Some links of interest over the past few days…

from our Jewish world:

Dame Vivien Duffield: ‘You’re lucky if you have one good relationship’

the woman behind one of the most progressive foundations in the UK; a major current initiative, the new Jewish Community Centre in London.

There are two strands to the small but powerfully built Dame Vivien Duffield: her fabled ability to raise money and her even greater enthusiasm for giving it away.

In a lifetime’s rampant philanthropy, she has parted with an estimated £176 ($350.) million from her various foundations and is still distributing £6 million a year.

Market Wise

SEVERAL ISRAELI organizations and institutions have begun marketing the concept of philanthropy. Aside from wanting to promote the idea of giving for the greater good, some of these organizations are marketing their own raison d’etre or their pet projects. Israel is marketing the development of the Negev and actively looking for foreign and local investors. If the Negev is to become the southern hub of Israeli hi-tech, it has to be able to include qualified personnel as the human assets in its marketing strategies. Moreover it has to provide adequate education facilities for people living in the area to want to stay there to study.

and from the business side:

Causes Reports On Its First Year – $2.5 Million For 20,000 Charities And NonProfits

Causes, a Facebook and MySpace application that promotes viral donations of time and money to charities and nonprofits, launched a year ago. They’ve now released statistics today on their usage and donation numbers for that first year.

The company says they’ve registered 12 million users who are now supporting more than 80,000 non-profit causes worldwide. $2.5 million has been raised for 19,445 different 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Facebook reports 60,000 daily users of the application, and MySpace reports 25,000.

New IRS Rules Help Donors Vet Charities

Revised Tax Form Will Make Nonprofits Reveal More About How They Spend

Tax Exemptions of Charities Face New Challenges

Authorities from the local tax assessor to members of Congress are increasingly challenging the tax-exempt status of nonprofit institutions…

One issue is the growing confusion over what constitutes a charity at a time when nonprofit groups look more like businesses, charging fees and selling products and services to raise money, and state and local governments are under financial pressure because of lower tax revenues.