Donations to U.S. groups' relief efforts in Haiti have reached $78 million and climbing, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

For people thinking of contributing, here are a few resources with tips for safer and more effective giving.

Charity Navigator has put out a list of organizations working in Haiti, their history of work there, what they are providing and their charity rating. Clicking on the name of the organization provides details such as a financial report and how much the top executive is paid.

Another good resource is the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance, which lists charities working in Haiti that meet its standards, and has a special section with advice on giving by text message.

In our region Philanthropy Northwest and Global Washington are both updating their Web sites with news about local donations and local organizations working in Haiti.

The FBI warned on Thursday that scam requests for donations are likely, reminding Internet users who receive appeals for money in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti to apply a critical eye and do their homework. The FBI advised:

--Don't respond to unsolicited emails
--Be skeptical of anyone representing themselves as a survivor needing help through email or social networking
--Verify non-profits through independent Internet searching rather than following links
--Make contributions directly to known organizations
--Don't give out personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions

How did you choose which organization to support?

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.

Earlier this week I wrote about Paul Allen's involvement in a new PBS series "This Emotional Life," which wrapped up last night (but can still be watched on the Web site).

It takes a fascinating look at the latest research into human emotion, combined with real-life stories of people coping with emotional issues. Based on comments I've received and a look at some of the conversations on Facebook, the topic resonated deeply with a public searching for more meaning in life.

Some suggested it should be a weekly show. At this point there are no plans to re-broadcast the series, but it is available on iTunes and here on the PBS Web site.

Allen said he intended the TV series to be just the starting point of the project. Now a two-year outreach program begins, both online and in communities around the country.

The PBS Web site can be searched by topic or location to find resources such as Meetup groups and other organizations, and anyone can register and contribute new resources to the database.

COURTESY OF THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE

Dr. Michael Maddaus talked about his path from a troubled youth with alcoholic parents, time in jail and little education, to a successful surgeon with a happy family, thanks to a single mentor.

In an unusual effort for a film company, Vulcan Productions is spearheading the project, developing kits to address early attachment for parents, and emotional challenges for members of the military and their families. Both will combine online resources with booklets to be distributed through partner organizations such as Blue Star Families and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

"Early Moments Matter" is aimed at high birthrate hospitals, offices and clinics, targeting expecting and new parents, while "The Family Guide to Military Deployment" will go to government organizations and branches of the armed forces.

Two local researchers were involved in the series, Dr. John Gottman, a psychologist who specializes in conflict resolution and is founder of the Gottman Institute in Seattle, and Dr. Andrew Meltzoff, a psychology professor at the University of Washington who specializes in infant development and connection to parents.

Meltzoff and his team at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences won a $4 million grant from the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. Later this year they plan to set up the first machine that can measure emotional development in babies using a new technology called magnetoecephalography (MEG).

Washington state Rep. Ruth Kagi, who chairs the House Early Learning & Children's Services Committee, said she is studying implications of the science on policy.

If, as Meltzoff's research shows, humans develop the emotional circuitry for their entire lifetimes in the first three years, making the most of that time would seem a critical task not only for parents but for all of society.

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.

Charity gift cards are springing up as a new way to give a gift and let the recipient pass it on to the non-profit of his or her choice.

The cards have been growing in popularity as people combine holiday shopping and philanthropy on tight budgets. But the non-profit Consumer Reports warned last month that charity cards are saddled with some of the same issues as gift cards in general -- including added fees and expiration dates.

TONY AVELAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Spending on regular gift cards is expected to drop this year, according to the National Retail Federation. But charity gift cards are becoming a popular tool for some non-profits.

The card issuer generally charges about $5 to purchase the card and may charge another 3 percent when the recipient redeems the card to make a donation, according to the report. The tax deduction goes to the purchaser, not the recipient. And card issuers sometimes take up to four months to forward the donation.

Three of the top charity gift card producers took issue with the report and complained that "Consumer Reports is driving money away from charities at a time they need it most." The cards serve a useful purpose by redirecting "money that was being spent on unneeded and unwanted stuff" to charity.

Seattle's Paul Shoemaker, founder of Social Venture Partners, also weighed in with support for the charity cards.

"In our experience, charity gift cards introduce many potential donors to charitable organizations that they otherwise would not connect with," he said. "That is a good thing at a time when so many non-profit organizations are struggling to survive."

CharityChoice, JustGive and TisBest, which are all non-profits themselves, say they have repeat users who have been happy with the experience and terms. They point out that donors would pay the same 3 percent processing fee for any online donation.

Seattle-based TisBest was created to provide "non-material options available in a world of many, many material choices," said Executive Director Jon Siegel.

The American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog, recommended people give to charities directly. "Why hand over a chunk of your contribution to a third party web site when you can give directly through a charity's own site?" it asks.

The institute also frowns on the practice of earning interest on donations by delaying their transmission to the charity. "If the site allows you to give to hundreds of thousands of charities, your $25 donation may sit in its bank account for awhile," it said.

Consumer Reports advised people to consider giving directly to the charitable group in someone's name and cut out the middleman.

But obviously that takes away the option of letting the recipient choose where to give, which may be worth a few extra dollars. Either way, the blending of commercial tools and charitable goals seems like an unstoppable trend, and one that will benefit from good watchdogs. If done right, it has the potential to get many more people involved in giving than traditional philanthropy.

Before giving any card, it's a good idea to check out its terms and conditions, which are usually listed on its Web site under FAQs.

Retail gift card sales are expected to decline this year as people hunt for bargains and try to steer clear of expiration dates, added fees, lost cards or stores that may go out of business, according to a recent survey. Still gift cards will account for almost $25 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That's a significant market for charities to try to tap.

Despite the lingering economic woes that most Americans are still feeling, only one in five plans to reduce donations to charity this holiday season, the American Red Cross found in a new survey. More Americans will cut back on travel, decorations, parties and gifts.

ELAINE THOMPSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Volunteers Ken Newman, right, and Caren Shepsky heft a 50-pound bag of rice at the Cherry Street Food Bank, run by Northwest Harvest. As hunger has worsened, Northwest Harvest's pantry is seeing more than 2,500 visitors on busy days this year, up from a peak of 1,800 visitors last year.

The results tell a somewhat different story than a recent Harris Interactive survey that showed charities will probably see a decrease in generosity this season. Some large charities are preparing for lower holiday giving.

Regardless of how they interpret the data, charities are downsizing their appeals and targeting smaller donations. They're also making the most of free social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and asking supporters to help them spread the word.

The United Way of King County recently launched its Give 10/Tell 10 campaign, which asks for $10 contributions to help struggling families hit by the recession avoid falling into homelessness. After making a gift on the site, donors have the option to pass on a message emailed to 10 friends, encouraging them give, too. The charity is also using Twitter and Facebook to network, post links and share facts, such as "$25 = a week of food for a homeless person in Washington."

"We really wanted to do something different to get the word out to people that the needs are so great right now and provide a low barrier way for them to get involved," said United Way spokesman Jared Erlandson. "The thought was what if we could get people to tweet not just about what they are doing tonight, but about how they just helped someone stay in their home for the holidays then we could really have an effective vehicle to get our message out."

Mercy Corps is getting creative around Thanksgiving with a new online tool that allows families and groups of friends to make donations together. The global charity is calling on people to match the amount they spend on their own Thanksgiving Day meal with a donation that fights global hunger. The average American family spent $45 on Thanksgiving dinner in 2008, Mercy Corps said.

Other interesting new twists include gift cards with a $5 donation to charity built in. The recipient can choose where to direct the $5 gift from among more than 5,000 charities.

Getting donor fatigue? Another option is to vote for your favorite charity and have a large bank pick up the tab. Chase is donating $5 million -- $25,000 each to the top 100 charities on Dec. 15, one $1 million and five $100,000 grants to others in February, and another $1 million chosen by an advisory board of active philanthropists.

Social entrepreneurship has caught on in Seattle in a big way. It takes two of the region's strengths -- its entrepreneurial streak and its humanitarian drive -- and forges interesting new hybrids. Think FareStart, VillageReach and many other examples.

KRIS HERBST

Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka and pioneer of social entrepreneurship.

Now the man who helped pioneer that concept and expand its practice is visiting Seattle this week, judging the Microsoft non-profit awards and speaking at an event tonight.

Bill Drayton founded Ashoka, a global network that encourages and funds people to change society for the better. Started almost 30 years ago, Ashoka now has a network of 2,000 fellows in more than 60 countries. Some notable fellows include Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Whales.

Similar to the way a business entrepreneur might create new products or services, social entrepreneurs create new solutions to social problems.

Ashoka has expanded its Youth Venture program to Seattle, and 40 new ventures have been started by students from around Seattle, including Jessica Markowitz.

One new local partnership between Youth Venture and the Jolkona Foundation is aimed at getting young philanthropists interested in supporting the work of other young people.

Jolkona will feature some of Youth Venture's projects in Seattle on its Web site, including a teen publication in Issaquah to encourage journalism skills and newspaper reading habits among youth, and American Youth for Equal Educational Opportunities, a project to provide education supplies to students in the Bellevue School District who are in need of financial aid.

Social entrepreneurs help bridge the gap between philanthropy and business. On that topic, an interesting debate is going on with Intrepid Philanthropist blogger Phil Buchanan.

After the pounding that non-profits have received from some critics in the business world, it's good to see someone pushing back.

Update: And the winners are: Patrick Awuah of Ashesi University; Trish Millines-Dziko of Technology Access Foundation and John Wood of Room to Read.

Microsoft alumni have been a generous bunch. They've started at least 150 non-profits and given millions, if not billions, to causes from global health to education to equal rights.

Now the Microsoft Alumni Foundation is kicking off a new awards program to honor former employees working to improve the world through their philanthropy and socially motivated business.

On Wednesday evening, Bill and Melinda Gates will present the top three award winners as Integral Fellows, who will receive $25,000 each for the nonprofit of their choice. The finalists were chosen by a panel of judges -- former President Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates Sr., Bill Drayton, Pierre Omidyar, and Tom Tierney.

Of the 66 nominees, here are the six finalists:

Patrick Awuah of Ashesi University, an educational institution in Ghana whose mission is to educate African leaders of exceptional integrity and professional ability.

Peter Bladin of Grameen Foundation, which helps the world's poorest, especially women, improve their lives and escape poverty through access to microfinance and technology.

Linda English of Learning for International NGOs (LINGOs), a consortium of over 40 international humanitarian relief, development, conservation and health organizations providing the latest learning technologies and courses from partners to increase the skill levels of the international nonprofit employees and the impact of their programs.

Tom Ikeda of Densho, The Japanese American Legacy Project, which helps students explore issues of democracy, intolerance, wartime hysteria, and the responsibilities of citizenship through the examination of the unjust World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Trish Millines Dziko of Technology Access Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Seattle that is dedicated to preparing students of color for academic and professional success in today's technology-driven world.

John Wood of Room to Read, which partners with local communities in the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls.

