International Fundraising

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would expedite applications to help Iran’s earthquake victims. Prospective donors have expressed worry and confusion over whether such charitable aid runs afoul of the extensive American sanctions imposed on the country because of its disputed nuclear program.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees a bureaucratic maze of regulations on Iranian sanctions, requires a special license for making charitable donations. Exemptions are granted for personal remittances.

Resource Alliance Chief Executive Neelam Makhijani shares some of the conversations that took place at the future philanthropy forum.

Jennifer Klopp, vice president of development and communications at Helen Keller International, take a minute to discuss the organization's fundraising philosophy.

At 18, Abby Gribbin is a founding member and current president of the nonprofit group Education for San Pablo, which provides scholarships to poverty-stricken families throughout San Pablo, in southwest Guatemala. With help from her parents and family friends, Abby manages the organization from her home in Leesburg, Va.

“It’s a really small nonprofit,” Abby said of the organization, which has six permanent members. Nevertheless, the group has a broad reach, she said, communicating regularly by phone and e-mail with fellow aid workers in Guatemala and the families they assist.

The Institute of Development Studies, the Resource Alliance and the Rockefeller Foundation have launched a global dialogue to foster innovative partnerships focused on the improvement of human well-being. The Bellagio Initiative brings together the world’s most respected and innovative thinkers in the fields of philanthropy and international development. Over the coming months they will consider the key issues likely to shape the future well-being of humanity and identify new opportunities for joint action by philanthropic and development organisations.

PBS, known as the American television outlet for many British programs produced by the BBC and others, is looking to turn the tables by starting a digital channel in Britain.

The channel, which would be distributed via cable and satellite, would show both older and current PBS programs for which it is able to secure the rights. PBS officials declined to discuss specific shows, or the details of where the channel would be available, saying that plans were not final.

Global spending on humanitarian aid hit a record $16.7 billion in 2010 despite the financial crisis, but devastating disasters and rising delivery costs meant almost 40 percent of needs still went unmet, new data showed on Wednesday.

Governments poured $12.4 billion into emergency relief, up 6 percent from the year before, while private donors gave $4.3 billion, according to preliminary estimates by Global Humanitarian Assistance, a British-based aid monitoring group.

Relief operations have been constrained by the security situation in Somalia. But Islamist militant group al-Shabab last week announced it was lifting a ban on foreign aid organizations because of the severity of the drought.

The U.K.'s Disasters Emergency Committee has launched an appeal after severe drought in the Horn of Africa. The Disasters Emergency Committee said Somalia, where there has been no national government for 20 years, was one of the hardest places in the world to deliver aid.

Kraft Foods, the U.S.-based food and beverage giant, has announced a $3.8 million initiative to help eradicate child malnutrition in Indonesia and Bangladesh in partnership with Helen Keller International.

Announced at a World Economic Forum meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, the program will fund 180 farming "centers of excellence" over the next four years in the East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) region of Indonesia and the Satkhira district of Bangladesh.

Translations.com, the world’s largest privately held provider of language services and translation-related technologies, announced that it is working with The Foundation for a Better Life to provide transadaptation and cultural consulting services to the organization, which promotes positive values — such as courage, persistence, friendship and courtesy.