Even if you’re a beauty queen, asking for money in a recession isn’t easy.

Tara Wheeler, who was crowned Miss Virginia last year, pledged to shave her head if she was able to raise $500,000 for a cancer charity. Unfortunately the deadline came last Saturday, and Ms. Wheeler had only garnered about $30,000, reports The Washington Post.

“I was waiting for Oprah to come in with a big cardboard check,” she told the newspaper.

Despite not reaching her goal, Ms. Wheeler says she will continue to raise money and will shave her head this summer for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which supports children’s cancer research.

What do you think? What fund-raising tips do you have for Miss Virginia? Click on the comment button below to share your suggestions.

— Ian Wilhelm

Some fund raisers have been asked to take pay cuts at their organization — especially since many development officials are among the highest-paid at their nonprofit group.

Have you been asked to take a pay cut? Have others at your organization been expected to do so? Do you think the approach your group has taken is fair?

Share your experiences by clicking on the comments link below.

Organizations that focus on the mission and thank donors regularly are among those that are succeeding, according to veteran fund-raising consultants who spoke at a gathering that preceded the annual meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Let us know what has helped your organization thrive in the recession by clicking on the comment link below.

There is a saying in Central America: “If you impact a man you have transformed an individual. If you impact a woman, you have transformed generations to come.”

Jeff Brooks writes at his Donor Power Blog that he recently received an e-mail message from a “small, well-run nonprofit” with this “saying” as an opener. And Mr. Brooks, creative director at Merkle Direct, a fund-raising consulting firm, isn’t buying it.

“C’mon! Does anybody in Central America (or anywhere else) walk around uttering anything as clunky as that?” he writes. “What on earth would cause you to claim that they do?”

He suspects that the “saying” was probably born of bad translation mixed with “nonprofit-speak” and “bureaucratese” so that what might be a local adage becomes “a mouthful of jargon.”

“Real sayings as uttered by real people are short, easy to remember, and punchy” he writes. “When you write...

The acclaimed film, “Slumdog Millionaire,” which won an Academy Award for best picture on Sunday night, has spawned a campaign to raise money and visibility for diseases that afflict the world’s poor — and can be easily treated.

The Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit group that develops drugs for poor people in developing nations, ran a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times that directs people to the group’s Web site.

The ad uses the “it is written” line from the movie to entice people to click on a link to the organization’s Web site and donate online. The charity focuses its efforts on fighting what it calls “neglected diseases,” meaning illnesses that are treated and prevented in wealthier nations.

What do you think? Is using a popular film a good way for a nonprofit group to raise money for its cause?

Facebook’s recent revisions to its online user agreement to assert ownership of all content posted by users to the social networking site—even after it has been deleted—has prompted some discussion of whether the Web site’s policies might compromise the anonymity of donors who give to nonprofit groups through Facebook’s “Causes” pages.

“I am not a Facebook aficionado,” admitted Jack B. Siegel, a Chicago lawyer and author of the Charity Governance blog, who raised the question on a nonprofit discussion list. But, he says, “if the language is plain and says that Facebook has an ownership interest, whether they intend to enforce that or not today is irrelevant. You don’t know what will happen a year from now, or if Facebook is sold to another company.”

On Wednesday, Facebook announced that it would rescind the changes to its terms of ...

Many public-radio stations are now in the midst of their winter fund-raising drives, and Washington’s WAMU, a National Public Radio affiliate with headquarters at American University, allowed a reporter to watch on-air solicitors practice their pitches for this week’s campaign, which seeks to raise $900,000.

Figuring out what to say is especially challenging with the tough economy. Walt Gillette, the station’s director of development, told The Washington Post that the station is not pushing a minimum amount this year. (It used to urge supporters to give at least $50.)

It is also trying to do away with on-air guilt messages. “I don’t think that’s going to carry a lot of weight this time,” says Mr. Gillette, who is urging his colleagues to avoid sounding desperate. “People can smell it, and the minute they think the station is in trouble, they’re not going to give.”

Another local...

While social media and other blossoming online methods charities use to reach out to donors get a lot of attention these days, the nonprofit marketing consultant Nancy Schwartz says that some of the most low-cost, effective ways to get donors involved can be very low-tech.

Nonprofit leaders should offer donors a “chance to go beyond—whether behind the scenes, after the show, or standing in the shoes of,” on her blog Getting Attention.

As a member of New York’s Museum of Natural History she recalls participating in a behind-the-Employees-Only-door tour of the insect department.

“The research side of the institution is something the public is largely unaware of, and this was a powerful way to show how an exhibit evolves,” Ms. Schwartz says, noting that she renewed her membership for years thereafter.

Her favorite nonprofit dance and theater group often holds post-performance...

More and more people are using online social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace, and it’s not just kids logging on. According to a recent survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That has big implications for charities, says the fund-raising consultant Roger Craver.

Use of social networks by people 18 and older has gone up four-fold since 2005, from 8 percent of adults, to 35 percent in December of last year. (The numbers still skew young however. While 75 percent of adults age 18 to 24 have profiles on a social networking site, only 7 percent of people 65 or older do.)

Mr. Craver suggests those figures mean that there is a “new math for fund raisers.” On his blog The Agitator he suggests that charities with at least 100,000 donors should be able tap social networks to raise more than $500,000 for an “urgent project or need.”

First, based on his own survey work,...

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 economy, they have been able to attract donors.