Money and education, not geography, influence why people give to charity, says a new study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

The study, based on data from 10,000 households, found that people who make at least $100,000 a year are more likely to give because of an obligation to help others less fortunate, or a desire to improve the towns and cities in which they live.

Donors who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 are motivated more by a wish to “make the world better,” while those who make less than $50,000 give to “help basic needs” or to “help the poor help themselves.”

People without a college education more often cite a desire to meet basic needs as a reason for giving than do their more-educated peers.

Researchers who conducted the study tested whether people from southern states were motivated by “collectivist” values, such as helping those most like...

Before that preview of the romantic comedy that makes your teeth ache from saccharine overload, you might see a 30-second spot that begins with the buzz of mosquitoes.

A question, “A mosquito bite … nuisance or death sentence?” appears on the screen, and then viewers quickly learn the answer. More than 2,000 children die each day from malaria after being bitten by an infected mosquito.

The video, shown below, is part of a campaign by World Vision to build awareness about malaria and how to stop it. The trailer will be playing in select theaters in nine cities this summer.

Action Against Hunger offers a very different twist on the movie-trailer as awareness-raising technique with its online video “No Hunger.”

The video starts with the standard movie-trailer opener: “The following preview has been approved for all audiences.” The clip then shows aid workers who speak about...

In addition to not paying personal income tax, most residents of Alaska are eligible for another financial benefit: an annual payment worth, in recent years, some $1,800 per person. The statewide payment, known as the Permanent Fund Dividend, was created in 1976 after a law passed that required oil companies operating in Alaska to provide a share of their profits to state citizens.

Beginning in October, more than 300 Alaskan charities will receive donations from individual recipients of the dividend payments. The donations are the result of a three-year effort by the Alaska Giving Coalition, a group of charities, grant makers, and others who are interested in increasing Alaskan philanthropy.

The coalition worked with state lawmakers and other parties to get legislation passed last year that enables Alaskans who file online for the dividend payment in January, February, and March...

An online world full of donors who are not concerned with geographic boundaries could mean American charities will soon be competing with a world of nonprofit organizations for donations, an international fund-raising expert told an audience of fund raisers and marketers at a conference in Washington last week.

Globalization is forcing nonprofit groups to adapt to a world with more choices than ever before, a greater focus on the individual, and fewer boundaries, says Jon Duschinsky, founder of Bethechange Consulting, a Paris company.

For example, he says, American donors interested in medical research can increasingly find information on the most promising trials and studies in the world, rather than limiting their money to American researchers and organizations.

Mr. Duschinsky pointed to GuideStar an online database of American nonprofit groups that helps donors find charities...

While most charities are doing a good job of meeting donors’ expectations, few are actually exceeding them, according to a new survey.

The Great American Donor Survey, conducted by Campbell Rinker, a marketing research company in Valencia, Calif., that specializes in nonprofit work, found that 83 percent of charitable donors consider the giving experience to be what they expect. Only 13 percent say the charity they supported went beyond their expectations.

The finding is important because donors talk, says Dirk Rinker, president of the survey firm. “How much donors are communicating about their giving is just astounding to me,” he says.

Of the 3,400 donors surveyed, 66 percent said they occasionally recommend one of their favorite charities to a friend or family member, and 19 percent said they frequently do so.

Says Mr. Rinker, “Word of mouth is your best form of advertising.”...

The number of people who opened or responded to e-mail messages sent by 21 large national nonprofit organizations dropped in 2007, even as the amount of money those organizations raised online increased, according to a new study.

The percentage of people who opened messages from the charities, which included Habitat for Humanity, Oxfam America, and the Environmental Defense Fund, fell from 21.3 percent in 2006 to 17.6 percent in 2007, while the percentage of recipients who clicked through to a Web link included in the messages decreased from 4.9 percent to 3.8 percent. But the amount of money that the groups raised over the Internet increased 19 percent from 2006 to 2007.

The study’s authors say part of the explanation is that organizations are sending their messages to a larger number of people. The annual rate of growth for the e-mail lists of the groups in the study was 29...

Charities are losing contributions by not paying more attention to the latest academic studies on giving, a leading researcher told fund raisers Tuesday at the annual gathering of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

“Research should be informing professional practice” when it comes to figuring out what drives donors away and who is most likely to make a gift, said Adrian Sargeant, a consultant and professor of fund raising at Indiana University. He offered a roundup of recent studies on giving.

For example, Mr. Sargeant said, he has found that women, not men, give the most to charity. Previous research found that men gave more money to specific organizations than did women with comparable assets or incomes, he said. But women distribute their gifts among more organizations. Once all the gifts are tallied, he said, women have the edge.

Mr. Sargeant also said that many...

Keys to successfully negotiating with donors to win large gifts can be found in research from other fields, according to Shaun G. Lynch, a fund-raising consultant from St. Lazare, Canada, who spoke Tuesday at the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual conference in San Diego.

As an example, Mr. Lynch pointed to research published by Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. It shows that when two parties are negotiating over the price of a product or service, the mention of high figures in the conversation by the seller — even if those figures have little or no relation to the item’s actual value — result in the buyer paying more than he or she would otherwise.

The lesson for fund raisers: After the relationship with a donor is cemented and it is time to ask for a gift, start negotiating over the amount of the contribution by mentioning an “anchor” figure that is higher...