By Debra E. Blum

Donations to environmental, conservation, and animal-welfare charities recovered steam last year, showing a 2.7-percent increase to $6.2-billion, according to Giving USA. That comes after a 9.4-percent fall the previous year.

Fund raisers say that while the needs of their groups do not diminish in a bad economy, making a case for support can sometimes be tricky.

“You can’t compete with charities helping hungry people,” says Joy Braunstein, chief executive of the Carolina Raptor Center, in Huntersville, N.C.

What groups like hers can do, she says, is to focus on what makes their own missions compelling and to capitalize on their assets. For the raptor center that means, for example, connecting donors with birds.

Last year the group started to offer donors a chance to name new birds brought to the center. It also offers donors a chance to help release a bird back into the wild. The release of a bald eagle requires a gift of up to $6,000.

Sometimes, though, organizations are forced to make a simple plea for cash. The Boone and Crockett Club, a conservation and hunting group in Missoula, Mont., was nearing the end of its fiscal year in April $35,000 short of its budget. Instead of ending the year in the red, the group sent an appeal to 850 supporters, stating its financial need. More than $47,000 quickly came in the door.

“We were afraid it might offend people,” Jodi Bishop, the group’s development program manager, says of the blunt message. “But I think people appreciated the straightforward approach.”

Pat Heller, director of development and outreach at the Potter League for Animals, in Middletown, R.I., says personal touches have helped her charity get through tough economic times. She has enlisted board members to write personal notes and messages to other potential supporters. And she has encouraged the trustees to run their own fund-raising events, including a jewelry sale organized by a board member who owns a jewelry company.

“You have to get all hands working and making those personal, I’d like you to help along with me, appeals,” Ms. Heller says. The Potter League is on pace to reach its $740,000 contributions goal by the end of this fiscal year next month, $200,000 more than it raised last year.

Still, the environmental pitches face challenges. Earth Share, a group that raises money for a coalition of environmental groups through employee giving drives, says donations dropped by nearly 4 percent in 2009, and when its fiscal year closes this month, donations will probably have dropped by 3.5 percent.

But the rest of 2010 could be a changed picture for many environmental groups because of the catastrophic oil spill along the Gulf Coast. Organizations responding to the disaster are getting extra attention from donors, foundations, and businesses that want to pitch in. And even groups in areas not directly affected by the spill are reaching out to donors to share messages about environmental protection and conservation.

Rob Moher, vice president for development and marketing at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, in Naples, says his group, with its wildlife-rehabilitation facility and sea-turtle monitoring program, is poised to respond as oil from the damaged well moves towards the state’s shores. Whatever the outcome of this spill, though, the conservancy is sending the message on its Web site and in its fund-raising appeals that groups like the conservancy have to be vigilant and strong.

“The oil spill has taken environmental consciousness up five notches,” Mr. Moher says. “Everybody is thinking about how delicate and vulnerable and connected things are. And we’re saying that along with all the critical work we do every day for our estuaries and wildlife and sea turtles, we all have to be ready for this and for the next crisis.”