Not long after Steve Jobs’ death, Harvard Business Review ran an article entitled “Steve Jobs, World’s Greatest Philanthropist.” The title was intentionally ironic, since Jobs was not at the time known to have made gifts of $1 million or more during the last years of his life … despite having wealth estimated at $3.3 billion. Now, Jobs may have made such gifts and chosen to make them anonymously, but I’ve not heard anyone argue that he was a generous giver.

When I was a new father, a wise older father told me never to punish my child out of anger or frustration. That advice applies well to every human relationship — to count to 10 … or 100… before acting. It seems that the same advice applies to philanthropy. Several philanthropic experts are urging that [...]

Some generous and brilliant donors are committed to funding charitable solutions, but are not up for the due diligence, hard work, and patience required for truly effective philanthropy. Often, the larger the grants, the greater the challenges. In “Philanthropy That Gets Results,” Thomas Tierney and Joel Fleishman write that grantmakers and donors too often settle [...]

A year ago, I read an article about a school which the singer Madonna was helping to fund in Malawi, and something struck me as wrong. Everyone had good intentions. Madonna visited the site twice, and was moved to learn that 67% of Malawi girls don’t go to secondary school. Her generosity (reportedly $11 million so far) and the goals of the Raising Malawi organization seemed impressive.

This weekend, 250 MBA students from the country’s top business schools will gather at Yale for a conference on integrating faith and work. One student organizer said, “Young people today see business differently. They want to know how their values play out in their career.” They’re attracted by social entrepreneurship and other paths that embrace the market, but allow the faithful to do well by doing good. [Doing God's Work--At The Office]

I have often heard business executives, after volunteer stints with charities, lament that it is more difficult to run a non-profit than a for-profit company. The most commonly cited reason is that objectives are not as obvious as they are with businesses, where profit and shareholder value are always the goal. In addition, it is often difficult for nonprofits to market their uniqueness or effectiveness, because their “product” is intangible, incremental, and personal. Finally, charity employees can be harder to motivate, because they expect more personal needs to be met by their jobs. Nonprofit employees usually seek fulfillment, service, and fellowship…and are willing to sacrifice money and prestige as tradeoffs.

Not long ago in The Wall Street Journal, noted philanthropy expert Pablo Eisenberg recommended changes in major philanthropy (particularly foundations) during these difficult economic times.  In summary, he said foundations are bureaucratic, inflexible and cautious, and too focused on short-term objectives.  Among Dr. Eisenberg’s 9 remedies, a few struck me as particularly interesting.

There are many reasons that America’s Christians should dig deep and give big. Let’s begin, of course, with Jesus. He constantly pointed us toward service, compassion, servanthood, humility, and love…not to mention sacrificial generosity. We Americans also have another reason: our country’s high value for human dignity. Borrowing from philosopher John Locke, Thomas Jefferson enshrined [...]

Many individual philanthropists want to use their money to tackle huge global problems. A recent report by the University of Pennsylvania, Lifting the Burden of Malaria: An Investment Guide for Impact-Driven Philanthropy, used malaria

Nonprofits operate very differently than companies–a point of frustration for many donors. When for profit companies meet a consumer need, they generate revenue; when charities meet a societal need, they generate more demand for their services…but no money. Nonprofits are actually two businesses- one that delivers the product or service, and one that generates revenue. [...]