Norm Rice has only been on the job at the Seattle Foundation since July, but he aims to broaden the foundation's base from hundreds of wealthy donors to more than a million people in King County.

"Everybody can give, whether it's $5 or $5 million," he said.

BARBARA KINNEY

Norman Rice, former Seattle mayor and current CEO of the Seattle Foundation.

The Seattle Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the country and the fifth largest foundation in Washington state, according to the Foundation Center, with assets of about $570 million.

With a staff of 26, the foundation has 1,200 funds under its umbrella, ranging in size from $30,000 to many millions of dollars. They include bequests from people who have made gifts to charity in their wills, and active "donor-advised funds," which help philanthropists invest their assets and make grants to charitable causes without the time and expense of running their own foundations. The foundation charges fees averaging 1 percent of the fund's balance.

Rice said he wants to get more people involved, with or without a fund. It's part of a sea change in philanthropy, a shift from passive donations to a new model shaped by a younger generation eager to see results and be personally engaged.

To broaden its appeal, the Seattle Foundation is revamping its Web site to offer detailed profiles and reviews of the non-profits and programs it funds, and allow online donations for the first time. The new Web site, expected to be launched early next year, will also have an Amazon.com-style recommendations feature to help people find programs related to their interests.

His goal is to reach as many as 1.5 million people over the next several years, getting them involved in some way with the foundation's programs. He'd also like to increase the number of donor-advised funds the foundation manages from the current 750.

Even without a lot of money to give, he thinks people can help support its long-term strategy to improve the community by working in seven areas: basic needs, the environment, the economy, education, arts and culture, neighborhoods and communities, and health and wellness.

Rice said he wants to focus particular attention on workforce development and early childhood learning.

Speaking to the Seattle Philanthropic Advisors Network (SPAN), the former Seattle mayor said he thinks "foundations are in an enviable place to be change agents" and show governments new ways to solve problems.

The foundation's assets, down 27 percent last year, have bounced back somewhat this year, growing 17 percent from January through the third quarter. While it has had to make significant cuts in its operating budget, Rice said he doesn't expect the foundation to reduce its grant making.

After taking a financial blow in the past year, non-profits have been forced to work with fewer resources. More than ever, it makes sense for them to consolidate, Rice said.

He suggested a "non profit mergers and acquisitions fund," where "those who come together get the dollars. I just believe some things we're funding are doing too many things that are alike."

"Every organization needs to look at themselves to see what they do best," he said. If someone else is doing it better, they should partner or concentrate on something else.

Calling themselves "impatient optimists," Bill and Melinda Gates plan to talk directly to lawmakers and others in Washington D.C. tonight to push for continuing U.S. funding for global health.

CHUCK BURTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Gates will tout the success of foreign aid, including contributiosn to the GAVI Alliance, a global initiative to immunize children in poor countries, which has prevented an estimated 3.4 million deaths over the last decade.

"In our visits to developing countries, Bill and I have met countless people who are alive, healthy, and productive as a result of U.S. global health programs," Melinda Gates said today. "We want Americans to know how much their generosity is accomplishing, and how much it's appreciated."

U.S. spending on global health has increased steadily, but it still makes up less than one percent of the federal budget. It was close to $8 billion this year, up from $1.5 billion in 2001.

The U.S. has started some ambitious development projects, even though the country's top post on foreign aid remains unfilled, and many pressing issues are vying for resources and attention.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has become an increasingly important and active player in global health and development. Its annual budget is more than $3.5 billion, and about half of that goes toward global health. The United Nation's annual budget is just under $4.2 billion.

The couple started a project called Living Proof to promote the success such funding has achieved in developing countries. Positive stories about foreign aid aren't getting told, they say.

The Gates Foundation has spent about $12 billion on global health since 1994.

Their aim is to cut the number of child deaths in half worldwide by 2025. Preventable deaths of children under five have declined worldwide to about 9 million in 2007 from 12.6 million in 1990, despite population growth, according to this report.

The presentation will be webcast live at www.livingproofproject.org at 4 p.m. Pacific.

My story today tells about Jessica Markowitz, who at age 11 began a charity to help girls in Rwanda after she learned about a genocide that wiped out many of their parents.

She sends 22 girls to a rural school and is working on building a library there, using prize money she won for her efforts.

Two things seem to have been lost on some readers -- first that she is working with a local organization in Rwanda (FAWE), supporting them to take on the issue in their own country. That kind of grassroots social change can be much more profound than sending money from overseas.

LORI MARKOWITZ

Jessica spent time teaching English this summer to girls at a rural school she and her classmates are supporting in Rwanda.

And secondly that seeing the way kids live in places like Rwanda actually provides an invaluable of education for an American student. Kids in the U.S may have the kind of material wealth that is unimaginable to people in developing countries. Yet there is also an emptiness that leaves teenagers here sullen and depressed.

To experience what life is like in a poor country different from her own not only opens the eyes of girls like Jessica, it gives them a lifelong understanding of what philanthropy can do, which is worth much more than a $1,500 plane ticket. It creates a citizen who understands and appreciates her country all the more and its potential in the world. Seeing the fruits of her labor taking shape in the form of happier, smarter students trains a future social entrepreneur.

As Jessica said, the project has benefited her and her classmates as much as it has the girls overseas.

"A really nice thing happens when we tell people what we're doing," she said. "They say 'I never knew we could do something like that.' They jump in."

As for Rwanda itself, the country has made incredible strides in recent years, but with a war on its border and the global economic downturn reducing investment, its progress is fragile.

Food quantity or food quality? Can the world quell starvation now and still have a healthy ecosystem over the long term?

Tough questions for anyone concerned about agriculture and its relation to hunger and poverty.

In a keynote speech at the World Food Prize symposium today, Bill Gates said he supports sustainable agriculture, welcome words to experts in the field, who say there is no short term fix.

Much as he changed the landscape on health, the world's richest philanthropist is trying to spark a new revolution in agriculture. The first Green Revolution improved crop yields, but at the expense of the environment. This time, there may be a chance to get it right.

"Sustainability takes more time, more learning, more people," said John Reganold, Regents Professor of Soil Science at Washington State University. "In the long run it pays huge dividends."

"I really like the fact that here we have this huge philanthropic foundation and they're really trying to help Africa and South Asia," he said. "I don't mind hearing we want to feed people, we want to raise yields, improve their income, get roads and markets in there."

But Reganold said he would like to hear more about how sustainability will be measured and valued. "We tend to go in and say wow, we improved yields," he said. "That's great because these people need to eat. At the same time I'd like to hear wow, we improved the soil so that down the road they're going to be better off."

"They say the right thing, but I'm not sure they're doing the right thing yet," said Hans Herren, a Swiss scientist who won the World Food Prize in 1995. Both Herren and Reganold are attending this year's conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

Gates said in his speech that in their zeal for an ideal environment, some people "have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it."

Research into plant genetics is worthwhile, Herren said, but critics of its current usefulness in Africa shouldn't be vilified.

"What I think is wrong is to blame the people who question the utility now as the bad guys responsible for hunger," he said. "Look at the people who have quadrupled yield in perfectly good agriculturally sound systems. Why is this not taken as the example, not to multiply everywhere but as the basis to adapt to different systems?"

Herren took issue with the notion that ecological agriculture is a luxury for rich countries.

"The idea that is deeply ingrained is that the poor can't afford it. That's really a big problem and it's not true. To do it the right way is cheaper because you don't get in debt in the future," he said, by buying more expensive seeds and fertilizers.

More global investment is needed in sustainable agriculture, as well as policies to correct fundamental imbalances in trade and access to resources, he said.

Westerners want to help women in developing countries, but their good intentions don't always produce effective solutions. The problem is more complicated, as members of the Seattle philanthropy group Pangea are learning.

Working on issues of poverty and disease since 2003, Pangea's volunteers eventually came to the conclusion that gender equity had to be part of the equation.

"As we traveled and worked with communities we became more and more aware of the challenge facing women in developing countries," said board member Chris Doerr. "Women are also leading the most successful interventions."

PANGEA

Chris Doerr (right), a volunteer with Pangea, and Judith Orawo, head of the Omeko Women's Group in western Kenya. Omeko's tiny community businesses provide jobs for widows and orphans of the AIDS crisis. Pangea funded a simple chicken coop and the start of an egg production business, and the next year helped triple the size of the poultry project, which is now profitable.

The question is how to help them. Pangea has funded a range of women's groups, from economic projects for widows in Kenya and Tanzania to a group training women in traditional healing arts in Mexico to a group providing legal aid to women refugees along the Thai/Burma border.

"They need to find their own pathway to change," says Pangea President Allan Paulson. "Our idea of change and the values we bring to that may be very different. That's part of what we want to learn about and figure out how we can support them rather than come in with a bunch of ideas from outside."

Pangea is an all volunteer philanthropy group for people in the Pacific Northwest who want to travel, take collective action to fund programs, and share what they learn to help educate the local community. Members contribute $1,000 to $10,000 annually, which is pooled to give out in grants. It has 50 members now and aims to grow slowly, adding about 10 new members a year. Pangea makes grants to small community development groups in rural areas in East Arica, Central America and Southeast Asia, providing over $350,000 to NGOs so far.

Working at the grassroots level in rural communities, the most basic things can make a difference in people's lives, Doerr said: washing hands, being able to sell excess produce or cereals; a house with a water-tight roof.

"These communities are unfailingly hospitable and grateful to know that people in other parts of the world care about what happens to them," she said.

Pangea is hosting a program tonight: "Supporting Women as Change Agents" with Shalini Nataraj, vice president of the Global Fund for Women, which kicks off the theme for the year. The group added gender equity to its funding criteria, meaning its grantees must include women in leadership and decision-making roles.

It plans to follow up this fall with a reading program for members, book discussion dinners and film screenings. Next year it will talk about advocacy for women and sponsor a program on grant making through a gender lens.

Understanding how to do it right takes time, members said.

"There's this general belief if you give women a $50 loan to start a cell phone business that will solve all their problems," said Doerr, a Microsoft alum. "The problems are far more profound than that. Women solving their own problems is what we're trying to learn about."

Pangea funded a project in Kenya for women to grow sunflowers and turn them into sunflower oil to generate income, using Pangea's grant to buy an oil press. It didn't work out so well. For one thing they couldn't make enough money from the sunflowers to replace food they would otherwise grow on the land, Doerr said. And their husbands didn't understand the project. The second year, most of the women didn't participate because their husbands wouldn't let them.

Doerr found the problems and cultural disconnects eye opening.

In Tanzania, she talked with one of the leaders of an organization that offers education for AIDS orphans, asking her about the continuing spread of HIV even when condoms are available.

"My naive question was why don't women just insist on condom use? She looked at me like you just don't understand. She said we could say that but then we'll just get beat up worse than we are, and it's not going to change things.

"It's very hard for liberated Western women to understand the conditions women live in in other countries," Doerr said. "Of course they hate being beaten up, but they probably wouldn't like our life either."

