Typically a consistent source of revenue for the nonprofit groups that rely on them, child sponsorships may even be suffering as a result of the recession, according to a study conducted for World Vision.

One in five people surveyed in August said they were less likely to sponsor a child because of the economic climate. More than half said they would be more likely to sign on to a sponsorship program if they had more money, according to the poll of more than 1,000 adults by Harris Interactive.

Lana Reda, vice president of donor engagement with World Vision, said that fewer people feel comfortable making a long-term commitment to a charity when the economic situation is so fragile.

“Americans have a great heart for those that are downtrodden,” she said. “But it takes discretionary income, as well as the ongoing ability to...

Sean Stannard-Stockton, an adviser to donors and a columnist for The Chronicle, predicts that foundation giving will plummet in 2010.

Here’s why:

Foundations are required to give 5 percent of their assets annually, based on the value of their investments the previous year. “If the market trades exactly sideways for the rest of the year, required foundation giving in 2010 is going to fall another 23 percent compared to 2009,” writes Mr. Stannard-Stockton.

What’s more, many foundations tried to maintain their giving last year because of the greater needs — and to the extent their grants exceeded the 5 percent figure, they can count it toward 2010’s requiring giving.

“In other words,” writes Mr....

Most people who give to street or face-to-face fund-raising campaigns — in which paid solicitors sign up pedestrians who agree to make automatic monthly gifts from their credit card or bank account — are in their 20s. But charities that do this type of fund raising should instead be pursuing “the perfect donor demographic,” a 38.5-year-old professional woman.

That’s the conclusion of Daryl Upsall, who heads a Madrid fund-raising consulting firm that specializes in face-to-face fund raising, and Owen Watkins, an international face-to-face fund-raising specialist for Unicef Switzerland. The two men will present their findings next month at the International Fundraising Conference in the Netherlands.

Based on an analyis of the records on the millions of donors recruited by face-to-face fund raising in the Britain and Spain over the last...

The economic downturn has caused direct mail and other mass fund-raising methods to decline, intensifying a slump that began a few years ago, according to a new survey of several dozen of the nation’s largest charities.

In the six months ending in June, every measure of the health of direct-marketing appeals declined: total contributions raised, total number of donors, number of new donors recruited, amount contributed per donor, number of donors who made repeat gifts, and number of donors who had stopped giving but were persuaded to renew their support.

This year’s across-the-board decreases are medians, meaning that half of the 77 charities in the survey did better and half did worse. Median declines in all the direct-marketing measures have...

Among cities large and small, who is the most generous of them all?

In terms of online giving, Alexandria, Va., took the prize for the most charitable giving per capita last year among cities with populations over 100,000, according to an analysis by Convio, a company that provides Web-based software to charities. The city, which is located just a few miles from Washington, D.C., was followed by Cambridge, Mass., and Minneapolis, Minn.

Princeton, N.J., beat out Carlsbad, Calif., and Wilmington, Del., among small cities, which were ranked based on total dollar amounts contributed rather than per- capita giving.

Convio based the rankings on an analysis of online donations it processed for 273 large cities and more than 1,700...

Kevin Wu, a 19-year-old college student, is arguably more popular than Michael Jackson: His KevJumba channel on YouTube, featuring dozens of humorous homemade videos by Mr. Wu, has more than 660,000 subscribers who’ve signed up to receive notification whenever he posts new material.

(Michael Jackson’s YouTube channel, produced by Sony, has only 423,000 subscribers.)

Now Mr. Wu is using YouTube to channel some of his online fame to raise money for charity.

Here’s how: Mr. Wu’s online channel is so popular that he became a YouTube user partner, agreeing to let advertisers selected by YouTube place messages alongside his videos. In return, he receives half of the monthly fees each advertiser pays YouTube; the fees vary according to how...

Local bloggers are trying to come to the rescue of a Washington, D.C., charity whose imminent demise was reported on Sunday in The Washington Post.

Trustees of the domestic-abuse charity, Weave, decided two weeks ago to shut down the organization because of a financial crunch.

But a Web site dedicated to keeping the group’s doors open has brought in more than $50,000 since last weekend, the blog DCist reports.

The blog encourages readers to donate to the organization online and attend a fund-raising happy hour.

Prince of Petworth, a blog that chronicles restaurant openings, safety concerns, and other news about the Petworth neighborhood in Washington,

Michael Adams, executive director of a charity that provides services to elderly gay residents in New York City, says that an advertising campaign helped his organization raise more money at the end of last year—even as other area charities suffered steep declines due to the recession.

Sage—as the charity is called to show its mission of providing services and advocacy for older gay New Yorkers—placed a series of ads in 1,500 city buses and subway stations in October, November, and December. Each had a simple message, such as “SAGE is caring” and “SAGE is creative,” and featured a photograph of one of the organization’s clients.

The ad campaign, produced by Double Platinum, a New York advertising agency, at a cost of $125,000, caused...

As fund raising goes more global, a new study shows that China continues to increase its philanthropic potential.

According to a study by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, Chinese charities raised $15.2-billion in 2008, more than three times the amount in the previous year, says China Daily, an English language newspaper in Beijing, and China CSR, a Web site that tracks corporate giving.

The study says that for the first time individuals gave more than businesses. It credited the growth to the government’s effort to create laws that govern donations and nonprofit groups.

In a separate article,

In a move that will undoubtedly delight some grant seekers and disappoint others, the Boston Foundation announced today a massive shift in how it will distribute some $17-million annually in grants.

Over the next two years, the foundation will greatly increase the number and size of its general operating-support grants. Such grants are highly sought after by fund raisers because they are not tied to specific projects and may be spent on whatever the charity chooses, including salaries and other administrative expenses.

However, with its new grant-making approach, the foundation will limit the recipients of general operating support to charities that work to improve education, health, neighborhoods, arts and culture, and the economic competitiveness of the Greater Boston region. It said that, based on eight years of research to gauge conditions in the region, it...