Fund raising in a profession that is unusually resilient — even in a poor economy.

Some organizations step up hiring fund raisers in tough times to help keep contributions from falling. But some fund raisers say they are hearing about planned cutbacks, such as one caller who recently told us about a hospital that has suspended its plans to expand the fund-raising staff because of the economy.

What’s happening with the fund-raising job market in your part of the country? Do you see any evidence that nonprofit groups are shelving plans to expand the number of fund raisers they hire, or not filling jobs when fund raisers leave?

Tell us what your organization is doing — and what you think makes sense in this turbulent economy.

As the economy worsens, donors are increasingly interested in making their gifts through annuities, an approach that allows people to donate money or other assets to their favorite causes in exchange for a secure income stream. Now charities that offer gift annuities In New York face new requirements, under recently revised state law.

In essence, the new law requires charities to increase the amount of surplus funds they hold in reserve accounts linked to the annuities. The reserve funds ensure that charities are able to meet their financial obligations to donors.

Currently in New York, the minimum gift-annuity reserve fund is set at 110 percent of the actuarially determined reserves; those are based on the amount of the annuity, interest rates, mortality rates, and other factors. That percentage will now increase to 115 percent over three years, rising by 5 percent annually,...

Donations made in response to direct-mail appeals declined in the first three months of this year, continuing a downward trend that began in 2006 and has accelerated since then, according to an analysis released today.

The quarterly analysis, conducted by Target Analytics, a Boston research company, looked at gifts to 72 large charities, mostly made through direct mail. Those charities reported gifts exceeding $1.8-billion from more than 36 million donors over the preceding 12 months.

From January to March, the total number of donors fell by 4 percent, compared with the first quarter of last year, and the overall amount raised declined by 1.8 percent.

The decline in total contributions was even more evident when the analysts examined donations for the year-long period ending in March of this year, compared with the same period in 2006. “When adjusted for inflation, revenue has...

To find new donors, many charities periodically ask board members to share their personal mailing lists or professional contacts. The organization then creates a solicitation letter, and each board member signs all copies sent to his or her contacts.

That’s a big mistake, says Simone Joyaux, a fund-raising consultant and a co-author of Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships (John Wiley & Sons).

In fact, rounding up board members’ contacts for a mass solicitation amounts to “trespassing on personal and professional relationships” of those trustees, she writes in the book. “Promise that you won’t!”

“Have you ever asked your board members how they feel about asking their friends and colleagues to give money simply because they are friends and colleagues?” Ms. Joyaux continues. “I’ve asked thousands of board members: Mostly they feel...

Why are many nonprofit organizations coping with a drop in the number of people who make gifts in response to direct mail and other appeals to recruit new donors?

Writing today in the The Agitator, the direct-marketing experts Roger Craver and Tom Belford say they have the answer: gloom and pessimism among baby boomers about their financial outlook.

At first, Mr. Craver and Mr. Belford were mystified when they learned in a forthcoming survey that boomers, aged 44 to 62, gave less ($1,081) in the past 12 months than both younger people ($1,205) and older donors ($1,542). The same survey three years ago found that boomers gave the most, leading the two men to conclude that baby boomers had finally replaced their parents’ generation and “climbed to the top of the donor heap.”

But then Mr. Craver and Mr. Belford got hold of a new study released this week by the Pew Research Center. ...

Many nonprofit leaders rush to obtain big gifts too quickly, says one veteran fund raiser.

That is because they are concentrating on the institution’s needs rather than individual donors’ comfort level in making larger gifts than they ever have before, says Kent E. Dove, senior vice president of Indiana University, in Bloomington.

For example, Mr. Dove says, university fund raisers in an ambitious capital campaign might learn through meticulous research that a donor whose largest previous gift was $25,000 is capable of giving $5-million or more.

But unless the donors shows he or she is interested in giving that kind of sum, Mr. Dove says that he has learned from decades of experience never to ask a $25,000 donor for a contribution that large. At least not initially.

Instead, with the $25,000 donor, he says that he would plan a solicitation to ask for a campaign contribution...

Americans are giving away tens of billions of dollars worth of stock, art, real-estate, and other noncash gifts every year, according to the IRS.

In a new report—the second of its kind—the IRS found that taxpayers reported at least $41.1-billion worth of non-cash gifts in 2005, the latest year for which data is available. The number of Americans who wrote off such gifts was about the same as in 2004, but the amount of those contributions increased by 10 per cent.

Contributions included stocks and other investments, real estate, art and collectibles, food, clothing, electronics, household items, cars and other vehicles, and other items such as airline tickets. Stock gifts accounted for the largest share of non-cash contributions, totaling $19.8-billion at their fair market value. Real-estate gifts, valued at $12.7-billion, made up the next largest share.

Some types of charities a...

Donors age 65 and older are making far more outright gifts of appreciated stock, mutual funds, and other investments than previously thought, according to an analysis of IRS data released last month by the Sharpe Group, a Memphis planned-giving consulting firm.

Such donors gave $10.1-billion in stocks and other related gifts in 2005, the most recent year for which data are available from the IRS. That’s 51 percent of the total, a larger share than for any other age group. It is more than double the next largest share, 21 percent given by donors aged 55 to 64, the analysis found.

“If you had asked me to guess where most of these gifts were coming from, I would have said the 45- to 65-year old corporate executives and others with large investment holdings,” says Robert F. Sharpe, the consulting firm’s president. “I was wrong.”

Most charities haven’t concentrated on seeking big gift...

The economy is making fund raising tough for all kinds of institutions, but at nonprofit hospitals, that is just one of many challenges, Bill McGinly, president of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, said in a speech today.

The first difficulty is the “sense of entitlement” among patients who believe they have a right to the highest quality of care, regardless of their ability to pay, and that the health-care system has been hijacked by unscrupulous insurers who reap profits at the expense of affordable care, Mr. McGinly said. “Why donate to such a system?”

What’s more, most Americans don’t understand the difference between nonprofit and for-profit hospitals and medical centers, and few know that only 12 to 14 percent of the total are for-profit institutions, Mr. McGinly added.

Nonprofit hospitals and medical centers are also struggling to keep abreast of other...

Some fund-raising experts have long predicted that mail solicitations will give way to online appeals and other types of charitable requests.

But not anytime soon: A new survey has found that the share of baby boomers who give in response to direct mail is about the same as their parents’ generation.

The generation of donors matters less in determining whether people respond to direct mail than whether they have the time and money to respond, the researchers concluded. However, they admitted that, looking ahead, Generation X and younger donors may not be as responsive to mailings.

“Direct mail seems to be a lifecycle phenomenon, it’s more efficacious with older donors,” said Mark Mellman, a Washington pollster who conducted the survey with Charles Pruitt, a marketing consultant.

The researchers also compared how willing people are to make gifts are to direct-mail solicitations...