Should a nonprofit cancer research center partner with the maker of an alcoholic beverage to raise money for breast cancer? The more wine consumed, the more funds for fighting cancer, goes the logic.

Should researchers studying the link between vitamin D and cancer accept money from the tanning industry? Make a donation to breast cancer research when you visit your local tanning salon.

Such collaborations between nonprofits and corporations have become increasingly common -- so seemingly well intentioned that their inherent conflicts are overlooked.

"Pasting a pink ribbon on a fundraiser" does not give nonprofits carte blanche to raise money any way they see fit, says a Bellevue woman who is protesting such campaigns as hypocrisy.

DEAN RUTZ/SEATTLE TIMES

While some studies have shown moderate consumption of red wine can reduce the build-up of plaque in arteries, other research has shown that wine, and alcohol in general, can increase the risk of breast cancer among women.

Last year, Jill Byington was diagnosed with a form of late stage breast cancer. The 51-year-old technical writer and mom blogs about her experience here. She said she's grown tired of what she calls "the routine assault of corporate pink ribbon fundraisers that are both annoying and foolish."

For her, particularly flagrant is the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center partnership with Fat bastard wines.

In the "Raise a Cup for the Cure" campaign, Fat bastard promises to donate 25 cents for every bottle of its wines sold in restaurants and shops up to $75,000. "By the end of this year's campaign, FAT bastard will have raised over half of a million dollars to help conquer this devastating disease," the press release gushes.

More than 40,000 people a year die from breast cancer. "The generous financial support and long-standing commitment of donors such as FAT bastard enable this crucial, life-saving research to continue," Jennifer Pawlosky, the research center's director of development marketing, says in a statement. "We are proud to be their partner in the fight against breast cancer."

The problem is that wine has been associated with a higher breast cancer risk. A study by Fred Hutchinson's own researchers showed that women who consumed an average of two drinks or more a day had a 24 percent increase in breast cancer over non-drinkers.

So a campaign encouraging the consumption of wine seems ill suited to this cause.

The Hutchinson Center issued a statement in response:
"Many different types of organizations and companies - including businesses that distribute and sell wine - choose Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as a beneficiary of their fundraising campaigns to support lifesaving research. We value the generosity of these donors."

Research at the center indicates that "to reduce the risk of breast cancer, women should limit alcohol consumption to no more than one drink per day, regardless of the type of alcohol."

However for men, the center's research also suggests that "drinking a glass of red wine a day may cut a man's risk of prostate cancer in half. This protective effect appears to be strongest against the most aggressive forms of the disease."

Many lifestyle factors are associated with cancer risk, from obesity to physical activity to alcohol intake, the center stated, and regular cancer screening, good nutrition and regular physical activity are recommended.

Jumping on the breast cancer band wagon next is the indoor tanning industry.

Tanning salons funding vitamin D research encourage "patrons of the professional indoor tanning community across North America" to donate $1 to $5 to support vitamin D-breast cancer research in the D-feat breast cancer campaign.

"The more you tan (and increase your risk for melanoma)," Byington writes, "the more money you raise for this research.

She questions money for research coming from a product that potentially causes the cancer the researchers seek to cure.

Put another way, "Is the risk of putting people in additional danger of contracting breast cancer by consuming wine worth the lives saved by the money raised for research?"

Where should the line be drawn on such fundraising? Some of the money from the Raise a Cup campaign goes directly to support patients, as in the Christina S. Walsh Foundation, which pays for treatment for uninsured breast cancer patients, even more critical now after the recession.

It may be one thing for such nonprofits to accept support but another to endorse a pink label on a product and encourage people to buy more of it thinking they're not harming themselves and even helping the cause.

With more public health focus on breast cancer awareness coming in October, Byington wants to pull the pretty pink ribbon off and expose the plain facts underneath. A project called Think Before You Pink aims to educate consumers.

Just as the best treatment gets at the root of the disease, she demands that we look at the root of the problem.

These days it seems whenever I look at Puget Sound I can't help but think of the Gulf oil spill. A group of organizations will be doing the same thing on Thursday evening during a fundraiser for The Nature Conservancy, held at the 75th-floor Columbia Tower Club.

STEVE RINGMAN/SEATTLE TIMES

Kayakers paddle among pink salmon jumping in the East Waterway off of Elliott Bay. Scientists from the UW and NOAA said Monday that the changing pH of the seas is hitting Puget Sound harder and faster than many other marine waters, threatening the region's shellfish industry.

"Almost Live!" veteran Pat Cashman will host the event, which includes auction and raffle items and paintings by local artists of scenes from the Gulf area from Art on the Ridge and the Open Arms Campaign.

JUDI BOTTONI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Berms and absorbent materials are used to contain oil following the April 20 spill by BP, the worst in U.S. history.

The benefit is sponsored by Flavor of Seattle, MVMGR Real Estate and Stigmare Couture Marketing. The worst effects are being felt far away, but there's a lot of interest locally. Stigmare CEO Steven Paul Matsumoto says more sponsors contacted him within hours of the event being announced . "It was very heartwarming and a true Northwest response," he said.

Forecasters predict that among other casualties, the oil spill will depress charitable contributions by as much as $600 million in 2011, mainly due to the effects on the Gulf Coast economy, according to PhilanthroDEX, which tracks and predicts charitable giving from sources nationwide. The April 20 explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 workers. Since then anywhere from 35,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil per day have been flowing into the Gulf.

Is Microsoft an incubator for social entrepreneurship?

Over the years, plenty of people have retired from the company to start a second career in philanthropy or to create new enterprises that address social issues.

Microsoft alumni have founded and supported more than 150 non-profit organizations and social ventures working around the world, according to its alumni foundation.

Employee giving and company matching funds totaled almost $90 million last year (employee charitable donations and volunteer time are matched up to $12,000 a year).

Such support has moved well beyond a fringe benefit. To attract the next generation of employees, making a social mission part of the company's DNA has become a vital recruiting tool, said Lisa Brummel, senior vice president for human resources. (She's seated at far left with four employees active in philanthropy)

It's also something she sees as an advantage over competitors.

"There are certain companies that give their employees 20 percent time to spend internally to make the company better," she said, referring to Google. "And there are some companies that give their employees 20 percent time externally to make the world better."

Brummel spoke last week at a first ever Microsoft Accelerator Summit, a round table discussion with media and non-profits focused entirely on corporate citizenship. The participants ranged from an employee of less than two years to CEO Steve Ballmer.

"If you go to employees and say why do you work here.. at the end of the day people buy in and participate in their own mind in our vision and they want to make a difference in society," Ballmer said.

Employees are running non-profits of their own, including the Jolkona Foundation, Givology and CRY America. Xiang Li, a Microsoft product manager and co-founder of education non-profit Givology, said the prospect of making a difference is more important to her than a higher salary.

"The amount of effort I see our employees doing is quite remarkable," Ballmer said. "We want to make sure we enable and support and encourage that."

In fact, the new organizational model that a younger, globally connected workforce demands is one that blends social and commercial goals, and attracts talent with visionary leadership and social mission, Seattle author Rob Salkowitz writes in his book "Young World Rising."

One of the key questions for any company, though, is how to align doing well for society with its business goals.

For Microsoft, areas where the two converge include health, science, education, workforce training and bridging the digital divide, Ballmer said.

In a project called PhotoDNA, for example, Microsoft researchers teamed up with Dartmouth College computer science professor Hany Farid to create a way to identify and filter out known images of child pornography from search engines, based on matching their digital fingerprints provided by law enforcement agencies.

