Many sectors of the economy have slowed to a crawl, and law firms are finding their associates with time on their hands. It’s a blessing for nonprofits, who face their own financial challenges, that many firms are stepping up their pro bono legal programs as a result. onPhilanthropy spoke with Michael A. Rothenberg, Executive Director of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, about trends NYLPI is seeing:

With a Foundation Center report out today on giving trends in 2007, nonprofits are anxiously scouring the analysis for hints as to how funders will act in the year ahead. Organizations supporting the environment and animals had a strong showing, so those sectors may feel a bit more secure, but who knows whether even that trend will continue?

When I meet with the leaders of a nonprofit organization for the first time,
I often ask them what they would say if I grabbed them by the collar and demanded to know, “If your organization ceased to exist tomorrow, what would happen to the world?” The question always startles them, because they’d assumed that their mission was perfectly obvious, their cause deserving, and that if consultants like me could provide a little guidance, they could attract funds from donors large and small.

onPhilanthropy spoke with Robert Thompson, new Sr. Vice President for Development at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF

As a tantalizing opening to the ServiceNation summit conference convening today in New York City, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain appeared at Columbia University last night to lay out their views on public service. They appeared back-to-back, sharing the stage only momentarily, to answer questions from Judy Woodruff of PBS and Richard Stengel of Time Magazine.

Remember Ted Turner’s pledge of $1 billion to the United Nations? At the time, it was groundbreaking on several levels. Not only were 10-figure philanthropic commitments from an individual exceedingly rare, but the notion of the United Nations as a beneficiary did not exist.

Increasingly, the power of an effective brand, long embraced by the corporate world, is being seen by nonprofits as a critical tool in the competitive philanthropic marketplace.

This year, Share Our Strength, the national organization dedicated to fighting child hunger, will mark the 20th anniversary of its groundbreaking event, Taste of the Nation. At an event in New York to kick off the anniversary year, onPhilanthropy spoke with SOS co-founder, Debbie Shore, as well as some of the leading chefs involved in this culinary benefit, which has raised more than $70 million since it began.

At the Clinton Global Initiative last week, BRAC announced a $271 million commitment to support education for girls in Africa and Asia. Founded in 1972 by Fazle Hasan Abed to provide small scale relief and rehabilitation for the poor in Bangladesh, BRAC has grown into one of the world’s largest nonprofits.

Bill Clinton has famously created an unprecedented role in his post-presidential years, of brokering and encouraging philanthropic initiatives that are historic in their scope and degree of innovation. Building on the boost that the Clinton Global Initiative has given to philanthropy, he’s now published a book that seeks to infect average citizens with the same joy of giving that’s become widely associated with industrial tycoons.

So we noted with interest that NOW On PBS-TV is about to launch a new series, called Enterprising Ideas, which will focus on “stories that highlight people using their business acumen to make the world a better place,” according to David Brancaccio, the program’s host. What’s notable about this series is that it is planned to be aired over 2 years, focusing on 18-20 different initiatives. The significant commitment that makes it possible comes from the Skoll Foundation, through the PBS Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fund.

So we noted with interest that NOW On PBS-TV is about to launch a new series, called Enterprising Ideas, which will focus on “stories that highlight people using their business acumen to make the world a better place,” according to David Brancaccio, the program’s host. What’s notable about this series is that it is planned to be aired over 2 years, focusing on 18-20 different initiatives. The significant commitment that makes it possible comes from the Skoll Foundation, through the PBS Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fund.

onPhilanthropy spoke with Dr. Jeffrey Solomon, President of The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, a family of charitable foundations operating in Canada, Israel, and the United States. Their mission is to encourage young people to strengthen their knowledge and appreciation of their history, heritage, and culture, as well as to support programs to improve the quality of life in Israel.