Pangea usually supports its grantees for one to three years. It starts by collectively deciding what issue it intends to tackle, and then volunteers in three groups -- focusing on Asia, Africa and Latin America -- evaluate proposals from non-profits seeking grants. Pangea is currently reviewing proposals and will make funding decisions at its annual meeting next month.

"It will be interesting to see how this new focus guides the way people think about the proposals," said Paulson. "It's a work in progress."

Update: Almost seven months after Obama announced a stepped-up civilian effort to bolster troops in Afghanistan, many civil institutions are deteriorating as much as the country's security, the New York Times reports today. System of delivering aid is "broken."

President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize?

Yes, we can celebrate it, but "we must continue to hold the President accountable so that he can, in fact, deliver on the promise of peace," says Kavita Ramdas, CEO of the Global Fund for Women.

But holding him accountable may also mean changing our ideas of what peace and security actually mean.

In Afghanistan, possibly the least peaceful or secure place on earth, it's time for Obama to shift the balance of U.S. troops from soldiers to armies of doctors, midwives, engineers and arborists, Ramdas said, addressing the University of Washington School of Global Health earlier this week.

"Stop feeding the beast," she said. "We have too many guns and way too little butter."

Fortifying militaries might make the public feel safer, but it is eroding the actual security and well being of the world's women, she said.

Ramdas made an argument I am hearing more frequently these days: that the world's security is connected to the welfare of women, especially in developing countries.

Their physical safety diminishes in militarized settings like Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gaza and even within the U.S., she said.

"When militarism combines with the ideology of patriarchy, which accords women intrinsically lower value than men, it results in what most of the world faces today -- stunningly high levels of violence against women in every part of the globe," she said. "The scale of this violence is truly at the level of an epidemic."

Ramdas grew up in a privileged family in New Delhi -- her father is the former head of the Indian navy, turned peace activist. She runs the largest non-profit organization in the world dedicated exclusively to international women's rights. Ramdas is also one of the more outspoken members of the Gates Foundation's program advisory panels.

Almost everywhere, a large presence of troops correlates with high incidences of rape, prostitution, domestic violence and other problems, she said. "Survival sex" is common -- organizations working in such situations report that girls are often resorting to sex for food.

Conversely, where women's health and education is improved, and more females enter the workforce, countries achieve rapid reductions in poverty.

In Afghanistan, an infusion of new troops was supposed to secure control and help pave the way for more "soft power" efforts. But some influential aid groups, including World Vision, have argued that the U.S. should pay more attention to economic development, and separate that work from its military operations.

Ramdas poses a more fundamental question: "If the strategies that we used up to this point have not succeeded in ensuring the safety and well being of women and girls, what makes us think that increased militarization with 30,000 additional US troops is somehow going to improve the situation and security of women in Afghanistan?"

Asked what would she advise Obama in Afghanistan, Ramdas said he should set a time frame of less than five years to invert the balance of U.S. investments toward more development assistance and fewer military troops.

Even in the U.S., "the Third World is alive and well," she said. Close to 15 percent of the population is living below the poverty line, and 70 percent of them are women.

In 2007, 250,000 women and girls in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted. "How is it possible we don't see that as a public health crisis?" she asked.

"We must change the way we define health. It must be truly human security that we all fight for."

Seattle is building a reputation for using business to serve humanity. That kind of work used to be called "giving back." But for many young entrepreneurs, it's essential to their careers from the beginning.

Last year Nandie Oosthuizen, 19, founded Hand & Heart, a non-profit that funds an orphanage for kids affected by AIDS in her native South Africa. Before that she started a campaign at Bishop Blanchet High School to raise money and awareness about the crisis in Darfur. Now studying business and sociology at the University of Washington, she calls herself a change maker, social entrepreneur and youth philanthropist.

Oosthuizen is one of dozens of young entrepreneurs supported by Youth Venture, an organization that encourages people as young as 12 to use their creativity and passion to take on important social issues.

Since its start in Seattle in late 2007, Youth Venture Seattle has helped more than 30 student teams get up and running, some for more than a year now. They have each created projects around solving some kind of problem, from lack of clean water to sex trafficking to a community center focused on science and technology. Started by Ashoka, the global network for social entrepreneurs, Youth Venture helps the teams form a business plan, raise seed funds and launch their own enterprise.

COURTESY OF YOUTH VENTURE

Members of a group called American Youth for Equal Educational Opportunities in Bellevue collect school supplies for needy students with the help of Youth Venture.

Both Hand & Heart and Youth Venture will be represented tomorrow evening, along with the Vittana and Jolkona foundations, at a forum on social entrepreneurship sponsored by the World Affairs Council's Young Professionals International Network (YPIN). The forum starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Microsoft Auditorium in the Seattle Central Library.

Participants, including Jolkona co-founders Adnan Mahmud and Nadia Eleza Khawaja and Vittana co-founder and CEO Kushal Chakrabarti, will share stories about what inspired them, the challenges they have faced and advice for others interested in starting a social enterprise.

Says Jack Knellinger, director of Youth Venture in Seattle:
"Having a room full of young people share their experiences and what they see in the world in terms of what they want to accomplish... opens up the minds of all of our youth."

When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it would pay its next CEO more than its first, it wasn't kidding. While Patricia Stonesifer received a salary of just $1 during her decade-long tenure, the current foundation Chief Executive Jeffrey Raikes receives the largest compensation of any CEO among 49 private foundations surveyed by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Raikes did not earn as much as the chief investment officers at foundations smaller than the Gates Foundation.

Stonesifer and Raikes were both early Microsoft employees who earned their fortunes building the software company. Stonesifer refused to take a salary at the philanthropy. When Raikes was hired, the Gates Foundation said it did not want to maintain a precedent of not paying its chief executive.

Raikes, who joined the Gates Foundation a year ago, earned $315,403 from September through December 2008, making his annualized salary $990,000, according to the Chronicle.

A Gates Foundation spokesperson confirmed the compensation figures and said the philanthropy's co-chairs, Bill and Melinda Gates, set the CEO salary "after considering industry standards and what they believe is fair for leading a philanthropic organization of this size and scale."

Other foundation executives earning top salaries include Joan E. Spero, former president of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with compensation of $768,525.

In several cases the chief investment officer earned more than the CEO, such as the $1.6 million compensation of Laurance R. Hoagland Jr. at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; $1.4 million paid to John Moehling at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, or the $1.2 million paid to Susan Manske at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Chronicle reported.

At the Gates Foundation, Tadataka Yamada, president of the global health program, earned $848,390.

The Ford Foundation, which is one-third the size of the Gates Foundation in assets, paid its president, Luis A. Ubinas, $718,084, and vice president, Linda Strumpf, $1,113,590.

Among heads of other non-profits, the highest paid executives include:

James Mongan, chief executive of Partners HealthCare System in Boston, with compensation of $2.7 million in 2008, a 99 percent increase over his 2007 pay.

Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, with compensation of $2.1 million in 2008, more than twice his 2007 pay, plus a housing allowance worth $336,000.

The report also shows that the gap in pay between leaders at large non-profits and small charities has grown. Consistently bigger raises over the past several years mean CEOs at larger non-profits now earn almost 10 times as much as those at small ones, according to GuideStar, a research organization that tracks nonprofits.

A gender pay gap persisted among charities, where women held 47 percent of the CEO positions, but received only 35 percent of the total compensation.

Locally, two executives of Seattle non-profits made the Chronicle list for having part of their compensation in the form of a bonus or cash incentive. The Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) paid President and CEO Christopher Elias $505,129 in total compensation in 2008, including a bonus of $99,561.

At the Casey Family Programs, CEO William C. Bell was paid $567,307, including a bonus of $109,675.

Among the local charities working internationally, World Vision President Richard Stearns received $336,472, and World Vision Senior Vice President Atul Tandon was paid $213,061.

United Way King County CEO Jonathan Fine was paid $242,122, the 19th highest of the 40 United Way leaders around the country. King County is the third largest United Way by income size.

Jeff Raikes has kept a pretty low profile in his first year as chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The man who built Microsoft Office now runs the largest private foundation in the world, which gives out more than $3 billion a year from an endowment of $30 billion.

Raikes recently talked about the fallout of the economic crisis on the foundation, the importance of risk taking and failure in philanthropy, and his experience working with Melinda Gates, which he said has been the most fun. He spoke at a breakfast last week sponsored by the Puget Sound Business Journal. (I couldn't get in, but thanks to the Seattle Channel I was able to watch it here).

DEAN RUTZ/SEATTLE TIMES

Jeff Raikes grew up a "farm kid" in Nebraska and later gave up a job at Apple to join Microsoft in 1981. "Steve Jobs yelled at me, telling me that Microsoft was going to go out of business," Raikes said.

Not a lot of what he said was new, but he did reveal some insights from his first year, including how serious the stock market plunge hit the Gates Foundation.

"The biggest impact by far is on our partners and the people that our partners and we strive to serve," he said. "It's one of those things if you think about it you get a little depressed."

On Jan. 1, 2008, the Gates Foundation's endowment was $39 billion. In just one year it had dropped to $30 billion.

"That's nine billion," Raikes said. "Part of that is the payout, part of that is the drop in the market. Let's say you have another 10 percent drop in the market. We're paying out $3.5 billion in direct charitable activity. Jan 1, 2010, we're now at $23 billion."

"At one point in time I thought that was the scenario I was looking at," he said. "The good news is the market has come back. The situation isn't quite as dire as it was a few months ago."

"At the end of the day we're very fortunate that Melinda and Bill took a deep breath and decided we're going to keep investing." The foundation's direct charitable giving is up about 10 percent this year, and its endowment stood at $30.2 billion at the end of June.

But the crisis has forced a renewed focus on top priorities, Raikes said, namely the biggest killers of children in the developing world -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea.

"We have to figure out how we can keep the momentum going in the short term while recognizing we have to conserve financial resources for the long term," he said.

One of the most important things he's learned in the first year is how the role of philanthropy differs from business and government.

"The private sector certainly is important but appropriately driven by the profit motive... government has the responsibility to provide services to raise the overall standard of life... You really don't like the government doing risky things with your tax dollars."

The Gates Foundation will take on some risky ventures and challenging ideas that government couldn't take on alone, he said.

"There are going to be times because we're taking risks we will fail... that's part of our role," though the goal is to succeed, Raikes said. "It's not that different frankly from how we operated at Microsoft."

Billionaire Warren Buffett, who is giving the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation, told Raikes the foundation shouldn't be succeeding all the time. Raikes understood the message, but said it's another thing to try to pass it down.

"Warren would say swing for the fence," Raikes said, using a baseball metaphor. "But I've got the 700 or 800 employees at the Gates Foundation saying oh, alright, it's OK for me to fail."

Raikes has known and worked closely with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates for 28 years. Raikes joined Microsoft when the company had about 100 employees and met his wife, Tricia, there.

He said working with Melinda Gates has been a highlight of the year.