Another project involved deploying 200 sensors throughout the Brazilian rainforest to measure temperature, water vapor and solar radiation, collecting data and designing systems to visualize the effects of climate change.

The Web site Microsoft Hohm helps people calculate their energy use and find ways to conserve, and it's planned in the future as a tool to help manage information about when and where to recharge electric vehicles.

The company's legacy of philanthropy took inspiration from Mary Gates, the mother of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and a leader of United Way. "It spread starting from Bill and his family to the company and it sort of became part of our culture," said Pamela Passman, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel (pictured above).

This year, the company ranked 14 on a list of the 100 best corporate citizens by Corporate Responsibility magazine, which evaluated performance on a range of issues such as environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights and philanthropy. Despite the generally favorable review, CR gave Microsoft a cautionary "yellow card" for its involvement in antitrust cases brought by the European Union and U.S. state governments.

Tim Cranton, associate general counsel who worked on the PhotoDNA project, described what he finds unique about the company's culture.

"Microsoft employees truly believe they can change the world with software, even sometimes in an arrogant way, but there is an abiding belief that we can change the world."

I wanted to understand what Ballmer thinks about the legacy of philanthropy in the company and what he plans to do with his own wealth.

"I don't start with what are we giving away but what are we trying to accomplish and what can we get done," he said.

Partnerships with NGOs around the world are key to that strategy, and they include groups such as NetHope, CARE, TechSoup and Goodwill Industries.

On the question of his own philanthropy, Ballmer said he wants to be anonymous and private. "My own world's my own world, so I continue to treat it that way," he said.

While he supports the kind of giving Microsoft is doing, he sounded more pragmatic than visionary. "If you stack it up next to the world's problems, it's got to be money that ignites action."

So what impact are these efforts having on business and society?

For one thing, by investing in IT training programs for unskilled workers, the company gets a lot more feedback about how its products can be improved, said Akhtar Badshah, senior director of global community affairs.

Microsoft is investing significant resources in a program called Unlimited Potential, which combines technology, education and economic development to improve conditions for the billions of people at the middle and bottom of the global economy.

Like many high-tech heavyweights, the company is providing resources to seed its next markets.

"There is no guarantee that that any one high-tech company will benefit in a direct way," Salkowitz writes. Their investments could end up developing fertile markets for their competitors, but it's not worth the risk of standing by while others gain a foothold, he contends. Either way, the beneficiaries are local consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs.

Nalini Gangadharan, chair of the CAP Foundation, said IT training programs funded by corporate partners have helped raise the marriage age in parts of India where more than half of girls traditionally get married before the age of 15.

"Before, girls were sitting idle and married off," she said. "Today the girls are saying as long as it's safe and secure, they are able to hold jobs and have decision-making status in the family. That is one of best outcomes."

The Gates Foundation took the unusual step of terminating a grant, this one for a Canadian group engaged in tobacco control, after the chair of its board was exposed as a director of Canada's largest cigarette maker.

The foundation said today it has severed a $5.2-million grant to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) after it was informed that the group's chair, Barbara McDougall, was also a director of Imperial Tobacco Canada, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco. McDougall served as Secretary of State under Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Last week, the African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) announced it was pulling out of a Pan-African tobacco control meeting in Senegal that it had planned to co-host with the IDRC after discovering the group's link with the tobacco industry. The Gates Foundation was funding the Dakar meeting and had awarded the grant to IDRC in December 2007 for programs in Africa.

"We are deeply disappointed by this revelation and feel this conflict is unacceptable," the Gates Foundation said in a statement today. "We are terminating our tobacco control grant to IDRC, effective immediately."

Philippe Boucher at the Tobacco Control in Africa blog has investigated IDRC's links to Imperial Tobacco and says many questions remain, including what the Gates Foundation will do to ensure its grantees are free of such conflicts in the future.

The foundation continues to work with IDRC, a Canadian government-owned corporation focused on development, on a $30 million project to support African think tanks.

Looking more broadly at the real and potential conflicts of interest of serving on corporate boards, Pablo Eisenberg thinks college and university presidents should quit corporate boards entirely. What about the directors of other non-profit organizations serving outside interests? Such relationships are not always transparent.

Eisenberg points out that a growing number of presidents not only sit on corporate boards but collect huge fees for doing so. "This trend has dangerous implications for both the colleges and universities and the CEOs involved," he writes.

Local fund-raising events, volunteer drives, non-profit campaigns and other efforts to help Haiti continued this week.

Tonight Seattle Greendrinks, SeaMo, ReVision Labs and Global Washington will jointly host a benefit for Fonkoze, a microfinance and development organization in Haiti working on emergency relief and long term reconstruction. A suggested donation of $20 includes live music, 6 to 9 p.m. at the Pike Brewery. Details are here.

Fonkoze board member Melanie Howard, Charlene Balick of the Grameen Foundation and a volunteer recently returned from Haiti will talk about the current situation and ongoing relief efforts. The brewery is donating 25 percent of its receipts from food and drink to Fonkoze.

Seattle non-profit InterConnection is looking for donations of used laptops with Pentium 3 or Pentium 4 chips and accepting them by mail or drop off (shipping is free for donors). InterConnection is working with World Concern to get the equipment into schools, hospitals and NGOs in Haiti that have lost hard drives and laptops and have no resources to replace them.

ELSA/GETTY IMAGES

Wide receiver Pierre Garcon of the Indianapolis Colts celebrates with the Haitian flag after the Colts defeated the New York Jets.

The non-profit NetHope managed to bring Internet connections to NGOs working on the ground in Haiti this week through a long-distance WiFi network it set up in Port-au-Prince. Frank Schott, NetHope's global program director, operated a kind of command center from his home in Bellevue to coordinate efforts. NetHope is now providing Internet access through a shared hub to CARE, Save the Children, Concern and Catholic Relief Services, among others. The group is made up of 28 of the world's largest humanitarian organizations.

Brown Paper Tickets, a company based in Fremont that donates five percent of its profits to charities, added a microfinance partner in Haiti to its list of beneficiaries. Ticket buyers can direct part of the ticketing fee to one of three categories, and FINCA, which operates village banking in Haiti, will receive a portion of the proceeds.

The Mobile Giving Foundation announced that mobile donations have surpassed $33 million. The foundation has continued to add non-profits to its platform and now enables mobile phone users to send donations to 25 different organizations in the U.S. and Canada that are working on relief to Haiti.

Corporate donations surpassed $122 million two weeks after the earthquake, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center. About 300 companies have contributed to relief efforts, and 49 of them have donated $1 million or more.

Today the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that more than $528 million has been raised in total for U.S.-based non-profits. Here's a list of relief groups and the amounts they've received.

Mercy Corps created a new way for people to raise money with personal fund-raising pages, designed by donors with personal messages and photos and used by schools, companies and other groups to give together. Mercy Corps said it has raised more than $500,000 from the pages so far.

Coca-Cola is easily one of the most recognized brands in the world. Could linking some of the most impoverished people in Africa to the corporate giant's supply chain be a win-win for both?

The Gates Foundation is funding a project to help farmers in Kenya and Uganda produce fruit for Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola says the farmers can help it meet a critical need to increase production as global and local demand for fruit juice grows.

ELLEN CREAGER/MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

The ubiquitous Coca-Cola brand reaches every corner of the world.

The $7.5 million Gates grant will go to TechnoServe, a U.S.-based nonprofit, to train mango and passion-fruit farmers to improve their quality and increase production, and to provide the farmers with credit.

TechnoServe works with large corporations like Coca-Cola, using a private sector approach to align corporate interests with those of small enterprises in developing countries, and increase profits for both.

