Churches are feeling the recession's pain, and declines in contributions have worsened in recent months, a new study of more than 1,000 congregations has found.

In the "2010 State of the Plate" survey conducted in February and March, 38 percent of church leaders said that giving fell over the past year, up from 29 percent in a similar survey done at the same time in 2009. And fewer churches reported gains: 36 percent, down from 47 percent in the earlier survey.

Megachurches—those with 2,000 to 5,000 members in weekly attendance—were more likely to report declines in donations. Forty-seven percent of such churches said giving go declined compared with just 23 percent the previous year.

In response to a new question this year, about a third of church leaders said giving in December 2009 failed to meet their expectations. The same percentage also said that they had cut their budgets by...

Fund raising has long been about relationships.

The best fund raisers are typically those with great people skills—they know how to create and cultivate long-term personal connections with donors.

But as times change, great people skills may no longer be enough.

Technology, demographics, and many other trends are changing the way many fund raisers approach their jobs—so much so that the fund raiser of the future might need to have a much broader set of skills.

In its next issue, The Chronicle will explore these trends and offer a profile of the fund raiser of the future.

Until then, though, we'd like to hear from you.

What skills do you think every fund raiser will need 10 years from now? And what skills should today's fund raiser develop now so they are ready to confront a rapidly changing world?

Share your thoughts in the comments area below—and check back on April 5 to find out...

Fund raising and charitable giving are the subject of a growing body of research by economists, psychologists, and other scholars.

This emerging line of study got a lift last week, with the announcement of $1.4-million in grants that will pay for four research projects that seek to advance scientific understanding of generosity. The money comes from the University of Notre Dame's Science of Generosity Initiative, which was created last year with a $5-million grant from John Templeton Foundation and another $200,000 from the university.

Following are the projects that will benefit:

• A $250,000 study of how empathy affects charitable donations by James Andreoni, a behavioral economist at the University of California San Diego.
• A $396,447 project by Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard University sociologist, to examine how generosity spreads in human social networks.
• A $456,906 examination...

Fund raisers at older organizations such as the American Red Cross or American Cancer Society may feel a false sense of security about their ability to raise more money than smaller, less well-known organizations.

In an online presentation last week, Roger Craver, a direct-marketing expert, and researcher David Lawson  shared a new analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service, which found that charities created in 1969 or earlier raised a total of $205-billion in 2007. Groups created in 1970 or later raised $105-billion, or about half as much. The average amount that organizations created after 1970 raised grew steadily during every decade they were in existence. Newer organizations, Mr. Craver said, are able to raise more impressive sums than many fund raisers have realized.

Other research suggests that the older organizations are losing charitable dollars to newer charities:...

Arts organizations, educational groups, and other charities that seek grants from the Ford Foundation take note: The philanthropy has hired a new person to oversee a significant portion of its grant making.

Darren Walker, who now works at the Rockefeller Foundation, will be joining Ford as vice president of its "education, creativity, and free expression" grant making.  That means he oversees three of Ford's nine major grant-making programs, including those that support cultural institutions, reproductive health, education causes, and scholarships.

According to Ford, Mr. Walker will guide more than $150-million in grants. The Ford Foundation, with $10.5-billion in assets as of December 31, is the nation's second largest foundation.

Mr. Walker joined Rockefeller in 2002 and led its efforts to help impoverished neighborhoods. When Judith Rodin became the foundation's president in 2005, ...

Hartsook Companies, a fund-raising consulting company in Kansas City, Mo., is offering charities located in or near Baltimore and Washington the chance to receive a free, customized consulting session during a three-day period next month.

The sessions, which the company is billing as its "Growing Philanthropy Tour," will be held on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 9-11, in advance of the annual conference of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Baltimore.

Each consultation will last 90 minutes to two hours. Charities that qualify for one of the free sessions must fill out an online application, send three key officials, including a board member, to the in-person meeting, and agree to a pre-consultation telephone interview. Consultants will also offer follow-up communications with each organization about 90 days after the in-person session.

Issues that nonprofit groups...

According to the Edinburgh Evening News, Tom Campbell, the head of an organization that promotes tourism in the historic Scottish city, believes that street solicitors working on behalf of charities are a bigger problem than beggars.

In reporting that news, the paper said in an editorial that it supported Mr. Campbell's views. "At last someone in authority has taken a stand against the blight on our streets that is the 'chugger,'" the editors wrote. Charities, it added, "have countless ways to tap into the benevolent hearts of caring people in Edinburgh and beyond. Press-ganging them in the open streets should not be one of them."

According to the editorial, Mr. Campbell has joined the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce in calling for a crackdown on "chuggers" or charity muggers, as street solicitors are derisively called throughout Great Britain.

But in a followup story, charities...

The story of a never-married secretary who left $7-million in her will to her alma mater is still making the rounds—in fact, the ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer noted the gift in a recent piece called "Secret Donor."

Grace Groner had quietly amassed a fortune with a single investment: Back in 1935, she bought three shares of stock, each worth $60, in Abbott Laboratories where she worked; it grew to $7-million.

But no one knew that Ms. Groner, who died at 100 years of age, was a multimillionaire until her extraordinary gift to Lake Forest College was announced. She lived frugally in a tiny cottage that was worth about $150,000.

Still, there were clues that could have tipped off a savvy fund raiser, even though development officers and the president of Lake Forest had no idea the gift was in the works, writes blogger and direct-marketing expert Roger Craver in The Agitator.

For one thing,...

More than three-quarters of consumers say that a marketing partnership between a charity and a company they trust makes a charitable cause stand out, according to a new survey commissioned by Cone, a Boston marketing firm.

More than half of the people in the survey -- 56 perscent -- said that such partnerships make them more likely to "feel positively" toward the nonprofit group. Half of the participants said that they would be more likely to make a donation to the charity, and 41 percent reported that they would be more likely to volunteer for the organization.

In the past, Cone has surveyed consumers about their attitudes toward companies that align themselves with charitable causes, but for this project, the marketing firm wanted to look at the issue from the perspective of the nonprofit groups, says Alison DaSilva, an executive vice president at Cone.

When a charity is thinking...

A New York charity is experimenting with new technologies to raise awareness about the problem of homelessness -- and hopefully reach out to new donors.

Three evenings last week, Pathways to Housing projected the image of a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk and shivering in the cold in downtown Manhattan. Words also projected onto the side of a building asks passersby to send a text message to help get him off the streets.

When someone sends a text message, it triggers a new video loop in which the man gets up and walks in the door of his new apartment. The idea is to convey visually the organization's approach to combatting homelessness, which emphasizes getting people who are homeless into housing first and then tackling issues like mental health and addiction.

As the man gets up, the organization's name and Web site address are projected next to the image. The person who sent...