"I knew Melinda at Microsoft, but in particular for me the most new fun in this year has been working with Melinda," he said. "For me she's a tremendous collaborator, a great coach, a great mentor." She has a deeper understanding of how the foundation works than her husband, who was busy at Microsoft until last year, he added.

Raikes said former Microsoft President Jon Shirley and baseball manager Lou Piniella are among his own mentors. He said he looked up to Shirley because he could not only guide others but "personally step in, roll up [his] sleeves and make it happen."

On Sept. 25 Raikes will address the annual meeting of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, focusing on the impact of the economic downturn on efforts to address family homelessness. Details are here.

Rohan Paramesh, 16, combined his interest in mountaineering with his desire to help charitable causes during his summer break from school.

He just finished climbing Mount Rainier and used the trip to raise about $15,000 from friends and family members supporting his twin goals.

At a time when funds are tight but needs are great, creative approaches to fundraising and charitable giving are flourishing. Local groups are holding new kinds of events to raise money while sharing knowledge about what they do. Individuals are reaching out to personal networks, and businesses are identifying worthy customers to help during the recession.

COURTESY OF ROHAN PARAMESH

Lakeside School senior Rohan Paramesh climbed Mount Rainier to raise money for Seattle Children's Hospital and for a children's education project in India.

Following a passion for mountain climbing, Paramesh planned to try to summit Rainier this year. When he found out he had secured a spot in early August, he realized the training would make it hard to spend a lot of time volunteering for non-profits.

So he decided to turn his trip into a fund raiser for schools in India, where he spent time volunteering the summer before, and for Seattle Children's Hospital, which had helped his brother with bouts of severe allergies.

"I know it's more than if I went around to peoples' houses and asked for donations or sold key chains," he said.

"It was a unique thing to do -- an adventure I would tell people about. Climbing a mountain itself represents surmounting some huge obstacle. That is also representative of what I'm trying to help others do."

His conclusion? "One lesson was clear to me -- even a small, sustained effort can matter."
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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center started the Innovators Network just over a year ago to recruit donors under the age of 45.

Tonight it's holding an event to review its progress, where prospective donors can meet and talk with leading researchers.

"This generation does things a little bit differently," said Christi Ball Loso, the center's media relations manager. "They're more hands-on. They want to be able to interact with the researchers, and they ask really good questions. They're interested in the science."

Earlier this year the non-profit eliminated 83 jobs, or about 3 percent of its workforce, as part of budget cuts in response to a drop in charitable donations. It's looking to establish a larger pool of younger donors now to fund cutting-edge research and get started early on philanthropy aimed at fighting cancer.

The program helps young donors increase their knowledge of scientific innovation and share the information about research with their own social and professional networks. Individuals make annual gifts of $1,000 or more to support some of the Hutch's most cutting-edge, high-risk, high-reward research projects, Loso said.

UPDATE: The group raised a $306,000 in its first year and 131 charter members were recruited, surpassing the original goal of 100 first-year members in the Innovators Network.

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Project Treehouse, a Seattle nonprofit that supports foster children with clothing donations, education fees and summer camps, used the demand for back-to-school clothes in a year of tight budgets to stage a unique fashion show on Wednesday.

Project Treehouse, wanted to highlight the needs of foster children while adding some clothes to their wardrobes.

People attending the event brought clothing and toured The Wearhouse, a supply store that provides free items such as clothing, shoes, school supplies, books, toys and bikes to 2,800 foster kids every year. Volunteers and foster families accompanied them to talk about their experiences.

The fashion show featured 14 foster kids modeling donated clothes as Seattle Seahawks' SeaGals cheered them down the runway. Guest received shopping bags to take home and fill up with needed items. Five local clothing boutiques listed on the Web site are still taking drop-off donations.

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Mywedding.com founder Rob Johnsen thought of a way to help couples during the difficult economy by holding a "wedding wish contest" monthly through the end of the year.

The contest's first recipients were a Bellingham couple, Megan Larama and Robert Ziesing, who were struggling to afford their wedding when unexpected costs arose from the adoption of a foster child. Larama said she was impressed by Ziesing's bighearted nature. The 30-year-old teacher had a house full of children and was on his way to adopting a third child.

The bride-to-be wrote a letter to the Seattle-based company explaining the situation. Johnsen worked with local vendors, who chipped in $2,500 worth of services, including a wedding cake, tux, transportation and a stay in a downtown Seattle hotel.

Technology holds the key to solving problems of health, education and poverty, Bill Gates made a point of saying in his recent visit to India.

The wholehearted embrace of technology comes as no surprise from the chairman of the world's largest software company. But in the context of philanthropy, perhaps he should have added the words "when appropriate."

MANISH SWARUP/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Indian President Pratibha Patil, left, hands the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development to Bill Gates as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, second left, applauds.

Gates touted the benefits of computers to help rural people access video lectures in villages without schools, and mobile devices to help doctors examine patients remotely. Slum dwellers in Bangalore can use mobile phones with SMS messaging and GPS to find jobs as day laborers through a Gates Foundation-supported program called LabourNet. Technology can reduce government corruption if citizens can use mobile phones and public computer terminals to give feedback on public services, he said.

"I am a 24-hour technology person," Gates said.

He visited India to assess the foundation's programs and receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development on behalf of the foundation. His appearances seemed to be a mix of the foundation's work and Microsoft's mission. Gates said Microsoft would like to partner with the Indian government in a project to provide each of India's 1.17 billion citizens with a unique identity number and biometric card.

The visit came after recent suggestions that the Gates Foundation's Avahan program has not lived up to its goals of curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS. The $258 million initiative has been led by highly paid business consultants rather than people with public health experience. After the Indian government balked at taking on what has become one of India's largest health programs, the Gates Foundation increased its funding by $80 million.

In health and development, high-tech solutions don't always work. They can even make things worse if applied in the wrong way, by diverting resources from more fundamental programs or missing the root cause of a problem, for example.

Sometimes the most appropriate technology is none at all. Ironically this point was made best by one of the Gates Foundation's biggest grantees: PATH.

Its name stands for Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, and the idea behind that was reflected in a speech by Margarita Quintanilla earlier this year in Seattle.

Quintanilla, PATH's country leader in Nicaragua, got her start working at the ground level as a community health coordinator teaching basic concepts as washing hands to avoid diseases and getting regular pap screenings. She realized that technology could not overcome one of the biggest obstacles to health: gender-based violence and its effects, contributing to the spread of diseases like HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy and other problems, all of which are common in India. Her approach was to build projects to teach life skills and health education to pre-adolescent girls and promote respect for women in families.

The more PATH's work grew, the more Quintanilla realized it would have to include "both technical and social approaches to increase the country's capacity to ensure better health," she said.

"We have to be wise and intelligent in our solutions. We have the responsibility of promoting change in the right way."

About 800 people listened to Quintanilla, but billions listen to Gates. As one of the world's most respected voices, he has a unique opportunity to call attention to social issues that no technology alone can solve.
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UPDATE: Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn analyze the links between gender discrimination and poverty, child mortality, global health issues and other problems in this excellent magazine series.

Some fundraising campaigns have done surprisingly well even in the face of recession.

Led by Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke, the Seahawks helped United Way of King County raise more money this year than any other United Way in the country.

The local United Way announced yesterday it had raised a total of $100.3 million in its 2008-2009 campaign ended June 30. It's the third consecutive year the organization has broken the $100 million mark.

United Way raised about $116 million in 2007-2008, according to its annual report.

Seeing the effects of the plummeting economy on poor families, United Way announced a Response for Basic Needs in November. It has raised $3.7 million for that program, supporting 6 million additional pounds of food into emergency food banks and signing up more than 1,000 people for food stamps.

Earlier this month, United Way held a Climb for the Community. Leiweke, Fine, Seahawks coach Jim Mora, United Way Chairwoman Molly Nordstrom and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell climbed Mt. Rainier to raise money and awareness for the basic needs campaign. The event raised an additional $380,000.

"The Northwest is a special place," Leiweke said.

Current and former Seahawks were involved last month in an event focused on global humanitarian work. Medical Teams International raised about $1.7 million at its 10th Annual Field of Dreams Dinner and Auction at Safeco Field. The event drew 820 guests, the largest turnout in its decade-long history.

Seahawks Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and his wife Sarah and Horizon Air CEO Jeff Pinneo and his wife Janey co-chaired the event, with former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren as honorary chairman.

Fund raising in such a difficult economy takes direct personal involvement and proof of financial efficiency, organizers said.

"The people and businesses here are incredibly generous, but they are also savvy," said Leiweke. They want to know that they're making a smart investment, so it helps that 96 cents of every dollar to United Way go to the community assistance programs.

With Medical Teams International, nearly 97 percent of all proceeds go directly to providing medicines and urgent care to people affected by disaster, conflict and poverty.

Organizers turned Safeco Field into a recreated orphanage in Romania with a flashing light bulb signifying a child dying every three seconds, and attendees walked over cardboard and garbage in recreated "dumps" of Mexico, where entire families live and dig through the rubbish to survive. There were also make-shift medical tents with IV's hanging from tree-branches.

Holmgren's wife, Kathy, a nurse, knows those situations well. As a volunteer with Medical Teams International, she worked in Uganda earlier this year with their daughter, Calla, a doctor, helping families forced from their homes by ongoing fighting in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Three years ago, Kathy Holmgren was on a medical mission in DRC while her husband coached in the Super Bowl.

The non-profit humanitarian relief and development agency has deployed more than 1,900 volunteer teams and shipped over $1.2 billion in antibiotics, surgical kits and medicines to 35 million people in 100 countries. In the Pacific Northwest, Medical Teams runs a mobile dental program for more than 16,000 patients a year with the help of 900 dental professionals who donate their time.

Investor Warren Buffett made his annual gift of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Wednesday. At $1.25 billion, the value of the gift is 30 percent less than last year's contribution of $1.8 billion.

Buffett donated 428,688 shares of Class B Common Stock to the Gates Foundation in 2009 as part of his lifetime pledge, described here.

Under Buffett's plan to transfer the majority of his wealth to the Gates Foundation, the timing of the annual gift and the amount of shares are predetermined. But the value fluctuates.

According to the schedule, the number of shares donated diminishes by 5 percent each year. Buffett had expected the value of his shares to increase by an amount that more than compensates for their smaller number. And for the first two years, they did. CNBC's coverage has a chart of the annual gifts here.

But even shrewd investors have not escaped the wrath of the global recession, and Berkshire Hathaway has seen the price of its Class B shares decline by about 26 percent over the past year. Those shares closed at $2,924 a share on Wednesday.

Forbes estimated Buffett's net worth at $37 billion this year, ranking him second only to Bill Gates (whose worth was estimated at $40 billion) in the list of the richest people in the world.

It's got it all ... money, sex, power, exotic locations and... philanthropy?

The Philanthropist, the first prime time TV show about a "billionaire playboy-turned-vigilante philanthropist" airs tonight, a testament to the way newfound benevolence has tapped into the imagination of mainstream popular culture.

