After a period of hiring freezes and layoffs, the job market for fund raisers at colleges and universities is undergoing a "significant thaw," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

Numerous institutions are trying to fill multiple openings, and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education says it has witnessed a 66-per-cent increase in job postings in the past three months. At least 80 percent of those new openings are for fund raisers.

Rather than simply filling jobs that were unfilled or vacated since the recession started, the article notes, colleges are reassessing the fund-raising landscape to figure out what skills they need.

More and more, institutions are seeking people who can raise money abroad, especially as colleges recruit growing numbers of overseas students. The University of Michigan plans to hire a new fund raiser to seek donations internationally, while ...

More signs that giving is recovering from the downturn:  Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund  on Wednesday reported that it raised 67 percent more in the first six months of the year than it did in 2009. Donors provided $457-million so for this year.

Donors set up accounts at the gift fund, get an immediate tax deduction, and then channel the  money for specific causes whenever they want.

Not only are donors giving more, but many people are creating funds: The Fidelity fund, the third largest charity on The Chronicle's Philanthropy 400 survey, reported that the number of new donor-advised funds established grew by 19 percent in the first half of 2010.

In the first six months of the year, donors distributed $531-million, or 16 percent more than in the first half of 2009. That was the largest amount ever distributed in the first half of the year by the Fidelity gift fund since it was founded ...

Before starting a capital drive or sending out a direct-mail appeal, most fund raisers rigorously research a campaign's potential to decide whether it's worth moving forward.

But many nonprofits don't apply the same sort of tests to their online fund-raising efforts, says Matt Howes, writing in Frogloop, an online marketing blog. As a result, they invest considerable time and money to create Web sites and other marketing devices that end up failing.

Mr. Howes says that charities should take a page from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and systematically test their ideas for online fund-raising campaigns.

 "I've happily killed projects after initial testing—and thereby prevented important resources from being wasted. While I might have thought the campaign ideas were strong, my target audience clearly didn't agree."

Mr. Howes offers links to more information about testing, including a...

The bad economy continues to cause the biggest donors to cut back on their giving, a bad omen for fund raising, a new study finds.

The study of nearly 7,000 donors found a split between typical donors—those whose smallest gift was $81—and more affluent donors, whose smallest gift was $135.

Only 8 percent of typical donors said they plan to give less to charity in 2010, down from 17.5 percent in a similar survey last year. But among the affluent donors, 11 percent said that they would give less to charity this year than in 2009. That percentage grew to 17 percent among the top 10 percent of donors who gave the most money to charity.

Because so many charities rely more on loyal donors who make the largest gifts than they do on donors of more modest means, the economic downturn may continue to depress giving for a long time, the researchers said.

The survey was conducted by Cygnus...

Giving USA, the widely cited measure of giving, is re-examining the approach it uses to determine how much Americans donate.

In a presentation to fund-raising consultants who belong to the Giving Institute, Patrick Rooney, director of research at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, acknowledged that Giving USA's finding that individuals gave just as much last year as they did in 2008 has generated much skepticism. The Giving Institute finances the research done by Mr. Rooney and his colleagues and makes the key findings available free.

Among the reasons questions are growing about the data: Last week the Internal Revenue Service noted that the amount Americans deducted for charitable gifts fell by 11 percent in 2008, the first year of the recession. That was a far steeper sum than Giving USA had estimated. It said donations dropped by 2.7 percent that year.

And as The Chronicle

Many fund raisers seem to think they will get a corporate or foundation grant simply because they wrote a proposal or made a phone call, says Richard K. Davis, chairman of U.S. Bancorp, a Minneapolis company that donates $40-million a year to charities.

But charity officials could do better if they first asked some simple questions that could lead to a more meaningful relationship with the foundation or corporation they are soliciting, he says.

Mr. Davis, who spoke at a Park City, Utah, meeting of fund-raising consultants over the past weekend, said that he would be delighted if a nonprofit organization or a fund raiser opened a meeting with him by asking two simple questions:

* What does he already know about the organization seeking a donation?

* And what he would like to see it accomplish?

But that never happens, he said.

Mr. Davis urged charities to "just come back once without a...

Trying to cope with the bad economy, many charities have taken potentially damaging or fruitless approaches to the search for new sources of money, said fund-raising consultants gathered in Park City, Utah, over the weekend.

Several of the consultants noted that many organizations have steered away from starting capital campaigns. William Durkin, a Milwaukee consultant, said he feared that would have a lasting impact on charities' ability to raise money and form close relationships with key supporters—especially since such campaigns are usually a key way to attract volunteer leaders.

Other consultants worry that too many organizations put an inordinate amount of effort into seeking money from the federal economic stimulus plan. David King, a consultant at Grenzebach Glier & Associates, in Chicago, said "the overwhelming majority got nothing."

Paul C. Light, a professor at  New York...

The Resource Alliance, a London nonprofit organization that provides training and other resources to help charities around the world improve fund raising, has created the Resource Alliance Global Awards for Fundraising.

The new global award—to be given in four categories—will be chosen from fund raisers who have won national awards from professional fund-raising societies, such as the Association for Fundraising Professionals in the United States, the Institute of Fundraising in Britain, and the Fundraising Institute of Australia. Similar associations have been formed in Brazil, India, Japan, and other countries.

Those organizations can enter winners from their own competitions into the global contest in two categories for organizations and two categories for fund raisers.

The two categories for organizations are "Big Idea, Small Budget Award" and "Innovative Fundraising Campaign...

When I wrote about sexual harassment and other unwanted advances that fund raisers have faced in the course of working with donors, trustees, and other supporters, I heard from many readers of this blog. Now that my article about this persistent problem appears in the latest issue of The Chronicle, I wanted to share some of the experiences I heard about that I wasn't able to use in my story:

* A female fund raiser at a rescue mission says that a married minister suggested a sexual encounter.

* A male fund raiser at a gay-rights organization says he complained to little avail about aggressive sexual overtures by a male trustee.

* A British fund raiser says a corporate donor asked her back to his hotel room after signing a gift agreement.

* A female fund raiser says she felt "stalked" by a major donor whose advances she had rebuffed.

All of those fund raisers asked that their names be...

The BP oil spill will depress charitable contributions by $200-million to $300-million this year, and by as much as $600-million in 2011, largely because of its devastating effects on the Gulf Coast economy, according to a new index.

The new index, which is called Philanthrodex, tracks and predicts charitable giving from all sources nationwide. It provides monthly, quarterly, and annual snapshots—and forecasts for the year ahead based on a statistical model.

 The index has projected that giving increased by 9.2 percent from January to May before the spill, compared with the same months in 2009.

It's difficult to gauge how accurate the new index is: It is a product offered by Philanthromax, a one-year-old fund-raising consulting company in Dallas. The company is charging a $195 annual fee, plus $44 per month, to the first 1,000 customers who sign up for access to the new index.

Hank...