The project aims to bring 50,000 farmers into Coca-Cola's supply chain for the first time and to double their incomes by 2014.

For some perspective on this new partnership, I asked Chris MacDonald, a business ethics expert who teaches at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada and is a Senior Fellow at Duke University. He has written about Coca-Cola's work in developing countries, including this report on an African water project.

"This clearly seems like a positive thing, over all," he said in an email about the new Gates-funded partnership. But the way it's set up makes all the difference. "It would be best if these farmers are being brought into Coca Cola's supply chain in a way that doesn't leave them dependent on it," he said. "Being dependent on the purchasing whims of any particular company seems dangerous, maybe a mixed blessing."

I also checked the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which keeps track of the record of many companies, including Coca-Cola. The company has come under fire for its water use in India. Yet it has also taken steps to build or repair water infrastructure in African countries.

Coca-Cola said the partnership will also serve as a model for the way it approaches other developing country markets where it does business.The four-year, $11.5 million partnership includes a $3 million contribution by Coca-Cola and $1 million from its bottling partner Coca-Cola Sabco.

Including loans to farmers as part of the project also raises some questions. "Anything that requires farmers to go into debt is at least a little worrisome," MacDonald said. While debt can be useful for people expecting incomes to rise, "I hope those farmers are getting some good, impartial advice about their financial planning."

The Gates Foundation's longer term goals for African agricultural development are eradicating poverty and improving food security. With a company whose main product isn't healthy, "there's reason to be worried about the company extending its reach, and hence its market, into more and poorer countries," MacDonald said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported today that corporate donations to Haiti relief efforts have grown to $60 million. So far more than 120 companies have contributed to the cause, and 22 of them donated more than $1 million each.

Combined with record giving from individuals using social media and technology, and contributions by non-profits, help to Haiti is on track to be one of the largest relief efforts ever.

InterAction, the leading alliance of U.S. humanitarian and development groups, said today that organizations have committed and raised a combined total of $100 million to support the relief work.

Microsoft pledged at least $1.25 million in cash and in-kind donations to relief efforts in Haiti today as its disaster response team is reaching out to help relief agencies. Microsoft encouraged its 55,000 U.S. employees to make donations, which the company matches up to $12,000 per employee.

Akhtar Badshah, senior director of global community affairs, said Microsoft was also working through the organization NetHope, a network of large relief agencies and technology companies, supporting efforts to restore power and communications in Haiti.

So far, 1,600 Microsoft employees have contributed more than $280,000 to 100 non-profits working in Haiti, which are matched by the company.

California-based biotech Amgen, which has a research center with several hundred employees on Elliott Bay, said it will donate $2 million toward relief efforts. The Amgen Foundation will also use a disaster relief web site for staff around the globe to contribute funds to designated organizations, and the foundation will match them dollar for dollar.

"It is amazing to see how many companies have responded to the urgency of this tragedy," said Stephen Jordan, executive director of Business Civic Leadership Center at the U.S. Chamber. "We are encouraged by the early outpouring of support but we are well aware that this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint."

Other leading donors were:

--Digicel ($5 million) Digicel is the largest wireless service provider in Haiti (the other is Bellevue's Trilogy) and Digicel lost two of its employees in the earthquake.
--Trilogy International Partners ($3 million, plus $1 million from Chairman John Stanton and his wife, Theresa Gillespie).
--Deutsche Bank ($4 million)
--General Electric ($2.5 million)
--Citigroup ($2 million)
--Credit Agricole S.A. ($1.45 million)

The full list is here.

On Monday Starbucks announced a $1 million donation from The Starbucks Foundation to the American Red Cross for Haiti.

The non-profit Mobile Giving Foundation is now supporting text message donations for at least 17 different humanitarian organizations helping Haiti. Donations of $5 and $10 made by text message have now surpassed $20 million. A list of the organizations accepting mobile donations is here.

Eliminating the usual processing time for mobile donations, Verizon Wireless today said it transmitted almost $3 million to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief efforts, which represents the dollars pledged by its customers via text message donations so far.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air set up a program for frequent flier members to donate their miles to charitable groups involved in the relief effort in Haiti. Between now and Feb. 15, up to 5 million miles donated to the program will be matched one-for-one by the airlines.

The RealNetworks Foundation is donating $50,000 to Medical Teams International (MTI) for earthquake relief in Haiti. Nordstrom donated $50,000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund.

PCC Natural Markets (PCC) made a $25,000 donation to the American Red Cross.

The Hunger Site and GreaterGood.org sent $125,045 to Partners in Health today, a combination of online donations received through GreaterGood.org and contributions given by The Hunger Site and GreaterGood Network stores.

Amazon.com has a box on its homepage for contributions to Mercy Corps' Haiti relief efforts, which had helped channel close to $500,000 from customers by Friday afternoon. The Gap Foundation donated $150,000 and offered to match employee contributions, Best Buy contributed $100,000, Western Union $50,000 and Nike $25,000.

Bellevue-based wireless service company Trilogy International Partners, which operates in Haiti through its Voilà subsidiary, is providing the Mercy Corps team with a base of operations in Port-au-Prince.

In partnership with ITT, Mercy Corps will deploy five high-capacity water filtration units to provide much needed clean water in Haiti, and ITT is contributing a $100,000 donation, plus a double match for employee gifts.

Wireless industry veteran John Stanton has worked all over the world and experienced the devastation of hurricanes and other crises at home and abroad. Nothing compares to Haiti, he said.

The earthquake hit a country already burdened with unreliable infrastructure, political instability, deforestation, poverty and homelessness.

"The tragedies there prior to Tuesday were so enormous that the notion that Haiti would be the country that would suffer this devastating earthquake, it's hard to believe," said Stanton. "It's just beyond imagination how many bad things have happened to Haiti."

Stanton is chairman of Trilogy International Partners, which provides a third of Haiti's phone connections through its wireless service Voilà. With 500 employees, Voilà is one of the largest employers in Haiti, and Trilogy the largest U.S. investor in the country, having worked there for a decade, Stanton said.

Trilogy was fortunate that its building did not collapse and its employees seem to have all survived, Stanton said. "An astonishing number of our people reported for work yesterday and this morning," he said.

CRIS BIERRENBACH /ASSOCIATED PRESS

A man uses a cell phone as he holds a person's hand after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake, the largest ever recorded in the area, rocked Haiti on Tuesday.

Trilogy CEO Brad Horwitz arrived in Haiti today to assess the situation and support the company's local staff. In addition, Trilogy operates in the Dominican Republic, so it has been able to send supplies over by land from the adjacent country.

Traditional landlines are almost non-existent, so wireless service is critical for both basic communications and emergency relief work. In fact, locals in Haiti said people who were trapped under debris have called out for help from their cellphones, the Associated Press reported.

"We are essential infrastructure on a normal day," Stanton said. "In times of crisis the most important thing is getting our system back on the air, which it is."

Wireless companies are constantly monitoring their service, so they were among the first to learn about the earthquake.

Within hours, Trilogy chartered a plane from Miami carrying 14 engineers, along with radios, batteries and water. They were able to land in Haiti early Wednesday morning with help from the U.S. State Department and Kenneth Merten, the American ambassador to Haiti. They knew that relief workers needed the wireless network running to do their jobs.

That's not easy in a country without a functioning electrical grid in normal times. All of Voilà's cellular towers run on diesel generators. The damage had knocked out a line between fuel tanks and generators. Getting trucks to deliver fuel and repair lines was a challenge across Haiti's damaged roads.

Though the service was down for much of Wednesday, local staff and the engineers from Florida worked feverishly to get it restored by midnight last night.