NBC PHOTO: KELLY WALSH

Actor James Purefoy is the star of the new NBC show The Philanthropist.

Can a show about a globe-trotting "rebel with a cause" succeed?

"I'm hoping it makes philanthropy sexy," said Trevor Neilson, president of Global Philanthropy Group, a Seattle firm that advises celebrities, foundations and others on philanthropy.

As entertainment, it's not bad, according to reviews like this one.

Here's how NBC describes the compassionate but flawed main character:
"Teddy is spontaneous and impulsive and quickly decides to channel his passion, power and money into helping those in need."

The billionaire finds new meaning in his life traveling the world on weekly humanitarian adventures from Africa to Kashmir and Kosovo.

The Council on Foundations had this comparison: "The Philanthropist is to charitable giving as The Pink Panther is to police work."

Steve Gunderson, president of Council on Foundations, says he wishes philanthropy "was really that fun and that easy."

"It's great entertainment. His life is exciting. His solutions arrive in sixty minutes. And he always succeeds," Gunderson said.

"While some elements may ring true, very little of the first episode conveys the realities of philanthropy."

The American public knows little about the work of philanthropy, in part because too much of what is reported is "transactional in nature -- dehumanized stories about who made grants to whom, when, and for how much," according to Edith Asibey and David Brotherton. ..."these stories do little to spark the public's interest or truly raise awareness."

The show could being doing a great service if it pushes staid organizations to "be more aggressive, and artful, in telling their own stories and connecting with the American public," Asibey and Brotherton write.

Some issues do lend themselves to drama, said Neilson.

"The issues that philanthropists are seeking to address are life or death issues," he said. "It's not surprising that a good television drama can come from this kind of work."

Neilson knows because he helped create a program chronicling efforts of elite philanthropists called "Giving."

Now in its second season, Neilson says "Giving" has become the most popular show on Plum TV, a cable network targeting affluent audiences and broadcasting exclusively in resort communities such as The Hamptons, Aspen and Miami Beach.

"There's a hunger for meaning in peoples' lives," Neilson said. "Shows like "The Philanthropist or "Giving" fill a gap that a lot of people feel."

Beyond Brangelina and Billanthropy, could this show offer something inspiring for a mass audience?

"If a show like this can make philanthropy sexy, the odds improve that more people will want to be philanthropists, including more people in Seattle," he said.

Or maybe it's just an updated version of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

If you happen to tune in, let me know what you think.

Update: After watching the show, I did sympathize with Teddy Rist's desire to do good and find meaning in his life. But what a flawed notion of philanthropy: He's got money, bravado and good intentions, so he'll just fly in and solve all the problems that locals are too poor, corrupt and incompetent to solve on their own, and everything will turn out well in the end. The key line by the Nigerian doctor to Rist summed it up well: "This isn't about me. It's about you." That said, I am still tuning in next week.

And what about all those Bing product placement ads? I couldn't tell whether I was watching a commercial for Bing or the show itself. Good for the product, bad for the show.

Adnan Mahmud's inspiration to create a new kind of charity started when he passed a stranger at a cemetery.

He was in Bangladesh visiting his grandfather's grave when he saw a man who clearly didn't have money for his own son's funeral.

The man was carrying his dead son, dressed only in a pair of shorts. He couldn't afford the traditional white cloth used to shroud the dead for a proper Muslim burial.

"There were vendors selling cloth for 50 cents or a dollar," Mahmud said. "I could have helped him, but by the time I came to the realization I was already back home."

MIKE SIEGEL/SEATTLE TIMES

Adnan Mahmud and Nadia Khawaja are founders of Jolkona, a non-profit designed to encourage young philanthropists.

Even a small amount of money can make a huge difference in the life of another person, he thought, but the problem was how to connect them.

"I couldn't have saved his son, but I could have at least helped ease the pain a little bit," he said.

Mahmud, 31, a program manager at Microsoft Research, thought about the many young professionals he knew who want to do some good but don't have the resources of Bill Gates.

"They'll all tell you 'I want to make a difference, but I don't know what I can do,'" he said.

The solution was to create an online space for people to get excited about philanthropy with just a couple hundred dollars a year.

So in 2007 he and his wife, Nadia Khawaja, created the non-profit Jolkona Foundation. Jolkona is a Bengali word meaning "a drop of water."

"Small drops of money can add up and make a ripple of changing the world," said Khawaja, 26. She was drawn to social service after a stint as a volunteer math tutor in South Central Los Angeles during college. "I don't want to just work in the corporate world, not feeling like I'm making a difference when there's so many problems going on."

After six months of testing, their Web site went live this month. Similar to Kiva and Global Giving, it lets people channel funds to specific people and causes. It also gives them new tools for monitoring their impact. Mahmud said he was put off by large conventional charities because it was hard to choose specific programs or know exactly how contributions were used.

"It goes into this black hole," he said. "I don't know what happens to it."

Jolkona's founders are part of a growing number of young people demanding more control of their philanthropy. A generation used to connecting around the world through Facebook now wants a face and a direct connection to someone they're helping.

Donors can pinpoint countries where they want to contribute and choose from five categories: cultural identity, education, empowerment, environment and public health. Projects can be filtered by the amount of dollars needed, going down to as little as $5, and the duration, from less than a month to six years.

"For young professionals, you're so busy it's hard to do research," Khawaja said. "You just get lazy. It's on your list to do, but it just doesn't get done."

"Our goal was to use technology to engage youth and make it as simple as possible to donate," Mahmud said.

The site also offers what it calls "tangible proofs for every gift."
"If you give $50 to buy library books, you'll actually know what books they bought with your donation," Mahmud said.

A person's donations are broken down into charts and graphs that look as detailed as a 401K portfolio, pages that Mahmud calls "a resume of good."

Mahmud opens up his account and sees an update on a project he's been supporting in India, helping a pregnant woman in a Calcutta slum. "Look, on the 20th she had her baby," he said. "Adopting" a mother and her baby costs $235, and donors can follow their progress for three and a half years.

In Afghanistan there's a school for girls, where $40 provides 10 months of educational expenses. Donors can see the name of a girl and "at the end of 10 months you'll see the report card," Mahmud said. For $30 you can buy seeds, tools and training for women farmers in Sudan.

Some non-profits might loathe such micro-management by donors. Mahmud acknowledges that the model isn't for every one. But for small non-profits without budgets for IT departments, it's a way to supplement other funding and reach a new generation of donors. So far they've found 19 partners and 39 projects.

Jolkona has raised $3,000 from 50 friends in six months of testing. The couple has funded the non-profit themselves, with help from volunteers and one paid software developer. Since all donations go to the charities, they created a separate button for donations to offset operating costs.

Mahmud says the next step is to get more people involved, using online tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. A small group of volunteers will be traveling to different countries and blogging about their experiences on the Jolkona site, hoping to inform and inspire others.

The Seattle Foundation today named former Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice as its new president and chief executive. He starts on July 6.

Rice, 66, replaces Phyllis Campbell, who left in March to become chairman of JPMorgan Chase's Pacific Northwest business. Rice served two terms as Seattle mayor, from 1990 to 1997. Following that he was CEO of Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle until 2005.

SEATTLE FOUNDATION

Norm Rice first joined the Seattle City Council in 1978.

Rice is chairman of Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing non-profit, and chaired the United Way of King County campaign in 2006 with his wife, Constance Rice. He is also distinguished visiting practitioner in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.

Rice said the stars aligned to find a job that fit his personal passions and experience so well, though he had not done work directly with the Seattle Foundation.

He said he aims to bring a creative approach, expanding the foundation with new partnerships and using the Internet to reach younger donors. "My job is to raise the bar and see how we can make it to the next level."

Rice has served on boards of many local non-profits, including the United Way, the 5th Avenue Theater, Northwest African American Museum and the YMCA.

"This job was made for Norm," said Bill Lewis, CEO of Seattle construction firm Lease Lewis Crutcher and chairman of the foundation's board of trustees. More than 100 people from around the country applied for the position. Lewis said the foundation wanted someone with a deep connection and commitment to the quality of life in King County, as well as strong leadership and financial management skills.

At Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle, Rice created programs to help low and moderate income buyers. But his tenure there ended amid problems. The bank paid him more than $427,000 when he stepped down as chief executive.

Rice left after the bank was placed under stricter regulatory scrutiny. Its problems stemmed from an expansion into buying mortgages from its member banks.

Rice said his broad connections will help the foundation reach out to many different groups, from the U.S. Conference on Mayors to Congress and the Obama Administration.

The foundation sees an unprecedented need in the community, Lewis said, while it also faces financial pressures caused by the economic downturn and fall in stock prices. The foundation's total assets declined to about $507 million in 2008, from $676 million at the end of 2007.

Created in 1946, the Seattle Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the country. It works by pooling funds from 1,200 donors to support non-profits in King County. The foundation gave grants to about 2,000 non profits last year.

It makes grants to non-profits working in seven areas: basic needs such as housing and food, health and wellness, education, economy, arts and culture, neighborhoods, and environmental protection.

Rice said he recognizes the shift in philanthropy from an old model of passive donations to new model in which a younger generation wants to be more personally involved and see quicker results.

He said the Seattle Foundation aims to reach younger donors using social networking and other online tools, welcoming smaller donations and giving more real-time information.

"I think we've got the capacity to get to those people," he said. "The first thing is that we recognize it's different."

Charitable giving in the U.S. fell 2 percent in 2008 to about $307 billion, but the decline was not as sharp as expected, considering the economic downturn, according to the Giving Institute. The results were part of an annual report on philanthropy that the institute released today.

The last time the U.S. saw a drop in overall giving was in 1987.

Among the findings:

• Philanthropy accounted for 2.2 percent of the the U.S. GDP, and individual donors accounted for 75 percent of all charitable giving.


• Giving to religion increased 5.5. percent, and religion received the largest share of contributions (35 percent).


• Giving to public-society benefit organizations rose 5.4 percent, a category that includes the United Way and groups engaged in voter registration.


• Giving to international affairs organizations rose 0.6 percent, slowing considerably from the 16.1 percent increase in 2007.


• The largest decline in giving (12.7 percent) was in human services, yet 54 percent of human service organizations saw an increase in demand.


• Foundation grant-making increased 3 percent, while giving from corporations and corporate foundations fell 4.5 percent (the largest decline among categories of donors).

What should Seattle do to make sure philanthropy here is as effective as possible? The Seattle Foundation came out with its own (very long) report last week that sets out a kind of road map for the region.

The person leading that drive will be named tomorrow when the foundation will announce a new CEO to replace Phyllis Campbell, who left in March to become chairman of JPMorgan Chase's Pacific Northwest business.

The foundation has identified strategies for a healthy community, from increasing affordable housing to restoring Puget Sound to supporting low-income entrepreneurs.

The report lists specific goals, ways people can help and more than a dozen local organizations working in each category. It also profiles people and organizations doing interesting work.

In real estate, for example, Windermere 's CoHo Team donates one-third of their commissions to support community development and affordable housing.

