A few days ago, I received an odd direct-mail solicitation from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in Memphis.

When a friend asked me to make a donation to the hospital to honor the memory of a child who had died, I dutifully mailed in a small check. Now, more than a year later, St. Jude sent an appeal for another gift.

But the charity's letter raises questions. First: Why am I only now receiving a letter dated February 24, nearly two months ago? And more important: Why did the hospital ask me to give $0 on its donation-return slip (shown above.)

It made the mistake on the appeal itself two more times:

 "Please rush your tax-deductible renewal gift of $0, $0, or even $0 to St. Jude today and give a child a second chance at life," the appeal reads.

When I called St. Jude to ask about the letter, a spokeswoman said that the company it hired to produce and mail its solicitations ...

Experts say that fund raisers will increasingly be asked to help charities create business ventures that raise money from paying customers -- in addition to seeking individual gifts and grants.

A good example of how that trend is making itself felt can be found in a program called the North Texas Community Wealth Collaborative.

The collaborative has so far paid for 15 charities, which apply for a spot in the program, to develop business plans for new enterprises that draw paying customers. The program is offered by Community Wealth Ventures, a Washington consulting company that specializes in strengthening nonprofit organizations by helping them develop new income streams.

Here's how it works: Charities pay $7,500, a fraction of what the business-development effort costs. The rest of the money is donated by foundations. Each charity forms a team of key officials, including the chief...

Baltimore

As more than 3,000 fund raisers gather here for the Association of Fundraising Professionals annual conference, many of them are being asked to give money as they pass through the exhibit halls to meeting sessions.

The solicitors, who wear badges bearing the association's logo, work for Fundraising Initiative International, a company in London that specializes in person-to-person fund raising to seek modest gifts.

Instead of their normal practice of soliciting pedestrians on the street, the solicitors are  asking conference goers to sign up to make monthly donations. The money would be automatically deducted from a donor's checking account and sent to the AFP Foundation, the association's fund-raising arm.

Jamieson Jackson, the solicitation company's chief executive, said that the five employees working here are doing so as volunteers, donating their time in part to get...

Aline Reed, a London marketing expert, has some advice for fund raisers: Make sure you read all of the correspondence that your organization sends to donors.

Many charities have separate administrative, fulfillment, or other departments that prepare and send materials to donors, notes Ms. Reed in a posting on the blog her company, Bluefrog, maintains. But that siloed approach can cause problems.

Ms. Reed describes a confusing letter that she received from a charity that referred to her monthly contribution, which is automatically deducted from her checking account, as "a claim."

"It took me a few moments to realise that they were referring to the money I donate," she writes. Such unclear communications, she continues, "can damage the relationship you've worked so hard to form with your supporter ... it could even lead to someone being so thoroughly confused that they call you—meaning ...

The Humane Society will hold a nationwide event on May 2 to raise money for its efforts to help "retire" 500 chimps from federally owned laboratories and move them into animal sanctuaries.

The "Chimp Retirement Party," as it is called, is part of the organization's Party Animals program, a grass-roots house-party network that marshals volunteers across the country to hold gatherings that call attention to specific topics that have captured the attention of the Humane Society.

Every year, the Humane Society holds two such events. Each one raises about $25,000 from about 1,000 people. Proceeds from the Chimp Retirement Party go to the Humane Society Legislative Fund, which is working to build support for a House-sponsored bill that would phase out the use of chimps in invasive research and transfer those in government labs to sanctuaries.

Volunteer hosts sign up on the Humane Society We...

Churches are feeling the recession's pain, and declines in contributions have worsened in recent months, a new study of more than 1,000 congregations has found.

In the "2010 State of the Plate" survey conducted in February and March, 38 percent of church leaders said that giving fell over the past year, up from 29 percent in a similar survey done at the same time in 2009. And fewer churches reported gains: 36 percent, down from 47 percent in the earlier survey.

Megachurches—those with 2,000 to 5,000 members in weekly attendance—were more likely to report declines in donations. Forty-seven percent of such churches said giving go declined compared with just 23 percent the previous year.

In response to a new question this year, about a third of church leaders said giving in December 2009 failed to meet their expectations. The same percentage also said that they had cut their budgets by...

Fund raising and charitable giving are the subject of a growing body of research by economists, psychologists, and other scholars.

This emerging line of study got a lift last week, with the announcement of $1.4-million in grants that will pay for four research projects that seek to advance scientific understanding of generosity. The money comes from the University of Notre Dame's Science of Generosity Initiative, which was created last year with a $5-million grant from John Templeton Foundation and another $200,000 from the university.

Following are the projects that will benefit:

• A $250,000 study of how empathy affects charitable donations by James Andreoni, a behavioral economist at the University of California San Diego.
• A $396,447 project by Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard University sociologist, to examine how generosity spreads in human social networks.
• A $456,906 examination...

Fund raisers at older organizations such as the American Red Cross or American Cancer Society may feel a false sense of security about their ability to raise more money than smaller, less well-known organizations.

In an online presentation last week, Roger Craver, a direct-marketing expert, and researcher David Lawson  shared a new analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service, which found that charities created in 1969 or earlier raised a total of $205-billion in 2007. Groups created in 1970 or later raised $105-billion, or about half as much. The average amount that organizations created after 1970 raised grew steadily during every decade they were in existence. Newer organizations, Mr. Craver said, are able to raise more impressive sums than many fund raisers have realized.

Other research suggests that the older organizations are losing charitable dollars to newer charities:...

Hartsook Companies, a fund-raising consulting company in Kansas City, Mo., is offering charities located in or near Baltimore and Washington the chance to receive a free, customized consulting session during a three-day period next month.

The sessions, which the company is billing as its "Growing Philanthropy Tour," will be held on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 9-11, in advance of the annual conference of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Baltimore.

Each consultation will last 90 minutes to two hours. Charities that qualify for one of the free sessions must fill out an online application, send three key officials, including a board member, to the in-person meeting, and agree to a pre-consultation telephone interview. Consultants will also offer follow-up communications with each organization about 90 days after the in-person session.

Issues that nonprofit groups...

According to the Edinburgh Evening News, Tom Campbell, the head of an organization that promotes tourism in the historic Scottish city, believes that street solicitors working on behalf of charities are a bigger problem than beggars.

In reporting that news, the paper said in an editorial that it supported Mr. Campbell's views. "At last someone in authority has taken a stand against the blight on our streets that is the 'chugger,'" the editors wrote. Charities, it added, "have countless ways to tap into the benevolent hearts of caring people in Edinburgh and beyond. Press-ganging them in the open streets should not be one of them."

According to the editorial, Mr. Campbell has joined the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce in calling for a crackdown on "chuggers" or charity muggers, as street solicitors are derisively called throughout Great Britain.

But in a followup story, charities...