With growing demand from aid workers and people getting back in touch with loved ones, "the network is going to get swamped," Stanton said. The company was working to prioritize calls for rescue crews.

About 30 percent of the cell sites remained damaged, some simply out of fuel and others buried under tons of rubble, Stanton said. Crews worked to repair them, but the situation was still unpredictable. With aftershocks "a bridge there yesterday might not be there tomorrow," he said. "Our ability to keep the system up is obviously limited by our ability to get fuel to every site that depends on it."

Looking longer term, with Haiti's fragile foundation and the enormous challenges ahead, "there's almost an unlimited amount of things that have to be done," Stanton said.

Trilogy, which received an award from the U.S. State Department last month for making a positive impact on the Haitian economy, will continue working with the micro-enterprise it created to provide opportunities for local entrepreneurs and with its partner, musician Wyclef Jean's Yéle Haiti foundation, to improve education, Stanton said. Voilà is Yéle Haiti's largest corporate sponsor and has been since Yele launched in 2005 with a $1 million donation from the company.

_________________________________________________________________

Mobile technology was proving important to Haiti in another way.

The earthquake has been "a watershed event," said Jim Manis, CEO of the Mobile Giving Foundation, a Bellevue non-profit which provides the platform for people to send donations by text message and pay for it on their monthly bill.

In the last 36 hours, more than $7 million was raised for earthquake relief through mobile donations, which "exceeded all money we've raised through mobile giving since we began" in 2007, he said.

The foundation is processing donations for a dozen charities helping Haiti, including International Medical Corps, the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund and Yéle Haiti, the foundation run by Wyclef Jean. Donations have come in at a furious pace.

At the peak, "we hit 10,000 messages per second last night," Manis said. Since processing the donations can take 90 days, Manis said he has been working with companies such as Verizon to push funds through faster. Carriers may decide to pay the donations as soon as customers pledge, rather than after billing, he said.

You know things are out of whack when an investment bank is considering forcing its employees to donate to charity.

That plan is reportedly in the works at Goldman Sachs, with bonuses, some as high as eight figures, being paid to bankers this week.

Expected bonuses at Goldman Sachs average about $595,000 per employee, while employees of JPMorgan Chase average about $463,000.

Big banks are undoubtedly taking preemptive measures to ward off further public rage following the massive taxpayer bailout, and this is a year when non-profits could certainly use all the help they can get.

RON EDMONDS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

JP Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, left, and Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, leave the White House in Washington, after a meeting with President Barack Obama.

But rather than channel more money into pet causes for image repair, a more fundamental issue needs addressing.

That is the enormous disparity between the rich and poor, which by some measures is now the widest since just before the Great Depression. In this new Gilded Age, reducing that gap could do a lot more good than contributions to charity.

It benefits society in fundamental ways by improving health and raising life expectancy, while reducing crime, suicide, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and mental illness, British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue in their new book "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger."

An interesting and thorough review of the book is here.

In the U.S., the recession has widened the income gap because income declined most for middle-class and poor Americans, and poverty soared.

This week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission will hold its first public hearings with top bank executives to begin dissecting the causes of the economic crisis. Meanwhile a campaign is taking aim at big banks by encouraging people to move their money out of them and into community banks and credit unions.

Bankers who perform well should be rewarded -- after all, the wealth they create often does help shareholders and the economy. But as they debate what to do with all the bonuses, evidence suggests that giving back isn't as powerful as taking less.

If the flood of email this week is any indication, non-profits are working hard to capture any donations in the last few days of the year from people seeking a 2009 tax deduction.

In fact, Dec. 31 is the busiest time of the year for online giving, according to this story in the New York Times, based on data from Convio. In 2008 it found that charities raised 22.5 times more money on the last day of the year than on an average day, and the gift size was 57 percent larger in the last week than the average week.

Locally, Gov. Chris Gregoire sent out an appeal for donations to food banks, including
Second Harvest Inland Northwest, which provides more than 1 million pounds of donated food a month to neighborhood food banks in Eastern Washington; Northwest Harvest, which serves more than 300 food programs across the state; and Food Lifeline, which served more than 675,000 hungry people across Western Washington last year.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul appealed for year-end donations, citing a doubling of demand at its Food Bank and a 53 percent increase in demand for general assistance.

Some companies transformed the holiday parties of the past into end-of-year charity drives. PricewaterhouseCoopers in Seattle invited people from three charities into its office for a reception with more than 75 of the firm's employees, and gave each non-profit a $10,000 check. PricewaterhouseCoopers partners and staff chose Childhaven, Northwest Harvest and Treehouse as the recipients of their holiday giving campaign.

Olive Crest, which serves abused and at-risk children, said it received a last minute gift from the federal government of $500,000, which represents 13 percent of its total annual budget. The appropriations funds will go toward supporting programs in Washington State focusing on child abuse prevention and training for young teens and adults to live and work on their own and transition out of the child welfare system.

Some non-profits are making year-end donating go even further. The global health organization PATH said every donation to its Catalyst Fund will be matched up to a total of $116,000, thanks to support from the McKinstry Charitable Foundation and an anonymous donor.

Radio station KEXP challenged listeners to help with its year-end fundraising by pairing donations with a pledge from its Volunteer Leadership Boards. The board members committed an additional $85,000 if donors can raise $130,000 by Dec. 31.

For people evaluating charities as they consider donating, GreatNonprofits CEO Perla Ni had a few tips:

1. Don't look at the proportion of the budget that goes to programs. Ni considers focusing on overhead the worst way to pick a charity. "They tell you nothing about the impact that the charity has, and actually encourage charities to make decisions that make them less effective," she said.

2. Look for opinions and information from people who have had direct experience with the charity. GreatNonprofits.org and GuideStar are two sources.

3. Listen to what experts have to say about the charity. Philanthropedia provides access to opinions of experts who evaluate charities.

4. Find direct evidence of impact. Ask the charity how it evaluates the effectiveness of its programs. GiveWell has reviews on hundreds of charities based on impact.

5. See for yourself. Take a donor tour or sign up to volunteer and experience firsthand what the nonprofit does.

The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) received a $500,000 grant from Boeing Charitable Trust toward its fundraising campaign for a new museum on Lake Union, MOHAI Executive Director Leonard Garfield said today.

The museum is moving from its current Montlake building because it will be displaced by an expansion of Washington State Highway 520. It has chosen the historic Naval Reserve Building (Armory) in Lake Union Park as its new location.

MOHAI has raised $17.6 million so far toward is $40 million goal.

Boeing kicked off the community campaign for the original Montlake facility with a five-year $200,000 challenge grant in the 1940s, and the company contributed the aviation wing and restored and hung the B-1 Flying Boat, one of MOHAI's signature artifacts.

"We are deeply grateful for Boeing's financial support for the new museum and for their longstanding leadership in increasing cultural opportunities for the residents of our region," Garfield said.

MOHAI plans to open the new museum in late 2012. Garfield said one of the biggest advantages of the new location is that it makes the museum more visible and more engaged with the community.

Boeing Vice President Fred Kiga, who had been in charge of philanthropic efforts in the Northwest until recently, confirmed today that he is leaving the company.

GREG GILBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Fred Kiga spoke at a press conference last year announcing the collaboration of Seattle area philanthropic groups and corporations to help people dealing with unemployment and homelessness.

Reached by phone while on vacation, Kiga told my colleague Nick Perry that he will be "moving on to pursue other opportunities."

Last month Boeing shifted its management to move Kiga's position underneath George Roman, a vice president at Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) in St. Louis. Kiga's new role was unclear.