In South Seattle, the Got Green project and the Moontown Foundation are organizing young people of color to help weatherize low-income homes in the city.

In a forum at City Club, Crosscut publisher David Brewster seemed to put his finger on the pulse of Seattle philanthropy when he suggested that adding some "entrepreneurial garage culture" to non-profits could release their creativity.

Blending "Seattle's entrepreneurial genius and its humanitarian civic-mindedness creates an interesting chemical reaction," he said.

George F. Russell, Jr., makes a point of informally surveying 100 people on a regular basis to gauge perceptions of Muslims in the United States. Those perceptions have been improving lately, he said.

ERIKA SCHULTZ/SEATTLE TIMES

George F. Russell, Jr., talks with friends at a dinner where he received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.

"I think it's getting a little better," he said Wednesday evening in Seattle at a reception honoring him for his contributions to public service. Russell was given the award by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. One of his priorities is bridging the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims, which he has done through founding the non-profit collaborative One Nation.

Russell said the idea behind One Nation was to address American misunderstanding and fear of Muslims and Islam in the aftermath of 9/11. "Fifty percent of Americans felt that Muslims were bad people," Russell said. He concluded "If we're not able to change that perception, we'll end up with a 100-year war."

Russell called President Obama's efforts to repair relations with the Muslim world "a good thing."

"Reaching out and talking to the other side is really constructive," he said. "The old habit of distrust doesn't get you anywhere."

Besides One Nation, Russell chairs the Russell Family Foundation, the East-West Institute, the National Bureau of Asian Research, Nuclear Fuel Cell Technologies Inc. and the Business Humanitarian Forum.

He is best known in the world of finance, building the Frank Russell Company started by his grandfather into one of the world's leading investment advisory firms.

Russell said simple principles helped him succeed in life, such as valuing integrity, taking risks, being creative, hiring people smarter than himself, recognizing luck, sharing the credit and having fun.

"These are the ground rules that will help you do the right thing in the eyes of your grandparents," he said. Quoting Woodrow Wilson, he added: "You are here to enrich the world... you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

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.

Yes, it's true. A dozen of the richest people in the world met for an unprecedented private gathering at the invitation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about giving away money.

The May 5 meeting at Rockefeller University included Gates, Buffett, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner, among others. The meeting came to light only this week when it was reported by the Web site IrishCentral.

DAVE WEAVER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett led a private philanthropy discussion in a year of diminished portfolios even among top givers.

"It really was a group of friends and colleagues who share a commitment to philanthropy discussing ideas in a round table," said former Gates Foundation Chief Executive Patty Stonesifer, who attended the gathering.

In a phone interview today, Stonesifer sought to dispel notions and reports on the Web that the meeting was somehow veiled in secrecy.

"It wasn't secret," she said. "It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came."

"This was about philanthropy and this group sharing their passions their interests," said Stonesifer, who is chairwoman of the Smithsonian Institution. "They each learned from each other about what could really make a difference."

But the Manhattan philanthropy salon raised interest for its uniqueness, and the fact that so many on the Forbes world's wealthiest list were able to meet almost completely under the radar. Other reports about the meeting came out here and here.

"As far as anything we've ever seen before, this group of philanthropists that are so high powered in the same room... I think it's unprecedented," said Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer, who has been covering philanthropy for 20 years.

The members of the meeting have donated more than $72 billion to charity since 1996, according to The Chronicle.

"Given how serious these economic times are, I don't think it's surprising these philanthropists came together," Palmer said. "They don't typically get together and ask each other for advice."

There was no agenda, and the topics were as diverse as the group, Stonesifer said: "everything from U.S. education to efforts of the U.N. to emergency response in [Hurricane] Katrina and many international issues."

The three hosts [Gates, Buffett and David Rockefeller] "wanted to have a private gathering to discuss with others what motivated their giving, the areas of focus, lessons learned and thoughts on how they might increase giving going forward," Stonesifer said.

The elite group met from 3 p.m. through dinner in the President's House on the university campus. There were no 15-minute speeches, and very little of the conversation focused on the economy, Stonesifer said.

The meeting also didn't produce a clear result. "There was lots of shared information that may lead to more things," she said. "There was no action plan associated with it."

One theme critics of the Gates Foundation have seized upon is a lack of transparency, which a wealthy private confab may not help.

"Now they're in a tricky public perception problem," said Palmer. "This is not just for Gates but Soros or any philanthropists that have as much money to spend as small governments."

"It just gives the impression they were trying to coordinate in some way, which makes some people uncomfortable," she said.

"This is a group of people that are in the spotlight," Stonesifer responded. "They use that spotlight for good to draw attention to these issues. The only reason it wasn't more public was that it was a private and informal gathering to discuss these issues."

And there may be more such forums in the future. "I'm sure these folks will convene in one form or another," Stonesifer said. "This area of giving requires people to collaborate and learn lessons from each other."

Bill Gates and some of the country's other top billionaires met in secret in New York earlier this month to discuss the economy and philanthropy, according to IrishCentral.com.

The May 5 meeting at Rockefeller University included Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner, among others on the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people.

The IrishCentral post says the letter of invitation came from Gates, Buffett and Rockefeller and cited the worldwide recession and the urgent need to plan for the future. "They wanted to hear the views of a broad range of key leaders in the financial and philanthropic fields," according to the post.

Apparently they're not sharing any details. According the New York Times blog, participants are refusing to talk about the content, citing an agreement to keep the meeting confidential.

A global campaign to get women to donate $1 million each toward non-profits that help women and girls surpassed its ambitious targets, thanks in part to a handful of Seattle philanthropists.

As the Women Moving Millions campaign came to a close even in the midst of a bleak economy, organizers called it "an historic moment in the world of women's philanthropy."
The event raised $177 million from individual women donors, more than its $150 million goal.

SEATTLE TIMES

Nancy Nordhoff says she was inspired toward volunteering and donating at Mount Holyoke College. She founded Hedgebrook, a retreat on Whidbey for women writers, and helped found CityClub in Seattle.

The Seattle-based Women's Funding Alliance, the local organization participating in the drive, received three $1 million donations from local women. The largest gift the alliance had received previously was $100,000.

"This is an amazing, bold step these donors have taken to support women and girls in our region," said LeAnne Moss, executive director of the Women's Funding Alliance.

Turns out Seattle was among the top cities around the world for contributions. It started with Nancy Nordhoff, a 76-year-old donor on Whidbey Island. Her efforts encouraged two younger women from Microsoft to kick in a million dollars each.

Nordhoff said she was cautious at first but decided the time to act is now.

"You live 70 years and you see a lot, and I began to know what's going on in families' lives," said Nordhoff, a Seattle native who has three children and seven grandchildren. "You've got a working parent and they lose their job and there isn't any housing.The community statistics are a clear picture of the need. You don't have to touch people to feel for them."

Donna Bellew worked 10 years at Microsoft before leaving in 1999 to be a full-time mother and community volunteer.

"I thought gee whiz if I can do it, I better step forth," she said. "Those of us who have the resources have to respond to the need."

Families run on the backs of women, she added, so helping them can strengthen families and communities.

Her gift helped inspire Rebecca Norlander and Donna and Matthew Bellew, longtime supporters of the alliance, to contribute more than they have before.

The alliance is a public foundation supporting 140 non-profits such as the Refugee Women's Alliance, Washington CASH, Jubilee Women's Center, Northwest Women's Law Center and others. Moss said the organization will use at least half of the funds toward economic programs for women in Puget Sound. The alliance will also be able to "dramatically increase" the amount of money it gives out, including multi-year grants, to groups that work to improve women's lives, Moss said.

Bellew, 42, said she's been following women's status in the workplace and was struck by their over representation in low wage and part-time jobs. "These economic situations seemed to exacerbate the problem," she said.

Rebecca Norlander, a software executive who manages online advertising, has supported the Women's Funding Alliance since 1993, two years after she joined Microsoft.

She remembered a study the alliance did a year ago on issues affecting women and girls. Washington state had a huge wage gap, ranking 42nd in gender wage equity. "That was sort of surprising. In many ways you think of Washington as a pretty progressive state." Another statistic stood out: women in King County are seven times more likely to live in poverty than men.

She was determined to use her money in conjunction with the other donors to change things. Her husband, Matthew, also wanted to make a statement in support of that cause.

"This was a really big stretch gift," she said. "We had to have several conversations about how do we make this happen, what do we have to change to do this now? It had to be something both of us believed in."

It was also important for their school children: two daughters and a son.

"I have this one life, and I have a vision for the world, one that includes women and girls being at the table in an equal way," Bellew said.

Bill Gates Sr., lawyer, philanthropist and father of the richest man in the world, grew up in fear of being poor. He still eats at Burgermaster, and he turns the lights off every time he leaves a room, a lesson from the Great Depression. Gates has just published a memoir of the values and experiences that shaped his 83 years, called "Showing up for Life," which he discusses in this recent interview.

Q: You sum up your book's main point as "we are in this life together and we need each other." Is this a world view?

A: It's a world view. It's easy to have this sharing of responsibility among people, particularly among neighborhoods. We've clearly gotten to the point where there's a sense of sharing 7,000 miles away. There's really nothing complicated about it. A simple business of recognizing to start with we are all so interdependent. There's just no getting around it. We have to be helpful to each other or it would be an impossible world. This is not only good religion but very practical for economy and humanity.

Q: You described part of your childhood in the Depression, when your father walked home and collected chunks of coal by the side of the road for heat. What lasting effect did that have on you?

A: It's there. I never leave a room empty without turning the lights out. That is absolutely a habit learned from my father. I'm very surprised at the number of people today that don't turn out the lights when they leave, including relatives of mine. To some extent that's a product of this basic sense that comfort and a good life are always at risk, and there is another thing that happens to people called poverty. My children really don't have any notion of that.

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Q: What has moved you the most in your travels?

A: A couple months ago I was in India with Bill and we went back into this slum area to see a little girl, Hashmin, who had contracted polio. It was a terrible thing against this worldwide very muscular effort going on to rid the world of polio. It was very affecting to see this little girl, but at the same time very energizing to continue the pressure on this subject.

I can remember as a father thinking about the possibility of my children getting polio. No parent thinks about that anymore because it doesn't happen.... The trip in India was the first time I'd been on an overseas (foundation) trip with Bill. It was something he organized and we had his two sisters along as well.

Q: You've spent more than 10 years working at the Gates Foundation, where you're one of three co-chairs. What do you think have been its most successful and least successful efforts?

A: Set aside all the things in progress. We don't have any grade for them up or down. Some things we are doing are so long term. A vaccine for AIDS ... we've got a good many years ahead of us before we have the answer if it's a useful exercise or a waste of time.

I do think the delivery of vaccines in the poor world ... couldn't be left out of the list of positive results of the foundation's work. Literally millions of kids are receiving the vaccines. Without putting figures on it, at least thousands of kids who had the benefit of a good regimen of vaccines are not going to get sick and die prematurely.

