Lynn Robinson, of Easter Seals Colorado, is making special efforts to reach out to grant makers.

Allen Brisson-Smith

Michelle Finholdt's child-care center has been in the middle of a Minnesota battle over the question of what is a charity.

Will Crocker

Albert Ruesga is taking over the Greater New Orleans Foundation as the organization rethinks how it can best aid the city's recovery.

From the issue dated February 26, 2009 About Giving THE LARGEST AMERICAN FOUNDATIONS distributed $21.6-billion in grants in 2007, 13.2 percent more than the year before, according to a Foundation Center report. NEW GRANTS THAT FOUNDATIONS have made in response to the economic crisis. EARLY LEARNING is the focus of a collaboration among several grant makers that are devoting millions of dollars to efforts to improve the education and care of very young children. THE FACE OF PHILANTHROPY: New Course is a Washington effort to provide culinary skills to homeless people, former prison inmates, and other people who have trouble getting jobs. RECENT GRANTS by foundations, corporations, and other grant makers. HOSPITALS in Minnesota and New York received $50-million each; other new big gifts. About Fund Raising FUND RAISING IN A RECESSION requires ingenuity: 10 things charities are doing to try to bring in money during the downturn. SOME TRENDS, like an increase in the number of donors, give fund-raising experts cause for optimism despite the gloomy economy. TEXT MESSAGING is likely to become a key way to raise money, and gift bequests will probably increase: predictions about the fund-raising climate in the difficult year ahead. TWITTER, the new thing among online social networkers, is becoming a popular way for charities to keep in touch with supporters in 140 characters or fewer. TWESTIVAL, a coordinated series of face-to-face gatherings of Twitter users around the world, harnessed the popularity of the new site to raise more than $250,000 for charity in 24 hours. "MAX FROM MEMPHIS," a little boy who doesn't exist, holds the key, Bob Levey thinks, to raising money for a museum that doesn't exist — yet. INCREASES IN POSTAGE on nonprofit mail would take effect on May 11 under rate changes proposed by the U.S. Postal Service. UPDATE ON CAMPAIGNS for endowments, capital improvements, and other needs. INTEREST RATES for planned gifts, issued by the Internal Revenue Service. About Managing CHARITIES ARE PLEASED, for the most part, by provisions in the economic-stimulus law that will help them and the people they serve weather the recession. AN INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE REPORT on tax-exempt hospitals could provoke calls for stricter limits on the compensation of all nonprofit executives. POLICY MAKERS considering changes to the federal rules governing nonprofit hospitals could be guided by a new survey of the institutions, officials of the tax agency say. WHAT IS A CHARITY? A bill now before the Minnesota Legislature attempts to pin the definition down, after the state's Supreme Court denied a property-tax exemption to a nonprofit child-care center. CONSTRUCTION AND RENOVATION PROJECTS worth an estimated $166-billion have been delayed by nonprofit groups because of the sour economy, says a new report from the Johns Hopkins University. NEW JEWISH CHARITIES tend to serve a more diverse clientele than traditional Jewish federations do, a survey by the Natan Fund suggests. MORE THAN 100 NONPROFIT LEADERS have signed an online "action agenda" intended to persuade charity and government officials that nonprofit groups have a role to play in the economic recovery. About Technology WITH GOOGLE'S HELP, and using a Google tool called Website Optimizer, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society was able to test the effectiveness of a page on its Web site. THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION has awarded $22-million to projects designed to help schools and school districts collect data on students and use them more effectively to improve their performance. A CHARITY that links small businesses in developing countries with people willing to lend them money has put out a call for programmers interested in designing new tools to further the group's mission. PEOPLE WITHOUT A LAWYER can get help with legal problems from a growing number of nonprofit groups that have created online tools that automate the production of legal documents (Innovations). BITS: The United Nations and two foundations are working to develop mobile technologies that improve health care, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is soliciting proposals for its Health Games Research program. About Philanthropy Careers THE CHALLENGES NEW ORLEANS FACES as it rebuilds are enormous, but Albert Ruesga, who has taken over the reins at the Greater New Orleans Foundation, remains confident about the city's future (New on the Job). GETTING FIRED from her first job did not undercut the important lessons Margaret Williams learned about how to raise money for a good cause (Entry Level). Also in This Issue OPINION: Pablo Eisenberg lists what government officials and grant makers need to do to make foundations more responsive; Franklin Foer, Tom Freedman, and Elizabeth Wilner bring you the news about how philanthropy can save journalism; Grant Oliphant thinks business and government could learn a thing or five from the nonprofit world; Kristen Grimm believes these hard times call for visionary speeches from charity leaders; Leslie Lenkowsky remembers the founder of Habitat for Humanity and his view, increasingly rare, of how philanthropy ought to work; and Tom Watson outlines a scenario for the wired philanthropy of the future. NEW BOOKS: A look at how charities should use online tools, a handbook on tax issues for donors, an examination of philanthropy in Islamic societies, and summaries of other publications on grant seeking, a key donor-intent lawsuit, and raising big gifts. PEOPLE: Appointments and promotions in the nonprofit world. AWARDS: Honors for people and organizations in philanthropy.