Previously, Kiga had been vice president for state and local government relations and global corporate citizenship at Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle.

This editorial described Kiga as a "sharp guy with a strong social conscience."

Kiga, former chief of staff to Washington Gov. Gary Locke, joined Boeing in 2007 from Russell Investments.

He said today that he's looking into a number of possibilities but is in no rush to decide. On Friday, Kiga was not given another term on the UW Board of Regents -- instead he was replaced by retired Starbucks executive Orin Smith.

More for charity and less for the landfill, says TisBest founder Erik Marks. I talked with him about the trend of charity gift cards, which his non-profit issues, and recent criticisms from consumer advocates. Marks, a member of Social Venture Partners, started TisBest Philanthropy in 2007.

Even as TisBest has grown, Marks has kept his day job as general counsel at EDG Commercial Real Estate in Seattle and operates TisBest with three employees. Previously he worked at law firms Cairncross & Hempelmann and at Perkins Coie. He studied philosophy as an undergrad and has a law degree from Harvard.

Q: How are you different from other charity card issuers?
A: The array of charity gift card issuers has become broader with eight or nine now, but the largest are TisBest, Charity Gift Certificates, JustGive, and the Good Card.
Only TisBest and Charity Gift Certificates are single-purpose portals -- the only thing you see are gift cards. I like to believe the single-purpose approach is better. When the recipient gets a card, the Web site speaks only to the gift in hand, not six other things.
We've got the best Web site for a lot of reasons, and the uploadable image feature is probably the feature people get most excited about. That customization makes our cards particularly valuable for businesses.

Q: You have less than 300 charities to choose from, not thousands or a million -- why?
A: One advantage is browsing. When someone gets a gift card, most people have a few charities in mind but not one they're dead set on. When you get to the charities tab, it's broken down in categories.
We've consciously chosen 125 organizations that are major recognized brand names. Under homelessness for example, you will find recognizable names like Habitat for Humanity. But people also see smaller organizations they don't recognize, then they browse around and they learn. People talk about choosing a charity as a challenge and a challenge they like.
Another advantage is accessibility. If you put YMCA into the Network for Good search box, it will turn up about 200 organizations. At TisBest you turn up just one.

Q: How do you find organizations to list?
A: We spent some time when we started out in 2007 building that list, doing research, basically hard work. Now we source organizations through user recommendations. We receive emails four or five times a day nominating new organizations. We go over those and pick 20 new organizations a year. We will remove 20 that aren't receiving donations.

TISBEST PHILANTHROPY

TisBest is appealing to businesses by making customized gift cards.

Q: What is the $1.95 transaction fee for?
A: It covers our overhead for operating the organization and Web site.
We are a social enterprise model. We offer a valuable and self-sustaining social service on a nonprofit basis.
The idea is we offer charity gift cards in a format that isn't profitable but that does produce enough revenue that our organization can operate and grow. We ask people on receipts to request matching donations from their companies, and that too helps cover our overhead.

Q: Why are gift cards any better than direct donations?
A: It's the difference between charitable giving and charitable gifting. In giving, I take my own money and give it to a cause I support. I love the beach, I love to surf, so Surfrider Foundation might be something I support with my money. But let's say I'm buying you a holiday gift. That might not be your first choice for a charity. There are a lot of different ideas about what the right thing is to do to create change in the world.

We give each other gifts to build relationships. It's a great way to connect human to human. It's the connection that matters, not the thing... When a person who receives the card spends it, the person who gave it learns the charity that was chosen. That's a great opportunity to build a relationship.

Q: How much have you raised for charity?
A: Over $1 million. This is our third holiday season.

Q: How can charity gift card issuers avoid the problems of retail gift cards?
A: One thing to keep in mind is that I really don't think there are many problems with gift cards in the marketplace... it's just a fringe. Gift cards came out around the year 2000. Everyone was figuring out how they worked. Now almost all states regulate gift cards, including Washington.

(Marks also cited the book Scroogenomics, which argues that holiday presents are inefficient and unsatisfying, but gift cards, especially to charity, are not).

Q: Why transfer funds quarterly -- are you holding money to earn interest?
A: That's a red herring. We had to make a decision. Every transfer has a cost. If we made transfers on weekly or monthly basis it would be unreasonably expensive. At the current interest rates of maybe about 1 percent a year. if you hold for a calendar quarter instead of a week, you're not getting a lot of extra interest, and that tiny amount is earned by a philanthropy trying to do good in the world.

Q: Why did you start TisBest?
A: I'm an attorney and I still practice part time -- that's how I pay the bills. I made a conscious decision to change. I wanted to work in something that made the world better, and to some degree I was bored. Partly it was a response to personal frustration. I was scratching my head around the holidays. I needed to give gifts and I didn't know what to get. I don't want to buy people stuff they don't want. I think the world would be better if people focused on how to make it better rather than how to get more stuff.
Today in running TisBest I get to see what people write about giving and receiving charity gift cards, and see the true joy that comes there; and then when I leave work and walk around and see stores with heaping baskets of stuff they're trying to sell, it is a disconnect. The stuff just doesn't create joy in the same way as sharing with others.

Q: How are commercial products like gift cards changing philanthropy?
A: It's the democratization of philanthropy. It's making philanthropy more fun and more accessible for more people. It captures additional dollars from consumers. If you look at how a normal consumer lives, they have a certain income and they allocate it out. One of those wallets is gifts. We're taking dollars out of the gifts wallet and turning them into charity dollars. We're not diverting any funds from charity. Charities have always focused on the big donors, but no one becomes a big donor without becoming a little one first. We are an entry point for accessing those little ones.

REI co-founder Mary Anderson seems living proof of the benefits of spending time outdoors and appreciating nature. She celebrated her 100th birthday this week.

In her honor, the non-profit REI Foundation created the Mary Anderson Legacy Grant, a $50,000 annual award to support work to engage young people in learning about nature through hands-on experiences. The foundation plans to award its first grant in mid-2010. I wrote about its efforts to bring more diversity to environmental education here.

COURTESY OF REI

Mary Anderson celebrated her 100th birthday on Monday.

Introducing students to nature was a hallmark of Anderson's life and work as a teacher in the 1930s, according to REI. She was born Mary Gaiser in Yakima Valley in 1909.

In 1938, she and her husband, Lloyd Anderson, founded REI as a co-op with 21 mountaineering friends in Seattle. Those first 23 members contributed $1 each to the co-op to build buying power.

Today REI operates as a consumer cooperative, refunding members a portion of their previous year's purchases, with 3.7 million members, 110 retail stores and close to 10,000 employees.

This story about the Andersons described Mary as stitching tents in their West Seattle home as Lloyd sprayed them with waterproofing. They used the attic as a warehouse and a room off the kitchen as an office. Makes you wonder what they thought about the advent of camp espresso makers and personal planetariums.

The Andersons, who were married for 68 years, received a national leadership award for cooperative business in 1993. Lloyd Anderson, a mountain climber and engineer, passed away in 2000 at age 98. Though she now lives in an assisted home near Seattle, Mary Anderson still visits REI once or twice a year to talk with employees. She spoke at an awards ceremony at the REI headquarters in Kent on Tuesday.

"We are forever grateful to Mary for her passion to introduce people to the wonders of nature," said Sally Jewell, REI president and CEO. "At 100 years young, Mary is an inspiration to me, REI employees and outdoor enthusiasts everywhere."

In honor of her centennial birthday, Gov. Chris Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels each proclaimed Dec. 7 as "Mary Anderson Day" across Washington state and the City of Seattle.