The work we're doing in education, while it's been very good and delivered a lot of value to kids is something we've decided the strategy we were using ... wasn't a bit clear [whether] it was ever going to go to scale, and we needed to look at other factors than the size of high schools ... and think about things that were a bit more fundamental, like the quality of teaching and the standards we've applied to judge our own success.

Q: What is the biggest change since your son started working at the foundation full time?

A: There's nothing very big in terms of fundamental changes. He and Melinda continue to be the ultimate deciders in the most important issues that come along. The change I notice is he and she, particularly he, are there more often and as a result participate more in understanding the new projects and status of old projects. They're just more involved.

Q: Do you ever get veto power?

A: No.

Q: In your philanthropy work with your son, are there any areas where you didn't see eye to eye on an issue?

A: He and I have a different view about the duration of a life of a foundation. He is of the school that believes they should not be perpetual and they should end, and I am a believer in the perpetual foundation. I don't know that it's actually a major difference of opinion. This foundation is going to end at a precisely defined time. People like Rockefeller [Foundation] are going to go on until who knows.

Q: Why do you believe in perpetual foundations?

A: It's bad to spend all the money when you have a large corpus working and earning funds. I think when you finally spend it all it's a wonderful gift to someone or something... 10 or 20 times the size of grants you've been making up to that point, so that's good stuff. But then it's over and all the things that are under way and good things that might be [are not funded] because it's gone.

Q: What do you think about the criticism that the foundation is too heavily focused on technology solutions?

A: Actually I don't think there's any validity to that. It seems to me kind of nonsense. It's a question of what works. We've got so many lessons over the past decade about technology contributing to efficiency, accomplishing things that otherwise would be impossible. To be honest I don't understand what technology the critics are talking about. If they mean vaccines, it's sheer nonsense. There's isn't any question of the value of creating a vaccine that would rid the world of malaria.

Q: What about the criticism that the foundation has too much influence because of its enormous assets, yet only a small number of people making decisions -- three co-chairs and three trustees.

A: We try to ameliorate that in the case of three major program advisory groups with knowledgeable, mature experienced people who get together and review the programs. Getting their input and advice is a fairly significant safeguard against the potential for bad decisions with such a very few minds working on it.

Another thing that wouldn't be obvious is the whole business of mature, experienced personnel that have everything to do with what we do and decide to do. We have people in global health who know as much about global health as there is to know. The decisions of what we're doing go though that mechanism to start with.

There's a lot of safeguards against it both in additional outside advice and internal expertise. But I go on to say in a hurry, notwithstanding, that we very likely will miss one somewhere here or there. I would just offer the same thing is true with foundations that have 50-person boards or 15-person boards.

Q: Getting back to raising Bill Gates, I read about the famous water-throwing incident at the table. At some point you realized you could not control him.

A: I couldn't control myself was the problem. Nobody can really control their kids -- it's just [a] natural universal phenomenon. Kids get to the point they begin to feel their selfness, their worthiness and that naturally generates a resistance to somebody imposing their will on them. That was the garden variety problem we were dealing with. It started at a bit younger age because he started thinking very independently and thoughtfully at an earlier age than at most kids.

Q: What are the values you imparted to him?

A: I guess I would think about what values he has and go on and say we played some part in all of that, but incidentally not a controlling part -- his curiosity, his energy, getting answers to things, his sense of the appropriateness of hard work. Being a hard worker, which he clearly is and was, he had some examples of around his own household, although I would say not solely credited to us. But his sense of the interdependency of humanity, of him and others in the world, is something he got at least some confirmation of around the dinner table at home.

Q: And what characteristics of his surprise you ... that you don't recognize in yourself?

A: I suppose his well known proclivity for being argumentative and even ... quite challenging of the suggestions and ideas that other people are expressing. It's wonderful to sit around the table with him when people are talking about what makes sense and what doesn't make sense but he comes into those discussions very strongly. It's an indication of his immense self confidence. It's a characteristic I'm not going to be able to explain where it came from.

Q: In your book you talk about attending church, and your wife quoted a passage from the Bible at your son's wedding. Do you think faith in any way motivates your son's philanthropy now?

A: I think I'll stay away from that. You can ask him that question someday.

Update: Gates will discuss his book May 19 at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Legends & Leaders program.

It's quite a swing to go from a Depression-era child to father of the richest man in the world. Bill Gates Sr. has written a book called "Showing Up for Life," described as a narrative of the experiences that shaped his world view and moral compass. The book comes out next month.

Gates, 83, applies some lessons from the Great Depression. But he also reflects more personally on his famous son, his two daughters, his late wife and his current wife. I haven't read it yet, but if the book lives up to its description, it could offer glimpses inside the family that has become so influential in this region and the world.

Gates' friends and peers profiled in the book include Roy Prosterman, founder of RDI, Bill Foege, Suzanne Cluett and former Washington Gov. Dan Evans. Gates talks about their common values, including "hard work, getting along, honoring a confidence and speaking out."

In an email to the Gates Foundation staff in late 2007, Gates explains why he decided to do the memoir. "I never imagined that I'd be working this late in life or enjoying it so much," he begins. "I'm also deeply aware of how unfair this world can be - and how much needs to be done."

He notes that he worked with Mary Ann Mackin, a speech writer he has known for 20 years, who persuaded him that his ideas "might actually encourage a broader discussion of what it means to be a responsible citizen in today's increasingly interconnected world."

Bill Gates Sr. stood on stage last night and told the crowd of 1,000 that he had something to get off his chest.

"There was a time when I was somebody in this town," he began. "In those days when someone said 'Bill Gates' they were talking about me."

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Bill Gates Sr. has helped guide his son's giving.

The audience -- peppered with graying Rotarians -- erupted in laughter.

"I was a hot, maybe warm, ticket," said the former lawyer. "Now look at me. I've become just 'Senior' -- a suffix. Nobody reports to me. I report to my son."

Gates may have been eclipsed by his world-famous philanthropist son, but the ethic of community service started with the earlier generation.

"You and mom taught me the meaning of service by the countless examples you set," the younger Gates said.

In fact, Seattle's philanthropy can trace its roots back to the Rotary club, which has become the largest rotary in the world and celebrates its centennial this year. Rotary International has 1.2 million members and 32,000 clubs in nearly 200 countries.

The Seattle club's 700 members focused on "service before self" have taken on ambitious projects, from selling $1 million in war bonds in a single day during World War II, to building a new center for 5,000 homeless families this year, to helping eradicate polio in the future. Seattle Rotary made a $4.2 million donation to build the Rotary Support Center for Families as its centennial project.

The club has endured through two world wars and the Great Depression. Members said one key to their success is an emphasis on regular attendance at weekly meetings.
Don Kraft, a former advertising executive who joined the club when he was 21, hasn't missed a meeting for 60 years.

Don Kraft has perfect attendance in his 60 years in Seattle Rotary.

"I just showed up a week at a time," Kraft said. "I have met incredible friends. I just kept thinking I might as well go one more time."

Kraft said one of the highlights was leading a Rotary Youth Foundation effort to build a Boys Club downtown that became a safe gathering place for kids in the Central District and is still thriving today.

In the early days, Rotary was "500 old white guys," Kraft said. Women weren't admitted until 1987, and current Rotary president Nancy Sclater is only the fourth woman to head the club.

The big challenge now is to push for eradicating polio worldwide and help the community get through the worst economic downturn since the Depression.

The Gates Foundation gave a $255 million grant to Rotary International to help that effort, and Rotary promised to raise another $100 million in matching funds. Another $280 million then came from the governments of England and Germany.

One Seattle Rotarian, Ezra Teshome, has led volunteers to his native Ethiopia every year for 12 years to vaccinate children against polio.

The younger Gates said the Gates Foundation will announce a new strategy later this month to fight family homelessness involving "dozens of local partners to extend our investment on this key issue over the next decade."

"Growing up here, with parents like mine, I saw the impact service can have," Gates said. "That's why I'm so optimistic that our society can solve its toughest problems."

Seattle Foundation CEO Phyllis Campbell is stepping down at the end of the month to become chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Pacific Northwest business. A formal announcement by the bank is pending.

Campbell is a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, where she earned her bachelor's degree from WSU and MBA from UW.

Campbell, who has headed the Seattle's largest community foundation for the last six years, will become the bank's senior executive in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. JPMorgan Chase acquired Washington Mutual's banking operations last September.

"I am excited to join a world-class firm and to help build on the community legacy forged by Washington Mutual," Campbell said in a statement. "Returning to my banking roots and staying in the community I love is a wonderful combination for me."

She spent three decades in banking, including as CEO of U.S. Bank of Washington, handling private banking, commercial banking and retail banking -- all areas that JPMorgan Chase plans to expand in the Pacific Northwest.

"We could not have found a better person than Phyllis to lead our expansion of financial services in this important region," said JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement. "Phyllis's hard work, integrity and success in banking and philanthropy define true leadership in the community."

The Seattle Foundation more than doubled its total charitable assets during her tenure, focusing on education and economic opportunity. It had assets of $676 million at the end of 2007. Campbell's annual salary at the foundation was $211,200.

JPMorgan Chase plans to convert all 316 WaMu bank branches in Washington, Oregon and Idaho to its own brand by June.

It has also pledged to continue WaMu's local philanthropy, committing $2.65 million in grants to Washington non-profits in 2009, which matched WaMu's local corporate giving in 2008. The bank gave a $10 million grant to the Seattle Art Museum.

Good timing for Campbell and the bank, but her departure poses a challenge for the Seattle Foundation to find someone who can steer the umbrella organization that so many non-profits depend on through rough economic times.

The Seattle Foundation released a statement today from board chairman Bill Lewis.

"Certainly we will miss Phyllis' steady hand at the helm, but are thrilled for her..." he said. "She is a one-of-a-kind leader who leaves strength and success in her wake."

Lewis said that "while the foundation's assets have been affected by the economic downturn, our solid footing has enabled us to do more, not less, to help our community."

Michael Kinsley has produced a thoughtful 310-page book about "Creative Capitalism," but he's not entirely convinced it's the answer. In fact he comes down about 51 percent against it.

As the former Slate editor and political columnist discussed the book Tuesday over lunch with the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, he was hard pressed to say exactly how the concept could apply to small business or global health non-profits working with the private sector. The book has 43 contributors, each with a different viewpoint, making for a rich debate. But only two names in bold letters appear on the cover, a point of dispute between Kinsley and the publisher.

Kinsley sat down to answer some questions about the book between bites of chocolate cheesecake.

Q: Can you give a quick definition of creative capitalism?

A: It's not my term, it's Bill Gates' term, but I would say it is the use of capitalism and capitalist techniques in areas that traditionally are left to government and philanthropy.

MIKE SIEGEL/SEATTLE TIMES

Is it just me or does Michael Kinsley look like Stephen Colbert with facial hair?

Q: What has Bill Gates' reaction been to the book?

