Americans donated $217.3-billion in 2009, a decrease of $11.2-billion or 4.9 percent compared to 2008, according to new estimates from researchers at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College. 

The researchers are more optimistic about giving in 2010. They expect giving by individuals to range between $222-billion and $227-billion, an increase of 3 to 4.5 percent.

The estimates -- which exclude grants made by foundations and corporations and bequests from estates -- are based on a model that uses changes in economic data to forecast charitable giving. The model is designed to be modified every three months based on new data, such as price and market indices as well as information about income and net worth.

The researchers note that the 4.9 percent drop in 2009 was in addition to an estimated 6 percent decrease in 2008.

"It will be some time before we can reverse these ...

Catalog Choice, a nonprofit organization that works to reduce the number of repeat and unwanted catalog mailings, is holding a new competition to "discover, recognize, and reward efforts to move nonprofit fund-raising efforts in a paperless direction."

Charities can enter the Paperless Choice Challenge beginning on June 15. The deadline for all entries is September 15.

With money donated by the Overbrook Foundation, the competition will award a first prize ($5,000) and an honorable mention ($1,000) for the best digital fund-raising campaign by charities that compete in categories based on the size of their budget: small ($1-million or less), medium ($1-million to $5-million), and large ($5-million or more).

Additional awards will be given for the most innovative paperless fund-raising campaign, and charities of any size may compete for those prizes, which also come with a cash award...

In these tough fund-raising times, many charities are putting special effort into building ties to donors who give midsize sums, usually $1,000 to $5,000, as The Chronicle notes in an article from its latest issue.

But many organizations need to take a more sophisticated approach to deciding which donors of midsize gifts deserve extra attention, one that takes into account all of the data they have about their supporters, says a fund-raising consultant.

"It's too easy for organizations to say, OK, we're just going to pull everybody who's given us $1,000 in the last six months," says Kristin McCurry, managing director of Mindset Direct, a fund-raising consulting company in Arlington, Va.

Using those criteria, she says, a nonprofit organization whose work has received a lot of news-media attention—like a relief groups responding to a disaster or an advocacy group whose top public-policy...

When Polly Aris Stamatopoulos directed fund raising at a gay-rights organization, she recalls that "on more than one occasion, I was asked to send a young, attractive guy to meet with an older male donor" at the donor's request. To protect her staff members, she says, "the decision I made was to send myself."

Ms. Stamatopoulos, now a fund-raising consultant in Washington, says that sexually charged incidents involving development officers are so common that "there should be a class on the sexual politics of fund raising."

Unwanted advances or even sexual harassment on the job are common complaints. As the Minneapolis consultant Bruce Flessner says, "These situations are not uncommon, unfortunately."

I have noticed the same thing in 20 years of covering fund raising and hearing such concerns. One woman, who asked me to withhold her name, described two instances in which male donors ...

In the first year of the Schwab Charitable Microfinance Guarantee Program, donors set aside $10-million from their gift funds to guarantee small loans to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries.

As of March 31, the Grameen Foundation had closed guarantee transactions based on Schwab Charitable-backed commitments to benefit an estimated 116,468 borrowers in Egypt, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Through the program, donors can recommend that up to 10 percent of the money in their donor-advised accounts be set aside for 24-36 months to guarantee microfinance loans. The money remains invested for the entire period and is applied to the guarantee only if the microfinance program has losses in excess of reserves.

Because microfinance loans are repaid by borrowers over relatively short time frames and then loaned out again, Schwab Charitable estimates that the initial $10-million in...

Michael R. Chin Quee of Food For the Poor in Coconut Creek, Fla., shares his elevator pitch - the short speech he gives about his organization when he meets prospective donors.

Watch the video to see his technique-and to see how your own pitch stacks up.

Prospecting will highlight more pitches in the coming days. But if you...

Jocelyn Harmon, director of nonprofit services for Care2, an online network that helps people interact with charities they care about, says she reviews at least 10 nonprofit Web sites every day. That's why she can say with some authority that most of them are doing a very bad job of seeking online donations.

In her personal blog about nonprofit marketing, Ms. Harmon offers her concerns. Among them: charities that have no pictures on their site or bad stock photos of people who are not part of the organization.

Others, she says, have "way too much text" on their site. "Do not include a "letter from your executive director" unless he or she is famous," she advises. "Instead, consider doing a three-minute podcast or video so people can hear what your organization is all about. Keep it short and sweet and make it good."

Ms. Harmon also takes groups to task for featuring outdated content. ...

Several charities have told The Chronicle that it's taking them longer to receive money they were promised in donors' wills because it is so hard to sell the real estate and other items donors left when they died. 

Even when the properties do sell, the price is often substantially lower than it was before the real estate market started to plummet in 2007.

Fund raisers blame double-digit declines in bequest income at the American Heart Association (down 14 percent) and the Nature Conservancy (down 20 percent) on the crash of the real-estate market.

Harvard University is even harder hit: Most real-estate sales over the past two years have generated about 25 percent less than they would have before the economic downturn, according to Charles W. Collier, a senior philanthropic adviser at the university.

Has your organization faced a drop in bequest income because of the sluggish...

Christine Zini of Aspire in Fayetteville, Arkansas, shares her elevator pitch - the short speech she gives about her organization when she meets prospective donors.

Watch the video to see her technique-and to see how your own pitch stacks up.

Prospecting will highlight more pitches in the coming days. But if you can't...

Four months after the Haiti earthquake, charities working on relief efforts continue to raise money, and some of them may well get some extra attention from musicians on tour this summer.

For instance, at a concert outside of Washington last night, Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, told crowd about the work of Sean Penn's group, J/P Haitian Relief Organization. Mr. Vedder told his fans that he needs "a favor" from them and asked concert-goers to visit the Web site of Mr. Penn's charity and make a gift.

Mr. Vedder then delivered a stirring rendition, complete with full crowd sing-along, of one of Pearl Jam's oldest and most beloved songs. Mr. Vedder said he wasn't dedicating all the song's lyrics to Mr. Penn because it is is about an abusive relationship, but he did say the title described the actor aptly: "Better Man."