The number of people who respond to face-to-face fund raising in Britain grew 16 percent during the 12 months ending March 31.

According to the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, a London association of charities that practice street and door-to-door fund raising, says that an estimated 680,000 people were recruited as donors, the largest number since the group began tracking such data in 2003.

Mick Aldridge, chief executive of the association, told Third Sector Online, that the report shows that asking for gifts in person works despite the recession.

Street fund raising is popular with British charities, though the public has objected to some aggressive face-to-face tactics. American groups have started to adopt some of the techniques in recent years, which have met with success.

Read The Chronicle’s article about how American fund raisers are using face-to-face ...

Getting ready to make an “ask” of a big donor? Sasha Dichter, director of business development for the Acumen Fund, has a plan to defeat the anxiety that arises in such important moments.

“‘The ask’ can make your body’s protective/panic response kick in. When you’re new to it, it feels like a standing-at-the-side-of-a-freezing-cold-pool-about-to-jump-in moment that causes so much anticipation that you freeze up –- and in so doing make the person you’re talking to freeze up as well,” he writes on his blog.

How do you get past this uncomfortable feeling?

“You start small and build up, and then keep on pushing yourself into situations that are hard, but you teach yourself to act easy,” he writes. “You teach yourself that everything is going to be OK. You learn to take the thing that you once feared, that once was difficult, and to breathe into it and be your best, most confident...

To survive the recession, the Birthright Israel Foundation is making several changes to its fund raising, reports Jacob Berkman, on The Fundermentalist blog.

Mr. Berkman, whose blog is part of the JTA, a Jewish news service, writes that Birthright’s new president has made “sweeping changes” to how the organization raises money to pay for young Jews to visit Israel.

They include:

• Expanding the charity’s fund-raising reach into the Midwest, in addition to its traditional geographic focus on the Northeast and West Coast.

• Possibly canceling the group’s annual gala in New York.

• Seeking small donations by tapping into alumni of the trip and using Facebook to connect with them and other young people.

• Hiring new fund raisers and increasing the budget for fund-raising activities by at least $500,000.

What do you think? Is Birthright making the right moves to...

More than half of the British foundations responding to a recent survey said they expect their giving to decrease in the next 12 months.

According to a survey of 92 grant makers by the Association of Charitable Foundations, a London group that represents about 300 charitable funds, 51 percent said they will reduce their giving, 39 percent said it would remain the same, and 10 percent said it would increase.

A Chronicle survey of 81 funds in April showed American foundations making similar decisions. Fifty-one percent plan to give less in 2009, 32 percent plan to give the same amount, and 17 percent are increasing their grant making.

In the long term, the British foundations appear optimistic. Of 84 grant makers that responded, 21 percent said they expected giving to decline in 2012 and beyond, 33 percent said it would stay the same, and 45 percent said it would grow.

Bill Gates: software mogul, philanthropist, fund raiser?

While the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is set up to give money to charity, it also seems to be pretty good at raising money. Last year it raised $10.4-million — without even asking for it.

According to its annual report, which was released this week, the Seattle foundation received that amount from donors other than the Gateses or Warren E. Buffett.

Since Mr. Buffett announced his plans to give most of his fortune to the Gates fund in 2006, Americans have tried to give to the foundation. Even though the foundation strongly encourages people to give directly to the charitable groups it supports, the size of the gifts are growing. In 2007 the foundation received $1.6-million in such unsolicited contributions.

On its Web site, the foundation lays out stringent guidelines for gifts it reluctantly accepts. It accepts only...

A British association of fund raisers is asking its members to become whistle-blowers when it comes to unethical direct-mail solicitations.

According to Third Sector, a British publication about nonprofit groups, the Institute of Fundraising, in London, last week sent a message to its 5,000 members that asks them to tell the organization, even anonymously, about campaigns that violate its direct-mail code of conduct.

As part of its code, the institute encourages charities not to use “shock tactics,” limit the use of inserts and other items enclosed in the pitch letters, and not overwhelm potential supporters with mail.

Kevin Brennan, who oversees charities for the British government, had told the institute that poorly managed direct-mail efforts threaten to erode the public confidence in charities, reports Third Sector.

What do you think? Should American fund raisers play a...

The Salvation Army of Northern New England has started a new advertising campaign focusing on the charity’s low overhead costs.

The Christian group, in Portland, Me., is working with more than 40 local businesses to display ads in store windows, coffee cups, mirrors in bars, and the sides of buildings. For example, an ad on the inside of a pizza box says, “This ad cost nothing. The money we saved advertising on this pizza box helps us feed the homeless.”

“Recently, local businesses in Portland, Maine, helped us launch an ad campaign that cost absolutely nothing,” the group says on its Web site. “That’s right. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Sure, a big, expensive campaign could have gotten our name out there. But at what cost? See, it’s thinking like this that helps us give 83 cents of every dollar donated directly to the people who need it most.”

The Web site also includes examples of the ad...

Beth Breeze, a researcher in Britain, is looking into how wealthy people’s attitudes about money affect their philanthropy, a timely topic during the current economic downturn.

“It’s fascinating that people who have exactly the same amount of wealth can either be relaxed and feel they have enough to spare to give a nice chunk away, or can feel uptight and worried about letting go of any of it,” says Ms. Breeze, who works with the Center for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy, an academic center in London supported by the University of Kent and several other universities.

On her blog, Kent Philanthropy, she discusses some of her findings.

“Our paper concludes that people’s own perceptions of their wealth — however objectively curious — need to be taken into account in fund-raising activities, because someone being targeted may not agree they have much to spare,” she writes. “But ...

Breaking up, as the saying goes, is hard to do. And it’s not so different in philanthropy.

In a mock video on You Tube, a donor and fund raiser squabble over their relationship like two lovers on the fritz.

“Hey there. I was starting to worry,” says the vapid fund raiser/boyfriend. “You haven’t returned my last six direct-mail solicitations.”

“Let’s just keep it simple,” responds the donor/girlfriend. “I’m breaking up with you.”

“I give and I give and I give, and I don’t hear anything from you,” she complains.

“I sent you a plain-text e-mail receipt. It had your name on it, for God’s sake!” he counters.

The video was produced by Network for Good, an organization in Bethesda, Md., that helps charities raise money on the Internet and runs an online giving portal.

What do you think? Does the video make good points about how fund raisers should communicate with donors?...

Henry Krinkle is a self-described addict of National Public Radio, but he has some pet peeves about his “bad habit” — including how it raises money.

On the blog of WFMU, an independent radio station in Jersey City, N.J., Mr. Krinkle lists 10 things he hates about public radio.

Number five is a small rant against a common fund-raising practice.

“Matching-gift periods. A more dishonest (albeit legal) fund-raising scam was never devised,” he writes. “How often does it happen that the needed total for a fund-raising match period is not met, and the original match is then withdrawn? Try: never.”

To be sure, the rest of the NPR missive is aimed at programming.

For example, number two on the list: “Any NPR story about hip-hop. Maybe it’s the perfectly enunciated rap terms, or maybe it’s leads like this: ‘Hip-hop, maybe more than any other kind of music, is a melding of genres....