A: We had this embarrassing cover and because of that I really have not heard from him to see what his reaction is. We had an agreement with Simon & Schuster that they wouldn't exaggerate the role of Bill and Warren [Buffett]. They are two contributors among many. This is actually a compromise. Basically I don't like the cover and I don't even know what Bill and Warren think. If they're annoyed, I don't blame them.

Q: What effect has the economic downturn had on the potential for creative capitalism?

A: It's clearly reduced because corporations are more attentive to their own bottom lines.

Q: In another way you could argue it's made it more urgent.

A: Yes, and that's what I do. The problems it's supposed to address are more urgent. But also the incentive to address them has been reduced, so who knows how those two factors balance out?

Q: Sum up the best arguments for and against...

A: The best argument against is the basic one that companies should take care of their stockholders and if there are social problems that's the job of government.

The best argument for is: for goodness' sake, capitalism has been such a force. If there are problems in the world and there are ways capitalism can address them, why would you be against that?

Q: Where do you come down in your own assessment?

A: About 51 percent con. It's basically because I'm a terrific admirer of what Bill Gates actually did, and I would be slightly afraid we might not have had that if he had been concentrating on the social thing.

Q: If governments were working well and markets were fair and efficient, would creative capitalism even be necessary?

A: It depends on how far you think we are from that ideal and whether you would agree with anybody else about what is fair. It's mainly conservatives who said 'I thought capitalism by its nature was creative.' So they say 'why do we need to reinvent it?'

A lot of people were so complacent back in the '80s and '90s (the tax system among others) and, if they're having second thoughts right now, that's good. Now it's almost too easy because we need the stimulus. We've got to shovel this money out the door, and I'm sure there's a lot of wasteful stuff going on that we'll discover in a few years.

Q: Are there any real results or examples where this idea has worked (besides maybe the Grameen Bank)?

A: The ONE campaign. Bill says what he has in mind is not so much corporate charity, but corporations doing what they do, only in ways that help people who need it. For example, Microsoft giving away software and training people how to use it would be creative capitalism to him. Target gives away some percent of its profits -- in Minneapolis I guess it's really part of the culture. God, if you were watching the Oscars on Sunday I was struck by the ads... every corporation in America is doing wonderful things and nothing to do with their core business.

Q: Has this book changed anything you're doing or are you just a neutral observer?

A: I'm pretty neutral. I'm very sympathetic to the idea that Bill Gates is an excellent role model, and following his example might be a better idea than following his suggestion.

Q: Tell me about your next project...

A: I have this idea of trying to update Studs Terkel. We would gather stuff on the Internet, open it up for anyone to go and write their stories. It's about what's happening now -- getting laid off -- all the awful ways people get laid off and the good (or more humane) ways they get laid off.

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?

As all eyes are on the hit film "Slumdog Millionaire" for Sunday's Academy Awards, the aid agency World Vision has a simple message: the reality is worse.

More children live in India's slums than the combined populations of Los Angeles and Chigago. Those 26 million kids include Pooja, 5, at left in the photo, sitting in front of her house in the slums of Mumbai with her brother and friend.

After 50 years in India, World Vision is taking advantage of the Hollywood spotlight to point out a few things the film misses: HIV / AIDS and the terrible stigma they carry, the recent food and economic crises pushing more poor into misery, the persistent low standing of girls and their path into early, unwanted marriage. In India, 42 percent of the population lives below the $1.25 a day poverty line, according to the World Bank.

But there is at least one Slumdog who got out, went on to college, worked his way up to head the global branch system at Citibank and achieved success and riches he could never have imagined.

Atul Tandon spent the first two decades of his life existing on about $1 a day. Since 2000 he has worked at World Vision, where he's senior vice president for donor engagement.

"I have been in all the places the movie was shot," he said. "It really was a flashback. The stations where they met -- I walked those places thousands of times."

"What you saw is the best of poverty. It's worse as you leave urban India. The further away you get, the worse it is... not having water and food."

Tandon remembers getting sick as a teenager, far away from any hospital. "We were living in a remote part of India. I fell ill and my mom put me in the back of a bus and it took two days. I still remember like yesterday. My body was on fire with fever and she was sitting there there weeping for two days. That is the reality of life."

His mother sold her jewelry to put him through school. "She is the one person I can look to and say I'm here because of you. It is moms in the lives of most of these kids. I can see the story repeated in many parts of the world."

He hopes the film doesn't just entertain but convinces people to do something.

"I hope when people leave the theater they leave inspired," he says. "It is about the poor, but it is also that the average American can say I'm going to change someone's life. It doesn't take much. That would be the most exciting thing that could happen."

The damage from Bernard Madoff's investment scam just keeps piling up. This time it has hit two Seattle area foundations hard. Both are relatively small foundations involved in conservation and education.

The Patrice and Kevin Auld Foundation of Seattle and the Kaleidoscope Foundation of Bellevue relied on Madoff for their investments. In its last tax filing, for the year ended in August 2007, the Auld Foundation reported holding $1.67 million in Madoff security investments, while listing its total assets as $1.75 million. The Kaleidoscope Foundation reported holding $3.16 million in Madoff investments, with total assets of $12.6 million at the end of 2007.

The foundations were first listed in a preliminary estimate of Madoff exposure among private foundations, compiled by Benefit Technology for the New York Times. The list included foundations across the U.S. based on data from tax returns.

Patrice Auld, a New York native who heads her family foundation, said the loss was devastating. "This is somebody we all felt we could trust."

The Auld Foundation has been a supporter of Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based organization working to protect biodiversity around the world. Its other recent beneficiaries include the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Lakeside School, Seattle Academy, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

"This is a real blow," said Carol Lewis, chief executive of Philanthropy Northwest. "When you have foundations like the Auld Foundation, which has done so much that is positive for the community, it just makes me very sad for the impact on them and on the organizations they support."

The Kaleidoscope Foundation of Bellevue is headed by co-presidents Richard Leeds and Anne Kroeker, who have supported wildlife preservation and were given a lifetime award by the Cascade Land Conservancy in 2006 for protecting open space.

Reached by phone today, Leeds said the Madoff issue is an ongoing legal matter for the foundation and he could not comment until it's resolved.

Leeds' parents, Gerard and Lilo Leeds of New York, built the company CMP Media, listed on the Nasdaq in 1997 and later sold to a British publishing firm, after arriving in the United States in 1939 as refugees from Hitler's Germany, according to information from the University of Colorado at Boulder. A $35 million commitment from the Leeds family endowed the university's business school. Richard Leeds is a graduate of the university. Among CMP Media's publications are InformationWeek and Computerworld.

The Kaleidoscope Foundation's major grantees include the Grays Harbor Audubon Society, Audubon Washington, Columbia Land Trust in Vancouver, Hoh River Trust, Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Bellevue Schools Foundation, and Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

The Kaleidoscope Foundation reported more than $235,000 in income from Madoff securities in 2007 and listed shares in dozens of blue chip companies in its Madoff account that were held only one or two months and sold, most of them for a short-term gain but quite a few for a loss.

The Auld Foundation reported $200,000 in gains through Madoff investment securities in 2007 and $150,000 in gains in 2006.

Now both foundations' losses are among the carnage of an alleged $50 billion fraud. The damage has already forced several charities to close (JEHT Foundation, Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation and the Chais Family Foundation), and others may be next. JEHT's closure has already hurt funding to address racial disparity in the justice system.

Auld said she hoped to be able to continue her foundation's work. "We're going to do the best we can," she said. "I care very much about these causes."

On Monday morning Bill Gates will hit the send key to share with the world his first annual letter as full-time philanthropist. Stay tuned for reports on the conference call to follow.

No doubt he'll reflect on the work he's doing post-Microsoft (excellent timing!) and the challenges of staying on track to reach long-term development goals during a global economic downturn.

He hints in this interview on NPR that he may let people send him e-mail. What would you have to say?

Matching-gift programs boost the power of individual donations and have been linked to employee satisfaction and retention, not to mention tax benefits and image enhancement. Some companies contribute five times what an employee donates, and even pay non-profits for employee volunteer time.

But a story in The Wall Street Journal today made me wonder how many of them may fall victim to cost cutting as companies adjust to tough times.

Turns out many more companies added these programs in the last year than dropped them, according to HEP Development Services, which tracks gifts at nearly 17,000 companies throughout the country, including their divisions and subsidiaries.

The Economix blog has a thought-provoking article today discussing the viability of business achieving altruistic aims, or the kind of creative capitalism described by Bill Gates.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is cutting back on its giving to non-profits this year, according to a message on its Web site.

The foundation "is not immune to the current financial crisis," says the message signed by Paul Allen and sister Jody Patton. It faces challenges of "managing spending when resources are down, confronting an uncertain future, and helping to meet increasing community needs."

In response, the family foundation has "had to reduce both the number and size of grants in some areas," they say.

COURTESY OF GARY NEILL

Paul Allen performs at Super Bowl party

The message is "the first move in trying to create reasonable expectations for grant recipients," says David Postman, a spokesman for Vulcan, Paul Allen's company. The foundation has not disclosed exactly how much it plans to reduce its giving.

The foundation is shifting its strategy to address more immediate needs, such as food, shelter and jobs.

Allen's approach to philanthropy has been eclectic and local.

"For the foreseeable future, many of our grants will focus on helping non-profit organizations respond and adjust to the difficult economic circumstances," Allen and Patton say.

Bill Gates, policy adviser for the new Obama administration?

Post-retirement, Gates has been taking a more active role in politics. While he has ruled out political office, that doesn't mean he's not influencing the administration's stance from behind the scenes. On foreign aid, funding for diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, childhood education, and even broadband access, Gates has been making his voice heard.

In December, Gates had a sit-down with Vice President-Elect Joe Biden and others in the Obama transition team, urging them to support programs on education and global poverty even in the midst of the recession.

KEVIN WOLF/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Would you vote for this man? Gates talks policy in DC last month.

"I think we were very encouraged that the transition team and the incoming administration is likely to be quite strongly focused on things we think are important," says Geoffrey Lamb, a former World Bank director who now manages the Gates Foundation's public policy. "We got the strong sense there was wide agreement there had to be reform of public education, which pulled more disadvantaged, lower performing schools into the net of achievement ..."

Gates gets a welcome reception in the other Washington, but not because of connections. "People don't see you in Washington because you have lunch with them regularly," Lamb said. "They see you because they think you have something valuable to contribute."

Gates' own political contributions have run the gamut, from Democrats Patrick Leahy and Max Baucus to Republicans Arlen Specter and Congressman Dave Reichert.

As a private foundation, the Gates Foundation is restricted from lobbying, but it spends about 10 percent of its annual contributions on advocacy. That includes educating legislators, communicating with regulatory bodies and informing the public, according to the foundation.

"What you're finding is that more and more, as these philanthrocapitalists are getting more experienced, they're seeing that they need to get better and better at the leverage, particularly about how you use advocacy and public opinion to change policy," says Matthew Bishop, the author of Philanthrocapitalism. "So they're going more and more into politics."