Parents have an opportunity this back-to-school season to combine their shopping with philanthropy. The retail company T.J. Maxx is collaborating with Save the Children to help needy children succeed in school.

From August 14 to September 12, T.J. Maxx will give away bookmarks, featuring Save the Children artwork, to every customer. The bookmarks invite people to play an online “Great Book Adventure” game, making them eligible to win a $1,000 shopping spree. For every player, the company will donate a book to help children living in poor rural areas of the United States.

T.J. Maxx is also hosting an in-store donation program during the back-to-school season that will enable customers to make contributions to Save the Children.

How can fund raisers take advantage of the back-to-school season? What are some other examples of charities that are using this season to raise money?

Kelly Stettner, founder and director of the Black River Action Team in Springfield, Vt., was inspired by the recent exchange Prospecting sponsored to help a charity official draft his first fund-raising letter.

Ms. Stettner, who works as a secretary by day, runs the nine-year-old environmental advocacy group in her spare time and says she is drafting an appeal in the hope that it “will encourage more business owners to donate and to think creatively about the ways they can help. Ink cartridge donations, money, food for volunteers, items to raffle off — it’s all good.”

Before she sends out her pitch, though, Ms. Stettner would love some advice from her peers in the fund-raising world. Please post a comment to show how you would improve the following appeal:

In 2000, I was walking across a bridge near Riverside Middle School in Springfield with my family. I looked over the...

“Jobless,” “broken,” and, of course, “change.” Based on which of those — and hundreds of other — words Barack Obama uses during his speech to the Democratic National Convention tomorrow night, a charity could stand to win thousands of dollars.

Two Denver businessmen have created an online bingo game for philanthropic convention watchers. Participants pay $10 for a bingo card that includes squares listing words from Mr. Obama’s speeches. They also choose their favorite charity from a list of 581 groups.

The Web site will capture Mr. Obama’s speech and match the words to the playing cards. The first bingo card to capture five squares in a row will be declared the winner, and money raised from sales of the cards will go to a charity chosen by the winner.

All of the money the game raises will go to the charitable organization, according to the http://obama-bingo Web site.

“With...

In recent years, nonprofit groups have increasingly recognized for the need for succession plans to help replace the chief executive, but few have planned how to replace people in other key jobs such as the chief fund raiser, says Polly Aris Stamatopoulos, a Washington fund-raising consultant.

“One thing that never gets talked about is a succession plan for the development director,” Ms. Stamatopoulos. “Who is going to fill in? Does the board jump in or other managers?”

The rocky economy is putting a damper on the job market for fund raisers in some parts of the country, but turnover remains stubbornly high, according to membership surveys by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

That’s one reason why charities would be wise to create a plan of action in the event their director of development gives notice, according to Nancy Racette, an executive recruiter with...

Marathons and other athletic contests to benefit charity are commonplace, but Michigan Community Blood Centers, in Grand Rapids, is taking its athletic event to new heights.

On September 5 and 6, some 70 people will rappel 400 feet off the side of a 32-story building to raise money for the organization. The event is expected to net $50,000 or more for the charity from participants who pay a fee of $1,000 each to participate.

To pull off the event, the Michigan group has signed a contract with Over the Edge, a Canadian company that recently expanded into the United States.

The company is charging the charity a one-time fee of $20,000 to handle technical aspects of the event, including rappeling equipment, insurance, and ensuring that relevant state and federal laws, as well as safety standards, are followed. In addition, it provides a mandatory training session for all participants...

Fund raising is filled with myths about what works — and why.

David Valinsky and Melanie Boyd, two fund-raising consultants, write in their book Raising Money Through Bequests that they don’t believe in giving up on people who have not given for a while.

They acknowledge that a lot of fund raisers believe if someone gave money to your organization in the past, but hasn’t done so in a number of years, you shouldn’t bother keeping them on your mailing list.

Mr. Valinsky and Ms. Boyd warn fund raisers not to be so hasty. “Our colleague Wayne tells a cautionary tale,” they write. “He was surprised when one of these lapsed donors, a woman who upon her husband’s death felt she couldn’t continue her annual support, left the organization with a significant bequest. In her mind, she wasn’t a lapsed donor. She was simply delaying her gift.”

Do you have a story of a lapsed donor who was ...

Less than half of the nation’s charities use screening tools designed to help them find donors, according to a new study of more than 1,300 fund raisers commissioned by The Chronicle.

The study asked fund raisers whether they use products that help them identify prospective donors, determine how big a gift to seek from donors, and gather demographic information about supporters. Forty-two percent of fund raiser said they used such tools.

Not surprisingly, larger nonprofit groups are more likely to use professional research tools for screening potential donors. The survey found that 66 percent of nonprofit groups with $25-million or more in annual revenue use such tools.

Results from the full survey, conducted by the research firm Campbell Rinker, in Valencia, Calif., will be released Saturday morning at the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement conference in...

When people sign up to receive online newsletters and other information from a charity, they usually receive little more than an acknowledgment from the organization for at least month.

Cutting that lag time can produce fund-raising benefits for nonprofit groups, according to a new background paper by Common Knowledge, a San Francisco consulting firm that advises nonprofit groups on online fund raising. (Free registration is required to download the document.)

The paper cites the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which reaped donations from 83 percent more of the people on its e-mail list when they were sent a series of 10 messages that started showing up in their e-mail boxes within two days after they first signed up to receive information.

The messages continued at a pace of two per week for five weeks. Only the last message in the series requested a donation. Those who ...

Fund raisers are debating the ethics of a new product designed to help fund raisers attract bequests and other gifts.

Created by two companies working jointly, the product, known as Planned Gift Prospector, offers a presentation on a compact disc that charities can send to donors. The presentation showcases each charity’s work and can be configured to ask donors to make a bequest or other planned gifts that provide tax breaks and other benefits.

What worries some fund raisers, however, is that whenever potential donors view the disc on a computer connected to the Internet, the product can track whether and how long each donor watches the presentation. That information, and other details about their viewing habits, are automatically sent to the charity — all without the donor’s knowledge.

Critics say that amounts to an invasion of donors’ privacy. “Inappropriate, invasive,...

Nearly three in four of America’s largest corporations expect donations to charity to remain flat or decrease this year, according to The Chronicle’s annual survey on corporate giving.

Even so, charities can find ways to win money from businesses. To learn how to do so, join the Chronicle today at noon Eastern time for a live online discussion.

You will be able to pose questions to:

• Mark W. Shamley, chief executive of the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals in Orlando, Fla.

• Nancy Williams, national program director at the Verizon Foundation, in Basking Ridge, N.J.