Where Most Needed

USAID Kicks Associates & Takes Names

The USAID Partner Vetting Program wants specifics on who is receiving aid using their funds, but just in the West Bank and Gaza—for now.  The proposal highlights the curious variability in the expectations of transparency—one organization advocating for vetting doesn't turn up in databases of registered nonprofit organizations. 

Harvard Business School's Modest Social Entrepreneurs

Compared with their enterprising west coast rivals, social entrepreneurs at HBS seem downright genteel.

Save Darfur Coaltion: Advocacy Ads Aggravate, Director Fired

Executive director fired—it might be due to complaints from groups on the ground or from a financial company targeted in a divestment campaign.  Competing rationales pit the New York Times against the Boston Globe.

Beware the $100 Laptop

What some propose as the solution to the digital divide just may be the twenty-first century version of "let them eat cake" from the young and wealthy digital elite in the US, described in a new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. 

Faith-based Group Falters with Katrina Aid

Another group falls far short of its initial projections about the number of people provided with assistance, but few are paying attention. 

Nonprofit Organizations on Both Sides of World Bank Pay Scandal

Watchdog group releases documents that shows Paul Wolfowitz was highly involved in the posting of his companion to a nonprofit with close ties to the State Department. 

Google Buys Fun Statistical Visualization Tool from Swedish Nonprofit

The entertaining professor who founded the organization may feel a twinge of regret for going the charity route. 

Looking at Foundations as if They Mattered

A professor sees potential in the rise of incredibly large philanthropic gestures.  But I wonder whether the Gates Foundation is already spread too thin to expect real impact. 

Human Rights Charities: Russia Baffles 'Em with Bureaucracy

Amnesty International and Johns Hopkins University, among other, miss deadline for NGO registration.  Groups are hampered by devious rules, like a requirement that the forms be completed in Russian and not submitted at the last minute.   

Incompetent Charities Frustrate Disaster Response

Director of MSF/Doctors Without Borders in Belgium blasts the opportunistic charity response to major disasters.