Boeing has a long tradition of philanthropy in the Puget Sound region. Its total giving reaches almost $50 million a year, including its Employees Community Fund (ECF) of Puget Sound, which has given out well over half a billion dollars in its 58-year history.

At a time when many companies have cut matching gift programs, Boeing still matches employee charitable donations dollar for dollar up to a maximum of $6,000 per year.

Boeing people are involved in non-profit boards and community service projects of all kinds. This year Scott Carson, recently retired as CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is chairman of the United Way of King County's 2009-10 fund-raising drive.

"I think Boeing has played a phenomenal role as a philanthropic leader in the community," said Carol Lewis, CEO of Philanthropy Northwest. "They have a wonderful legacy."

Is that about to change?

Last week Boeing altered its management to combine two units responsible for local government relations and corporate philanthropy into one position and shift authority over both to an executive in St. Louis.

What impact does it have if the local area loses a vice president in charge of corporate giving and government relations? In the short term, maybe not much. This year the level of donations from Boeing remains constant at around $48 million.

"Titles and location aside, if we are giving the same amount of money to great causes in our community then what has changed? said Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi. "Nothing has changed in that realm at all."

Companies tend to give and get involved where their employees and operations are based. In the longer term, as those workers, managers and markets shift to new areas and are diffused all over the world, it's hard to see them remaining loyal to one geography.

The vice president may have had the ear of company executives around the board room, but much of the work investing in local organizations is done by a small group of Boeing staff here who specialize in areas such as arts and culture, early learning, environment, health and human services and primary and secondary education.

Whether that staff remains (and how many) is one test of the company's commitment.

Boeing hasn't said what it expects for next year's giving. The prediction for 2010 is that it will be even more difficult than 2009 for non-profits because needs are greater while assets are down. Many grants are planned in advance (based on assets of the previous year) so the fallout from losses during the recession takes longer to play out.

To comprehend how fast the pace of change is, read this profile just two years ago of Bob Watt, the man who used to be in charge of state and local government relations and global corporate citizenship and who hired Fred Kiga. In 2007 Boeing had 72,000 employees in Washington state, it paid tuition and books for any employee to pursue higher education, and things were looking brighter.

"I stand in awe of how beautifully Seattle supports its nonprofit world," Watt said. "We are blessed and we are thriving."

Seattle's business community should consider homeless people as valuable assets, and tackle homelessness not as charity but as an investment in the future, the head of the world's largest philanthropy said today.

"Homeless people aren't just a problem to be minimized or cleared away," Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes said, addressing more than 900 members of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. "They have amazing potential."

THOMAS JAMES HURST/SEATTLE TIMES

Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes has taken part in the One Night Count of the homeless population in Seattle for several years.

The chamber's new slogan for "It's Time for Business" could apply to the problem of homelessness, too, he said.

Half of Seattle's homeless population are parents in their prime productive years, with children in their prime development years.

In fact, homeless families tracked by the University of Washington had better high school graduation rates than the Seattle School District, he said.

"Most homeless families are right on the edge of being a productive part of a healthy community and a thriving economy," he said.

Raikes called for a new approach that would take some money being spent on shelters and put it into permanent homes, a careful needs assessment for each family instead of a standard response for everyone, more affordable housing, and an emphasis on preventing people from becoming homeless, such as short-term rent subsidies.

Seattle is the second most expensive metropolitan area in the country, he said. Building more affordable housing would be good for the construction industry and add jobs.

In King County, there are about 10,000 people who are homeless, but tens of thousands more barely able to keep themselves afloat. They earn half the median income and spend half of that on housing.

Close to 50,000 people are "living on the border of economic stability and destitution," he said.

Given a safe place to sleep, combined with services to address the root cause of becoming homeless, three-quarters of the 1,500 families in a Sound Families program moved on to permanent stable housing, Raikes said.

He called for expanding that model, and asked business people to volunteer their ideas and expertise and to support local government leaders to put homelessness on the political radar.

Note: Yes, Seattle really is the second most expensive metropolitan area in the country, based on Federal Housing Finance Agency 2Q 2009 purchase prices, beating out New York and second only to San Jose/San Francisco.

Fireworks shows are out, but grants to non-profits will continue.

JPMorgan Chase will maintain its level of charitable giving in Washington state, though the mix will change, CEO Jamie Dimon said today in an interview with the Seattle Times' Drew DeSilver and other local reporters.

PAUL SAKUMA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

Chase's decision to drop sponsorship of the Independence Day fireworks show at Lake Union sparked concerns the New York-based bank, which took over Washington Mutual last September, was scaling back from WaMu's level of corporate philanthropy.

WaMu gave about $2.6 million in the state in 2008, and had sponsored the fireworks show since 2002. After Chase picked up WaMu, it said it would continue WaMu's level of corporate giving this year and agreed to pick up most of the $500,000 cost for this month's fireworks show.

JPMorgan Chase made a profit of $2.1 billion in the last quarter ended in March.

But Chase's charitable giving typically takes the form of grants to nonprofits rather than sponsorships, said Dimon and Phyllis Campbell, Chase's head of Northwest operations.

"Sponsorships really aren't in the sweet spot for us," Campbell said. Campbell joined the bank earlier this year after six years leading the Seattle Foundation, and her priorities are likely to shape what Chase funds.

Going forward, Dimon said Chase's philanthropy in Washington "will continue probably around that ($2.6 million) level" but added that "obviously there are going to be changes -- some things are going to go down, some will go up."

On a related subject, Dimon and Campbell said Chase was still sorting out what to do with WaMu's extensive collection of art and artifacts. Some likely will join Chase's collection in New York -- a collection that dates back to when the Rockefeller family ran one of the company's predecessor banks -- while other items will be donated to the Museum of History and Industry or other local institutions, Campbell said.

Low income neighborhoods and communities of color often experience more direct negative effects of a polluted world, but they are not well represented in the environmental movement.

Only 18 percent of people of color who live in King County say the environmental quality in their neighborhood is excellent, compared with 40 percent of whites, according to a survey by Elway Research.

Restoring a healthy environment in the Puget Sound area means "we must expand the environmental movement and include people from diverse backgrounds and cultures," the Seattle Foundation said in its report on priorities for 2009 and beyond.

Various efforts are underway to bridge the gap, including an urban farm providing vegetables to communities in South Seattle and a project funded by the REI Foundation and the National Audubon Society to create nature programs tailored to the needs and interests of culturally diverse communities.

AUDUBON STAFF

Kyle Patch (left) and his father Rodney Patch (center), who are Native Americans, help with habitat restoration in Seward Park as part of an Audubon program to bring more diversity into environmental programs. The program is funded by the REI Foundation.

A $110,000 grant from the REI Foundation announced this week will help Audubon build on the success of Latino-focused nature programs at three urban Audubon Centers, including Seward Park Environmental and Audubon Center in Seattle and centers in Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Many nature-oriented organizations in the country lack the cultural insights, language skills and community connections to effectively involve Latinos in conservation and experiencing nature, the groups said.

The REI Foundation's mission is to increase diversity among outdoor enthusiasts and conservation stewards, with a particular focus on young people.

Former REI CEO Dennis Madsen started YOLF the Youth Outdoors Legacy Fund, to encourage more kids to get involved with the nature, making grants around the country and focusing on urban and low-income neighborhoods.

Another local example is Marra Farm, a four-acre community farm in Seattle's South Park neighborhood. Its goals are to practicing sustainable agriculture and education and enhance local food security. Farmers grow more than 13,000 pounds of organic produce each year on Marra Farm. Local residents grow food for their families, and produce is also distributed in donations through the Providence Regina House Food Bank, Mien senior citizens, and Concord Elementary Schools. Some produce is also sold at the University District Farmer's Market through an employment program for at-risk youth run by Seattle Youth Garden Works.

