Leading experts on using online networks to promote charitable causes are gathering today in New York at the Social Good Conference, organized by the Web site Mashable.

The conference will feature presentations by nonprofit organizations and social-media experts who will discuss how organizations can effectively use online tools to promote their causes.

Scheduled speakers include Pete Cashmore, Mashable’s founder; Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s managing director; Kari Dunn Saratovsky, vice president of social innovation at the Case Foundation; and Andy Ridley, executive director of Earth Hour.

We’ll post updates here throughout the day and also via Twitter. We’ll be using the hashtag #socialgood.

Just how popular is Twitter?

Popular enough that the Council on Foundations is using the tool to provide updates this week from its conference in Atlanta.

The organization will be tweeting the conference on its Twitter page.

For those who are looking for news in more than 140 characters, the council is also running a conference blog.

And if you’re looking for more perspectives on the annual conference, the Chronicle columnist and blog writer Sean Stannard-Stockton has assembled a team of 12 volunteers to offer their accounts of the event on the site Tactical Philanthropy.

Nonprofit groups should be aggressively working to involve people in their 20s and 30s.

But Derrick Feldmann, president of Achieve, a consulting company in Indianapolis, said they shouldn’t expect young donors to open up their checkbooks quickly.

Nor should they expect to raise significant money, Mr. Feldmann told an audience at the Association of Fundraising Professionals annual conference in New Orleans.

But nonprofit groups shouldn’t abandon efforts to seek out young donors, even if the initial return is low.

“This is a long-term philanthropic strategy to engage young people,” he said. “They are not going to be young for long. The organizations that take this approach are the ones that are going to be very successful with reaching these individuals over the long term.”

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Feldmann discussed four key steps nonprofit groups can take to...

The social-networking Web site Twitter is getting a lot of discussion among fund raisers gathered in New Orleans this week for the Association of Fundraising Professionals annual conference.

Many businesses in the exhibit area are inviting participants to join their Twitter groups — and the site has generated more than passing mention at several conference sessions.

Twitter is being discussed as a way to connect with younger donors, meet other fund raisers, and get ideas for improving their fund-raising efforts.

To help demystify the Twitter world, The Chronicle hosted its first “Tweetup” — a cocktail reception for fund raisers who follow its Twitter feed.

The event attracted local fund raisers as well as people from California, Indiana, Nebraska, New York, and elsewhere— and it brought together colleagues who had previously met only online.

To learn more about Twitter, read...

Participants at the Association of Fundraising Professionals annual conference in New Orleans had an opportunity to help rebuild a city that is still attempting to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Many participants who arrived early for the conference participated in construction projects in New Orleans on Saturday organized by Rebuilding Together, the national charity that mobilizes volunteers to participate in renovation efforts.

The organization is working to rebuild 1,000 homes in the Gulf Coast that had been affected by Hurricane Katrina.

The Chronicle has uploaded photos from the volunteer effort to its Flickr page.

How can a small nonprofit group create an effective monthly giving program?

Greg Gorman, development director for St. Mary’s Catholic Center in College Station, Texas, discussed his organization’s monthly giving program during a session at the Association of Fundraising Professionals annual conference in New Orleans.

In an interview with The Chronicle, he expanded on his ideas. You can listen to the interview:

Large national and international charities such as Greenpeace and Save the Children are often held up as examples of how to set up monthly credit- or debit-card giving programs.

But can such programs also work for smaller groups?

Greg Gorman, development director at St. Mary’s Catholic Center in College Station, Tex., answers that question with an emphatic yes.

Mr. Gorman’s center, which is affiliated with Texas A&M University, operates with a modest $1.8-million annual budget. And roughly one-sixth of that budget — about $300,000 — comes from monthly gifts from donors who pay with debit and credit cards.

Those donors have become a source of consistent, predictable income for his organization — and he believes they are likely candidates for more significant gifts in the future.

“It’s about trust and it’s about major gifts in the future,” he said today in a session at the...

For Kenneth C. Frisch, successful fund raising isn’t the result of a single strategy or process.

Instead, it’s the result of a comprehensive plan that includes seeking money in employee charity drives run by companies, soliciting planned gifts, and recruiting and training a dedicated Board of Directors that works aggressively to raise money for his organization, Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Perrysburg.

Mr. Frisch, who raises more than $2-million annually as director of development for the charity, will be honored in New Orleans on Monday for his successful approach as the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Outstanding Fundraising Professional of the year.

The award honors fund raisers who have demonstrated consistent excellence in their craft.

Mr. Frisch’s career includes stints at Ohio University and Bowling Green State University, where he led large, multimillion-dollar...

Participants at the Association of Fund Raising Professionals annual conference in New Orleans can follow updates from fellow fund raisers on the social-networking Web site Twitter by following the tag #afpnola.

I’ll be among those who will be posting regular updates from the conference through the Chronicle‘s Twitter feed.

Other conference attendees who will be posting updates include the consultant Tucker Branham of Atlanta (through the Twitter handle tjbranham), Jennifer Barrouzet (jendarra), and John Dawe (@johndawe).

The Chronicle is also planning its first “Tweetup” — a live meeting of people who communicate online through Twitter — during the fund raisers’ conference. The event will take place Monday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Helix Wine Bar, in the French Quarter.

The down economy is causing many nonprofit groups, businesses, and families to cut some of the excess out of their budgets.

The same holds true for organizations such as the Association of Fundraising Professionals that play host to major conferences.

To manage costs, planners have found ways to scale back this year’s event without skimping on educational sessions for participants.

Gone are free catered lunches in the exhibit hall.

Another cut: live musicians. Instead of hiring a band to serve as the warm-up for major speakers, organizers have instead opted for recorded music.

“We really tried to focus our attention on maximizing the resources that are important to our members,” said Paulette Maehara, the association’s president.