What were Chronicle readers’ favorite posts on the Prospecting blog?

Here were the most popular, in order of the number of people who read them:

1. Charitable Giving Might Not Melt Down — Amid all the doom and gloom about the economy, John J. Havens, a researcher at Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. said that unless national incomes drop sharply, the decline in giving may not last long or be significant.

2. Bad Fund Raisers: Why Do Charities Keep Hiring Them — Why do normally well-run charities hire notoriously poor fund raisers? This September post offered some...

Many people do all their giving in a few frenzied days toward the end of December. Writing on her blog, Beth Kanter shares some ideas for incorporating charitable giving into the other 11 months of the year.

Marking a birthday is an easy way to spread giving days across the year. Last year, for her 51st birthday, Ms. Kanter persuaded 51 people to donate $10 apiece to the Sharing Foundation, a nonprofit group in Concord, Mass.

Charities’ Valentine’s Day fund-raising drives make it easy to give in February, and March weather encourages marathons and other outdoor fund-raising events to which you can donate.

Earth Day is in April, so Ms. Kanter says people can help celebrate by giving to an environmental group. May is Mother’s Day — and charities’...

According to a new survey, fund raisers say they are confident, but not wildly so, about meeting year-end fund-raising goals.

Of 741 charities, the majority of respondents — 43 percent — said they were “somewhat confident” they would meet their donation goals, says Charity Navigator, a watchdog group, in Mahwah, N.J., which conducted the informal survey.

Nineteen percent of respondents said they more confident, while 40 percent expressed less confidence.

Religious organizations showed the most optimism, with 10 percent saying they were “completely confident” about 2008 tallies. While International charities appeared to have the greatest concerns, with 15 percent saying they were “not confident at all.”

In terms...

Local newspapers have always raised money for charities during the holiday season, but now many of them are increasingly using their Web sites to help their readers make better decisions about their giving.

The Washington Post, for instance, today unveiled a new page on its Web site that offers readers an interactive map showcasing charities in the Washington region.

Other newspapers are taking a different approach.

The Chicago Tribune is collaborating with the Web site Good2Gether to create a searchable database of charities in the Chicago area.

The Austin American-Statesman, meanwhile, has given a fresh online look to its 10-year-old series

Many fund raisers are facing pressure to cut costs as donations drop. But Jeff Malloch, a direct-mail consultant, warns that cost-cutting mania can lead to really bad decisions.

Writing in a letter posted on The Agitator blog, he tells nonprofit officials to remember that reducing expenses only makes sense if it contributes over the longer term to higher (or more stable) revenues.

Mr. Malloch takes on several fund-raising ideas in a recent Chronicle article, saying they focus too much on cutbacks and not enough on innovation. For example, he says that the Mint Museum of Art’s decision to combine three solicitations into one year-end mailing, which saved $5,000.

Writes Mr. Malloch: “This is a dangerous move without any...

On a rainy Tuesday night, the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York raised what officials called a “staggering” $18.8-million at the charity’s annual Wall Street Dinner.

That’s 13 percent less than $21.6-million raised at last year’s dinner, but Paul Kane, the federation’s chief fund raiser, said the returns were extraordinarily good. Given the one-two punch of Wall Street’s financial meltdown and the Madoff Ponzi scheme that has decimated several Jewish charities, Mr. Kane said, it could have been much, much worse.

The economy did have a major effect on the event itself, however, noted Mr. Kane. Because so many Wall Street workers and investors have suffered in the financial crisis, the federation got donations to pay for...

Because of the deepening recession, nonprofit leaders are being urged to collaborate more than they have in years past. But collaboration does not frequently extend to fund raising, which is more often a competitive arena.

One exception is the Rose, a Houston charity that helps low-income women prevent and treat cancer. The group raises 75 percent of its contributions from foundations, 10 percent from companies, and about the same percentage from individual donors.

The Rose is a member of the Breast Health Collaborative of Texas, a group of 100 organizations throughout the state that work together to serve the uninsured. When the recession hit, the collaborative had already worked out turf battles and other issues that could have made it hard for members to work together, says Dorothy Weston Gibbons, chief executive at The Rose.

Now, she says, the...

Eight charities, foundations, businesses, and government agencies in the Washington metropolitan area have have formed a “nonprofit 911” coalition to help philanthropic organizations weather the recession.

The self-dubbed “G8” coalition has created a Web site of resources for nonprofit groups and organized a series of workshops and conferences to develop a nonprofit “plan of action” for surviving the troubled economy.

At the coalition’s inaugural meeting on Monday, about 450 representatives of local nonprofit groups, foundations, and corporations gathered to discuss the challenges and opportunities of mergers, share concerns about increased competition for foundation grants, and brainstorm strategies to bring more public attention to and money for the growing demands on...

Nonprofit board members are crucial to an organization’s success, particularly with raising money during tough economic times, Alan Weiss, a business consultant, writes on his blog, Contrarian Consulting.

He identities five guidelines for a board and its members. They are:

• Recruiting members who have “passion; intellectual capital; contacts who can be accessed to support the cause; and the ability to donate or raise funds.”
• Setting term limits.
• Requiring a minimum annual contribution from members.
• Evaluating senior management on a regular basis.
• Avoiding micromanaging the nonprofit group.

Mr. Weiss serves on several charity boards in his home state of Rhode Island. He says that despite the...

If you dislike rebates because of the paperwork involved, apparently you’re not alone.

More Americans have stopped taking advantage of rebates in recent years, says Brian Grayek, a vice president at the software company CA. So his company decided to turn the process of sending back rebates into a simple way to donate to charity.

The company officially kicked off a program last week to enable some of its customers to donate their rebates to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which CA (formerly known as Computer Associates) has long supported.

When they purchase software designed to protect children from online predators, customers have the option to direct the value of the rebate to the charity. For its part, CA donates $1 from the sale of the product to the charity, and another $5 if consumers sign up to automatically renew...