Tony Scott looks like a mild-mannered technology executive. But there's leather in his closet, a motorcycle in his garage and thoughts of the open road on his mind.

On Sunday Microsoft's chief information officer will be one of nearly 300 motorcycle riders hitting the road for the first time in Puget Sound to raise money for a non-profit working to prevent child abuse.

TONY SCOTT

Tony Scott has taken an interest in at-risk kids since his college days.

"Any excuse to ride a motorcycle, I'm an easy sell," he says.

The former Disney CIO took a job helping teens back in college, when he worked for the Parks and Recreation Department in Sunnyvale, Calif.

"This was the early 70s, right after the whole drug culture started in the '60s, and there were a lot of young people who were feeling a little lost," he said. He saw the impact that programs to help kids struggling in school could make.

That experience inspired a lifelong interest and involvement in the cause of at-risk youth, Scott said.

He's a big supporter of Olive Crest, a non-profit that serves children and families throughout the Pacific Northwest, California and Nevada. It operates centers for 24-hour care for abused children, residential homes for children and teens, and educational, treatment and adoption programs.

The ride, sponsored by seven Harley Davidson dealers in Puget Sound, will be one of the organization's largest fund raising events. It includes a poker game, with the winner taking home a $20,000 bike. Others taking part are John Schaffer, president of Kirkland-based Covestic, and Tim Myers, vice president of Boeing Capital, who is president of Olive Crest's board. The participants will be riding from Marysville to Seattle, Bellevue, Renton, Fife, Lacey and finally Silverdale. More information is here.

George F. Russell, Jr., who built the Frank Russell Company over 40 years from a single part-time employee to one of the world's top investment advisory firms, is one of two local philanthropists receiving an award this year from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, part of the Smithsonian Institution.

George Russell Jr., chairman emeritus of Russell Investment Group, headquartered in Tacoma.

Now, among the diverse causes that Russell advocates are bridging the divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in the U.S. and the destruction of nuclear waste. He is chairman of the East West Institute, One Nation and The National Bureau of Asian Research. The Russell Family Foundation, which he started with his late wife, Jane, is the eighth largest foundation in the state, according to the Foundation Center. The Russells helped fund the Museum of Glass in Tacoma.

Bruce R. McCaw, co-chair of the Apex Foundation, is one of the founders of McCaw Cable Television, which became McCaw Cellular Communications and later AT&T Wireless. He co-founded Horizon Air, which was later sold to Alaska Airlines. McCaw also worked in the aircraft industry and has been a pilot for more than 40 years.

McCaw and his wife, Jolene, are co-chairs of Apex, which focuses on helping people in poverty or with disabilities. It is the seventh largest foundation in the state, according to the Foundation Center. The Talaris Institute, a non-profit based in Seattle, focuses on early childhood development.

COURTESY OF SEATTLE CENTER FOUNDATION

Bruce McCaw, at far left, stands with his family members (left to right) brother Keith McCaw, mother Marion McCaw Garrison, and brothers Craig McCaw and John McCaw.

Russell will receive the award for public service, and McCaw will receive the award for corporate citizenship during a dinner tomorrow in Seattle.

The award winners were chosen by the Wilson Center's board, made up of nine private citizens, appointed by the president, and seven currently serving federal government officials.

The private board members were nominated by George W. Bush, including Barry S. Jackson, the former assistant to the president in charge of Strategic Initiatives; former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez; and Susan Hutchison, a former KIRO-TV news anchor who now directs the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences.

The public board members are all from the Obama Administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Board meetings must be lively, to say the least.

As members of NetHope continue their annual meeting in Redmond this week, it's fascinating to look at how the landscape of technology has moved from responding to crises to creating solutions tailor-made for development itself.

These worlds are increasingly converging in places like Seattle.

On Thursday evening at MOHAI, NetHope co-founder Ed Granger-Happ of Save the Children and CIOs of Oxfam, CARE and The Nature Conservancy will talk about how information and communications technology affect the work of humanitarian agencies in "International Relief, Development and Conservation in the Cloud."

SCOTT COHEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Kentaro Toyama shows a project designed to help people who are illiterate use computers.

Also Thursday Microsoft will announce a $2.4 million software donation to The Nature Conservancy to develop a virtual world for collaboration, based on SharePoint and other technology.

The software will help The Nature Conservancy bring together scientists, conservation managers, volunteers and hundreds of local partners working in 700 offices in 30 countries, allowing them to collaborate virtually and respond to rapidly changing conditions.

The Nature Conservancy, like other non-profits, has seen its donations fall during the global recession. One of the first things to be cut from constrained NGO budgets is information technology, yet that plays an increasingly important role in the speed and efficiency of humanitarian efforts.

Other hot topics discussed in the context of philanthropy include text-message donation campaigns and mobile phone banking for microfinance projects.

Kentaro Toyama, assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, writes a cautionary note about how technology projects involving PCs and mobile phones can sit like rusting tractors in a field unless they're designed with local institutions and people, who are willing (and able) to maintain them.

The RealNetworks Foundation is taking applications through June 1 for community grants to non-profits in Seattle and three other cities where its employees are based, restarting a competitive grants program.

The foundation expects to distribute more than $1 million this year, with grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 in spring, and as much as $25,000 in the fall, said RealNetworks spokeswoman Oona Rokyta.

The spring grants will give priority to programs that promote economic and job development. The first grant is being made to Solid Ground, a Seattle multi-service agency focused on food, housing and legal, mortgage and tenant counseling. Other cities are San Francisco, New York and the D.C.-metro area.

TOM REESE/SEATTLE TIMES

RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser is president of the RealNetworks Foundation.

The fall grants will focus on freedom of expression and independent media, and climate and the environment.

According to its last tax filing, the foundation had assets of $21.7 million and paid out just $421,000 in grants in 2007. It's largest grant, for $25,000, went to the Phoenix House Foundation.

I asked Rokyta why the foundation, which was founded in 2001, chose to restart its competitive grants process now.

"The foundation has around $21 million in assets and this is a great time to reinvigorate giving to the community (nationally and internationally) when so many are pulling back on their grants programs," she said.

It's a question being asked more often of the online retail giant, a 15-year-old company that reached a recession-defying jump in profit last quarter to $177 million. Amazon's quarterly sales rose to nearly $5 billion. Annual profit was $645 million last year. The company's share price of $85 today is up 74 percent since October, with a market capitalization 30 percent higher than Boeing's.

Good news for shareholders. Maybe it's enough to reward them with robust earnings and employees with good jobs. But at a time when social service organizations are struggling, some critics are asking why isn't Amazon donating more? Any thoughts from readers on this topic are welcome.

It may be useful to take a look at some of Amazon's peers. Many retailers said they are planning to increase their giving to charity despite sales declines, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Here is Amazon.com's Giving page, which shows the retailer donating about $35 million to disaster relief programs through the years, and supporting various programs for authors and publishers.

A recent Taproot survey of business professionals attempted to measure the mood around corporate philanthropy during the recession. About 75 percent of the 4,000 business people surveyed said they would be proud of their company if it gave time and money to charity right now, and they also called on executives to give more of their own personal time and money.

In an interview last year with Portfolio, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos hinted that he is at least thinking about the question of philanthropy. Here's what he said:

Q: You've become a very wealthy man. What are you going to do with your money?

A: Good question. I don't know. My parents are running the Bezos Family Foundation, and they're focused on education. I'm still focused on Amazon, but I have some ideas. I'll keep them to myself for now.

