B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, a century-old Jewish youth charity, is tweaking its fund-raising approach to survive the recession.

Jacob Berkman, who reported recently on how the Birthright Israel Foundation was changing its fund raising, writes on the Fundermentalist blog that the B’nai B’rith group is asking its regional chapters to raise donations.

That’s a departure for the group, which has traditionally raised its $16-million budget through the national office and from local Jewish federations.

But now the B’nai B’rith group is working with 20 chapters to set up local “friends of BBYO” networks and alumni networks, says Mr. Berkman. Last year, the nonprofit organization raised $250,000 locally through such efforts; this year, it hopes to raise an additional $400,000.

“We are going very grass roots,” Matt Grossman, the charity’s executive director, told Mr. Berkman....

Raising money for a charity doing grass-roots work in Africa? You might have better luck approaching women for support than men.

That’s among the findings of a study conducted by Karen Winterich, assistant professor of marketing at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School.

Ms. Winterich found that peoples’ approach to giving can be determined by two factors: gender and moral identity. Moral identity is a measure of how important it is that a person be caring, honest, fair, and kind.

The study investigated how people responded to “in group” causes — those that have an obvious connection to the donor, such as proximity or nationality — and “out group” causes, which have no clear tie.

As part of the study, participants filled out a survey designed to determine their moral identity. Then each was given five $1 bills, which they could keep, give to a Hurricane Katrina relief...

With the stock market stagnating and unemployment climbing, will wealthy people still give this year?

That’s the big question on fund raisers’ minds — and one that Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund tried to explore by surveying people whose gift funds it manages.

The majority (55 percent) said they planned to give out the same amount to charities through their funds this year. About one in three donors said they would award less in 2009, and one in 10 said they planned to donate more.

Nearly 600 people participated in the study, which was conducted in late March and early April.

Almost half of those surveyed said they would put the same amount of money in their funds as they did in 2008. Forty percent said they plan to give less, and 12 percent said they would put aside more.

Last year, of course, was no banner year for philanthropy. Fidelity’s fund received $1.05-billion from...

The brevity imposed by Twitter — a social-media site that enables people to post messages of 140 characters or less — has created a boom in tools that shorten Web addresses. The sites, such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com, convert lengthy links into short ones that give users the chance to more easily meet Twitter’s restrictions.

Nathaniel Whittemore, a blogger at Change.org, has identified a Web address shortener, called Good.ly#, that promotes giving.

Here’s how it works, according to Mr. Whittemore: A Twitter user writes a post about a great bag she just bought and then includes a link to the retailer’s page using Good.ly. One of the user’s friends on Twitter clicks on the link, is then directed to the retailer’s site, and buys the bag.

Assuming the retailer has a referral program set up, Good.ly gets a small fee for “referring” the sale to the retailer, and then Good.ly donates 55...

This morning’s Washington Post took some shots at Facebook’s Causes application, reporting that the tool isn’t a good way for charities to raise money. Allison Fine, a social-media expert and a Chronicle contributor, hits back on her blog.

True, Facebook’s Causes tool hasn’t raised big money for charity, she says. But that’s hardly new news. Nor does it mean that Causes is “largely ineffective,” as the Post article puts it.

“The bottom line here is that Causes isn’t just about raising money, it’s also about raising friends and awareness, and in the long run turning loose social ties into stronger ones for a cause may be more important than one-time donations of $10 and $20 dollars right now,” she says. “Our rush to judge this application effective of ineffective over a very short time period with a primary user base of very young people is off base.”

What do you think?

At 2:13 am on Friday, the actor Ashton Kutcher beat out CNN to become the first Twitter user with more than 1 million followers. A notable achievement in the Twitterverse, perhaps, but an event relevant to the charity world?

Well, actually, yes. If he won, Mr. Kutcher had pledged to donate 10,000 anti-malaria bed nets as part of World Malaria Day, writes Nathaniel Whittemore on Change.org’s social entrepreneurship blog.

Mr. Whittemore wonders: Did the actor’s pledge have much to do with his victory? If his 18-year old brother is any indication, then yes.

“I’m following him. Why? He pledged 10,000 mosquito nets if he won,” wrote Mr. Whittemore’s brother.

But even more exciting than the actor’s pledge was what happened next, writes Mr. Whittemore: Mr. Kutcher started to persuade others to give. Demi Moore, Oprah, Ryan Seacrest, and CNN pledged to donate as many as 20,000 nets....

A recent e-mail appeal from Mercy Corps uses a headline-grabbing event to focus donors’ attention on its work.

“There’s more to Somalia than piracy,” reads e-mail’s subject line.

“You’ve probably been following the recent news of the pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia,” Mercy Corps says. “Nearly everyone agrees that the root of the problem isn’t at sea, but on shore.”

The charity briefly summarizes its work fighting poverty in Somalia. To support that work, readers can click on a donation button beneath an image of two young children carrying infant siblings on their backs.

What do you think of the solicitation?

Facebook is no longer just an online playground for teenagers and twentysomethings. The number of the people over 35 who use the network has doubled in just the last 60 days, according to data from the blog Inside Facebook.

Tom Belford writes on The Agitator blog that the more this happens, the more valuable the social-networking site will become to fund raisers.

At the same time, he says, e-mail may become less valuable.

He draws readers’ attention to an article by Loren McDonald, of the e-marketing firm Silverpop, on Email Insider. Ms. McDonald says that “because so much personal communication is happening on social networks now, what’s left in the inbox is commercial messages, social- network notifications, time-sensitive alerts like payment-due requests or appointment reminders, and, of course, a bit of spam.”

She says that on a recent birthday, she received many public...

In this economy, loose change may be all that some Americans feel they can afford to donate. Charity: water, a nonprofit group that provides clean drinking water in developing countries, is giving New Yorkers an easy way to part with their spare change: by tossing it into a wishing well in one of Manhattan’s shopping markets.

The wishing well, designed for the charity by sculptor Thomas Beale, was unveiled last night at a cocktail reception and fund-raising event that attracted roughly 1,000 people.

Corporate sponsors plan to match the donations that Americans toss into the wishing well. At least one of the gifts of change could require big pockets: an individual who wishes to remain anonymous plans to throw $1,500 in coins into the well.

Raising money isn’t the charity’s only goal. The wishing well will be accompanied by a photography exhibit designed to educate viewers about...

Jeff Brooks, who writes the Donor Power Blog, says charities need to take donor-advised funds very seriously.

There is a lot of money flowing into them — several sit at the top of The Chronicle Philanthropy 400 list and others are sprinkled throughout — and, from a donor’s perspective, they’re “darn cool,” he says. (Mr. Brooks says he recently started a donor-advised fund). People who start such funds donate money, get an immediate tax charity break, and then can decide over time how much to give to specific causes.

So how can charities win more money from these funds?

Among his tips:

• Make sure the name that people know your charity by is the same name it is registered by. If not, donors will have a difficult time finding your group.

• Ensure that your tax identification number is easy to locate.

• On your Web site, direct donors to how they can give through a...