A political observer who dislikes John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate has created an e-mail campaign that is spurring thousands of donors to give to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the charity that supports women’s right to legal abortion.

The e-mail solicitation, now making its rounds on the Internet, urges people to make a gift to Planned Parenthood in Ms. Palin’s “honor”—as a way to register their objection to her political views, including her opposition to legalized abortion.

The e-mail includes a link to the charity’s Web site and instructions on how to make an honorary gift that will be acknowledged with a card sent from Planned Parenthood to the McCain-Palin campaign.

“Make a donation to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin’s name,” the solicitation reads. “A Planned Parenthood donation is tax-deductible, while a political...

Most capital campaigns design their strategies based on myths — and a a result, they often fail to reach their full potential, William C. Krueger, president of Capital Quest, a fund-raising consulting firm, told last week’s annual meeting of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, in Chicago.

For example, many people believe that campaign-feasibility studies predict how much will be raised, but “statistics mean nothing in a campaign,” said Mr. Krueger. Instead, he said, a preliminary study should be used to start a discussion with prospective donors about the campaign, not to come up with numbers for how much money can be raised.

Some fund raisers also believe that getting all board members to give to a campaign is essential, but an obsession with getting all board members of offer their support can kill a campaign, said Mr. Krueger.

“The words ’100% of the board has...

When Laura Walsh joined the BC Cancer Foundation in Vancouver Island seven years ago as its director of development, the center had recently completed a $7-million capital campaign and she was hesitant to ask big donors make additional gifts for other purposes, out of fear of causing donor fatigue.

But that was a mistake, she now says.

In a session at the annual meeting of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, she said she realizes she missed opportunities to bring in additional contributions and build upon relationships with donors who had already shown their support.

Securing major donations without the aid of a capital campaign’s energizing slogans, benchmarks, and lofty goals can be a challenge, she said. But it can be done.

When planning to seek money outside of a campaign, Ms. Walsh suggests using the same sort of aspirational language that is common in capital...

Charities that are “accustomed to generous grants from banks and financial-services firms should be prepared for some long, hard efforts to make up for some potentially prolonged fund-raising shortfalls,” writes Rick Cohen, a national correspondent for the Nonprofit Quarterly in a newly posted report that assesses much organizations could lose from the recent collapse of commercial banks and investment firms.

Using 2006 data from the Foundation Center, Mr. Cohen noted that six of the top 10 corporate grant makers in the United States are foundations established by companies in banking and finance.

Many of the banks that are now in trouble have traditionally given large sums, he notes.

Washington Mutual, which was seized by federal regulators and sold to J.P.Morgan on Thursday, gave $44-million in 2005, according to the Foundation Center. And the foundation created by Wachovia, ...

Do donors still trust charities?

Steve Andrews, director of charity marketing at the Direct Marketing Group, a British company, says he has noticed that people are increasingly skeptical about how charities operate.

And that is making it similarly difficult for fund raisers to win the support of donors.

Mr. Andrews, writing on the blog Professional Fundraising, points to a recent British survey that found a 17.5 percent drop in public trust of charities from September 2006 to July 2007.

“It turns out that only 42 percent of the British public now trust charities,” he writes. “Admittedly this is more than trust the BBC, the Royal Family, the Church or the banks, but that is surely a small consolation.”

He blames several possible causes — too many direct-mail pitches, too many tales of excessive executive compensation, and the notion that some charities look too much like...

Many fund raisers get frustrated when their carefully crafted direct-mail appeals create lower-than-expected results.

In many cases, charities blame the letter for the poor response.

But Sandy Rees, a fund raiser who works with nonprofit groups in Knoxville, Tenn., says the real culprit for poor direct-mail results often lies elsewhere.

Ms. Rees, writing on the Get Fully Funded Blog, says the letter accounts for only about 10 percent of a direct-mail appeal’s effectiveness.

The most important factor in getting results, she says, is the mailing list.

“The list you use to mail to will make or break your appeal,” Ms. Rees writes. “After all, if you don’t mail to the right people, it doesn’t matter how good your letter is.”

She estimates that the mailing list accounts for about 40 percent of an appeal’s success.

Other important elements include the timing of a mailing (20...

Half of America’ s largest colleges achieve increases in contributions, while half do not, according to research by John Glier, a Chicago fund-raising consultant.

Mr. Glier and his colleagues examined the past fund-raising performance of 20 to 50 big colleges and universities during each of four previous recessions.

Institutions whose contributions dropped during one or more recessions were those that failed to hire a sufficient number of fund raisers, lagged in their efforts to recruit donors, or failed to promptly fill a key fund-raising or other leadership job, Mr. Glier said.

Colleges and universities where fund raising continued to flourish during hard times, he says, tended to be those that planned for the economy to sour as well as those that were sensitive to the need to take special measures and took a long view of their fund-raising operations.

He points to one...

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and federal takeover of AIG this week has charities increasingly worried about fund raising: Not only will they lose gifts from the companies and their employees, but the market’s contractions are likely to make other donors leery of giving in coming months.

Bruce Flessner, a Minneapolis fund-raising consultant, offers several tips to help institutions in the midst of big fund-raising campaigns weather this latest Wall Street crisis. Among them:

• Reconsider how to approach donors directly affected by the financial industry’s woes. People who a year ago seemed like the best possible supporters may need to be approached differently—or not at all—until things improve.

• Do some new research into key donors’ assets. The portfolios of family foundations and other assets held by prospective donors may have changed. With updated information, fund...

Disasters such as the September 11 attacks, the tsunamis in Asia, and Hurricane Katrina spurred Americans to dig deep to support those in need.

But as charities such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army are appealing for help in the wake of the recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, some experts conclude that donors should be directing their money elsewhere.

Holden Karnofsky, the author of The Give Well Blog, points to a recent report on Disease Control Priorities that concludes that emergency relief is one of the least-effective forms of philanthropy.

The report says charities and donors should focus their money on disaster preparedness and on activities that combat “chronic, everyday health problems.”

“I’m personally hesitant to give to disaster relief again,” Mr. Karnofsky writes of his reaction to the report. “I’d rather up my donations to projects that aim to...

This month’s decision by America’s Second Harvest to change its name to Feeding America strikes some fund raisers as risky business. The charity represents 200 food banks, many of which are already facing a tough fund-raising time because of the bad economy.

Other charities that have changed their names have faced trouble.

Gifts to Handgun Control, the advocacy organization, dropped after it changed its name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in 2001.

“Seven years later, we still use the old name on the outer envelope of our mailings because responses drop when we don’t,” said Mary Ester, the Brady Campaign’s director of development.

Feeding America dropped the Second Harvest label because it “was a barrier to our mission,” said Wendy MacGregor, the organization’s chief marketing officer. Not only was the name too long, she says, but it was not recognized by many ...