Q: So you won't tell us?
A: No.

It comes as no surprise, but two-thirds of U.S. foundations expect to reduce the number and/or size of the grants they award this year, according to new research by the Foundation Center. The recession's hit to their finances is causing them to try to give in other ways.

The report is based on surveys of more than 1,200 U.S. foundations in January. Many said they will turn to other activities such as seeking out partnerships and collaboration, advocating on issues and providing technical assistance.

"Foundations can do so much more than simply make grants," said Bradford K. Smith, Foundation Center president. "The important thing is for them to remain true to their values and causes and to stand by their nonprofit partners."

In lieu of cash, non-profits can get a "valuable form of currency" in professional services such as pro bono work or skilled volunteering, says consulting firm Deloitte.

Deloitte is doing work free of charge with groups such as the YWCA to help struggling women with interviewing skills and resume writing. Deloitte Seattle increased its collective employee donations by 6 percent this year in spite of the business downturn.

Comcast is sponsoring an event in Seattle April 25 with media and tech experts in the state volunteering to provide one-on-one help for non-profits to learn how to use social media to get their message out.

In fact, while today might be the most challenging time for corporate philanthropy in history, the Taproot Foundation finds support for increased giving among business people throughout the country. Many of them say companies should not back off from charitable grants and community service, even if they are struggling, receiving government bailouts or laying off employees, though helping employees should come first.

Executives especially should be giving more of their personal time and money to charity right now, those responding to the Taproot survey said.

The current recession is hitting Puget Sound arts and cultural organizations hard, calling for bold steps to manage through the crisis, a study of more than two dozen local arts groups found.

Endowments and contributions are down anywhere from 5 to 50 percent. Corporate contributions have fallen 20 to 50 percent overall, and in several cases dropped completely. But foundations and individuals are continuing to give, so those contributions have declined less -- 10 to 25 percent.

ROZARII LYNCH

Malgorzata Walewska (Judith) and John Relyea (Bluebeard) in Seattle Opera's "Bluebeard's Castle."

The 24-page report, commissioned by the Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Seattle Foundation, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and 4Culture, was done by Helicon Collaborative, based on confidential interviews with representatives of 28 cultural organization leaders in January. The report cost $20,000, shared among the four sponsors.

While some organizations are actively addressing the crisis, others are responding cautiously and still others "seem to be in denial," the report said. Most are reducing programming schedules over the next 18 months and shifting to more "popular" and less experimental material.

The report identified ways donors could collaborate to help the arts sector, such as setting up a revolving loan fund and collectively investing in technology.

Funders could also help support the arts without spending any money, by cutting application paperwork or extending current grants another year; offering loan guarantees or lines of credit; and encouraging arts groups to share resources and to work with nonprofits outside the arts.

Arts groups could do a better job of communicating and collaborating on both programs and resources, according to the report. "Most are too busy managing their own institutions to think about how they might work with others" in a strategic response.

The groups surveyed include Intiman Theater, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Symphony, SIFF, On the Boards and Town Hall Association,

"This study provides valuable insight for both cultural groups and funders about how we can work together to emerge stronger, be more nimble and be better equipped to address these economic challenges moving forward," said Susan M. Coliton, vice president of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Many arts organizations are still evaluating the findings. At the Seattle Opera, corporations contribute 2 to 3 percent of the budget, and those contributions have fallen. It takes 10 to 15 individual donors to make up for just one corporate gift, said Kelly Tweedale, the non-profit's executive director.

Still attendance is holding up. And the story isn't all about money and efficiency.

"The arts are unique in giving hope and perspective to the human condition," Tweedale said. "The report wasn't hopeful and didn't talk about that unique aspect of what we do that could be leveraged."

In a dismal economy, that suggests the arts are a good investment in sustaining public spirit.

A controversy is brewing over the Obama administration's proposal to limit tax deductions for charitable gifts in the new budget to Congress.

Whether people are giving for the sake of giving or to reduce their tax burden doesn't matter -- charities will feel the impact, some contend.

Under the proposal, taxpayers earning more than $250,000 will have potential deductions for charitable contributions reduced to 28 percent from 35 percent now, according to an analysis in this New York Times story. That means a 28-cent deduction for every dollar donated.

How this affects donors here in the "Compassion Corridor" remains to be seen. If you have any thoughts, please share them.

While several studies show donors are not greatly affected by tax changes in terms of their giving, "in these times, every dollar given to a non-profit, just like a small business, is key to their survival," notes Jule Meyer, principal at Parkman Foundation Services, which helps people start and manage foundations.

One survey by Bank of America, for example, found that half of donors would continue giving the same amount to charity even if deductions were essentially eliminated. But nearly 40 percent said their giving would decline.

"If we dis-incentivize any stimulus to our economy (such as penalizing generosity among higher donors), it can't be good for the non-profit community," says Meyer. "In this community, solutions that deliver are rewarded by donors--so I don't consider it good economics to take from the fragile non-profit community via donors. Non-profits are for the most part, improving our world, not damaging it."

The change could apply to families selling businesses, since they can often save capital gains taxes by starting a private family foundation.

"This is a line item in the Stimulus Package that I would certainly reconsider," says William Pearsall, a Bellevue intermediary who connects businesses for sale with buyers.
In fact, he suggests the deduction should be 40 percent "to reduce reliance on the government to fund some small but critical social service programs."

Philanthropy Northwest CEO Carol Lewis said she had not heard yet from local charities and guessed "our members will divide up around this based on whether or not they are Obama supporters generally."

"I think they have larger questions beyond the question of charitable incentive that will dictate their response," she said. "My members are generally giving because they believe in giving."

Losses, layoffs and budget cuts make headlines, but Northwest businesses "are still giving back to their communities in meaningful, even life-changing ways," says Carol Lewis, CEO of Philanthropy Northwest. Lewis has a background in business (Coinstar) non-profits (Pacific Northwest Ballet) and government (Seattle's deputy mayor).

Carol Lewis of Philanthropy Northwest

Despite the downturn, Microsoft employees gave away a record-breaking $87.7 million to charitable organizations in 2008 through the giving campaign, company matching gift program and volunteering, exceeding the previous year by $3.6 million, she noted. Almost 60 percent of employees donate, and the company matches their gifts up to $12,000.

Corporate grants (a separate category from employee giving) total more than $100 million dollars a year in the Northwest, Lewis said. The top donors include Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Safeco Insurance Foundation, Weyerhaeuser and Regence. (Comparing figures, it's interesting to see that Microsoft employees donate more money than many large corporations.)

But even companies you might expect to back away from philanthropy are still giving, Lewis said. For example, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon pledged that the bank will continue Washington Mutual's long-standing commitment to give more than $2.5 million dollars to local nonprofits each year. (Laid off WaMu employees might be the ones needing some of those dollars. And Dimon himself was paid a salary of $41 million in 2006 and $30 million in 2007).

On April 16, Philanthropy Northwest will hold its annual Corporate Philanthropy Institute, where local companies will share their strategies for hard times.

ALAN BERNER/SEATTLE TIMES

Former Slate editor Michael Kinsley talked with Gates, Warren Buffett and critics of "Creative Capitalism" for his new book.

"We should thank them and ask them to keep up the good work," Lewis said. "We need their help now more than ever."

Later today I'll talk with Michael Kinsley about "Creative Capitalism" and whether that's different from corporate philanthropy or better than job-creating, profit-maximizing capitalism. The concept unleashed by Bill Gates has spawned books, blogs and much long-winded debate.

Are companies willing to go beyond public relations triumphs to use their business for the greater good, or has the question itself become a luxury at a time when many are focused on survival?