University, says the shortage of big-gifts fund raisers is a "raging national crisis."

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Schoolteachers test devices to carry water at the Cooper-Hewitt museum's summer seminar.

Items relevant to more than one category may appear more than once in this summary. From the issue dated August 9, 2007 About Gifts and Giving GIVE MORE, SOONER: Efforts are afoot to encourage affluent people to give away a larger share of their wealth during their lifetimes. THE 50% LEAGUE highlights the stories of people with money who donate at least half their income or half their assets to their favorite charities: sketches of four of the members. LESS THAN A THIRD of Americans' charitable donations go to benefit the poor, and rich Americans give a smaller share to needy people than others do. A COMMITMENT of $10-million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, in California, will help create an education center; other recent big donations to nonprofit organizations and institutions. THE FACE OF PHILANTHROPY: Alley Cat Allies, a Maryland group, takes a novel approach to reducing the population of stray cats. About Fund Raising FUND RAISERS WHO LURE BIG GIFTS are in demand as never before — a boon for development officers, but a headache for charities forced to compete for their services in a fierce market. TRAINING PROGRAMS for people who solicit big donations are nearly as scarce as the fund raisers themselves. MENTORS AND GENEROUS BONUSES can help nonprofit organizations attract and keep people who raise large donations: tips from recruiters and senior development officers. NEW RESEARCH INDICATES that donors who give money to benefit poor people are more likely to help those who want to find work. A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS RULED that the government must reconsider the application of the Stuttering Foundation of America to solicit donations through the government's annual charity drive. HOSPITALS have not been successful at raising money from former patients, due in part to federal restrictions on patient information, a new survey suggests. 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 THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has approved an overhaul of rules governing the pension plans many nonprofit groups offer their employees, a move that could mean a lot more paperwork for those charities. SOME 55,000 CHARITIES owe the federal government a total of more than $1-billion in unpaid taxes, an official of a government watchdog agency told a Congressional hearing (Tax Watch). TWENTY PERCENT OF HOSPITALS spend less than 1 percent of their revenue on charity care, according to a survey by the Internal Revenue Service (Tax Watch). SANCTIONS AVAILABLE to the Internal Revenue Service to curb abuses by nonprofit organizations are "largely ineffective," the outgoing acting commissioner said in a letter to a leading lawmaker (Tax Watch). A MUSLIM CHARITY in Dearborn, Mich., accused of having ties to Hezbollah, was raided last month, and its assets were frozen by the Treasury Department. YOUNG CHARITY EMPLOYEES will look elsewhere for a career if nonprofit groups don't do a better job of grooming them for leadership, participants at a recent conference agreed. AT THE COOPER-HEWITT museum in New York, 35 teachers spent a week working with pipe cleaners and making solar popcorn, learning principles of design to bring back to their classrooms (Dispatches). PROVING THAT A SMALL CHARITY'S PROGRAMS are working and creating a "culture of receiving" are among the topics covered in our bimonthly advice column (Hotline). About Technology TWO NONPROFIT GROUPS, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the One Economy Corporation, have set up Web sites on presidential-campaign issues as they relate to the charities' missions. THE KNIGHT NEWS CHALLENGE, a program of the Knight foundation, will be awarding its second round of grants for projects that make use of technology to transform local news. TECHNOLOGY BITS: The organization that manages the dot-org domain has a new leader, and three people will share the chief executive's job at CompuMentor, an organization that helps charities use technology. About Grant Makers A PROMINENT VOICE for liberal and minority concerns, the National Network of Grantmakers has been forced by financial difficulties to close its doors. RECENT GRANTS by foundations, corporations, and other grant makers. SUMMARIES OF ANNUAL REPORTS from the California Community, Winthrop Rockefeller, and Surdna foundations. Also in This Issue OPINION: Paul Brest and James E. Canales on the importance for foundations to learn from mistakes, Leslie Lenkowsky on the perils of evaluation, and Rick Cohen on a missed opportunity to put tough questions to charity leaders. BOOKS: A guide on writing fund-raising appeals, a handbook on nonprofit marketing, a look at how nonprofit boards can apply the principles of the Sarbanes-Oxley law, and summaries of other publications on charitable giving by banks, a veteran grant maker's reflections, and how charities can most effectively borrow money. PEOPLE: Appointments and promotions in the nonprofit world. AWARDS: Honors for people and organizations in philanthropy.