The 1865 assasination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, turned the small arts organization into a national historic site that many people today regard as more museum than playhouse.

When the theater reopened a few months ago, after an extensive renovation, officials implemented a new "timed-entry" ticketing procedure for people who visit the site for its historical rather than theatrical offerings. To avoid overcrowding, visitors go online and reserve a time slot in advance for when they will tour the facility.

That gives Ford's an advantage over other historic sites and museums that, while popular, are not as constrained in size: In reserving tickets online, visitors provide their e-mail and mailing addresses, which Ford's has started using to seek new donors with a demonstrated interest in the site.

For example, a recent direct-mail appeal for contributions sent...

Raising money by soliciting pedestrians has become a despised profession in Britain, where street solicitors are known as "chuggers" or charity muggers.

Now, in a new video, The Guardian's entertainment editor, Paul MacInnes, poses as a street fund raiser and asks passersby to tell him: Why do people hate chuggers?

Wearing a bright yellow vest and holding a clipboard, Mr. MacInnes finds that he cannot get anyone to talk to him, much less donate money. Only after stashing the vest and clipboard does he begin to find people who wil talk.

One man, for example, tells Mr. MacInnes that most chuggers are "mercenaries." He says that they have been known to grab hold of people and even pull earphones out of pedestrians' ears in order to make their pitches. He also describes one chugger trying to raise money to fight a deadly disease who told a mother who was unwilling to give that he hoped he...

A recent article about a college president who will be paid a percentage of the money he helps raise has sparked an online debate among readers of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Under his contract, Eric J. Barron, the new president of Florida State University, will receive $100,000 for every $100-million the university raises in its campaign to secure $1-billion. That's on top of his $395,000 salary.

Because the bonus is tied to the amount of money raised, the Association of Fundraising Professionals and other professional organizations for charitable fund raisers say it's unethical. Such an incentive could, in the view of those organizations, lead fund raisers to put undue pressure on donors to win the bonus - instead of putting the donor's and the institution's wellbeing first.

However, the university defends the bonus. Officials told The Chronicle that they wanted to give Mr....

With more than $220-million in donations so far in response to the Haitian earthquake, Tom Belford, a veteran fund raiser, poses a question on his blog The Agitator: “Can we call any of this fund raising?”

Donors are responding emotionally and spontaneously to what they see and hear in the news rather than after receiving an appeal, Mr. Belford writes. “All the various relief groups are doing is holding out the bucket for the donations to drop into.”

Fund raising, as Mr. Belford sees it, is different: It involves actively presenting a need or a cause to specific groups of people and persuading them that it corresponds to their interests.

Actual fund raising, he writes, will not occur until the American Red Cross and other relief organizations persuade those now giving millions of dollars in $10 cellphone increments to become repeat donors.

Fund raisers, he concludes, “will earn ...

Is it worthwhile to think about giving like a pyramid?

Two fund-raising experts are arguing about whether it makes any sense to keep looking at giving that way. Proponents of the idea say it helps people visualize how masses of low-dollar donors at the base of the pyramid can be moved up into progressively smaller ranks of donors who give large sums.

But according to Mark Rovner, a Takoma Park, Md., online fund-raising consultant, the pyramid idea of fund raising is inherently false.

In reality, “most major donors at most organizations do not rise up through the ranks of $15 donors, who become $100 donors, and then ultimately $100,000 donors,” Mr. Rovner writes. “Most major donors come to organizations via other major donors.” And most low-dollar donors, he adds, stop giving after a year or so.

Most low-dollar donors don’t ever join the ranks of an organization’s most generous ...

In The Agitator, a blog he co-founded, direct-marketing expert Roger Craver wonders why he keeps seeing “the same old tired [fund-raising] appeals, messages, and techniques in my mailbox … at a time when many nonprofits are clearly hurting and facing still further declines.”

The answer, he writes, is probably “fear of not meeting ‘the numbers’ copied from the previous year and discounted for the recession. Fear of not being able to convince the CEO or board to invest in what’s really required to research, test, and figure a better way into the future. Fear to dare.”

Mr. Craver advocates some “experiments” that charities should be taking now with their direct-marketing appeals, because, as he writes, “daring and risk-taking are essential rungs on the ladder up and out of the pit so many nonprofits are now facing.”

Among them:

• Get rid of this year’s plan based on last year’s...

Elden Nelson used his Fat Cyclist blog to raise more than $100,000 for two charities in just three days last month.

It all started when Mr. Nelson wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to Johan Bruyneel, the trainer of Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion. Mr. Nelson wrote that because of his many sterling qualities, including being a good speller, Mr. Bruyneel should include him in a training event for Mr. Armstrong and other world-class cyclists.

Mr. Bruyneel responded that Mr. Nelson could come to the training camp in Tucson, Ariz. — but only if he raised $10,000 for Mr. Armstrong’s cancer-fighting foundation, LiveStrong, and another $10,000 for World Bicycle Relief, a charity that uses bicycles to enhance the independence and livelihoods of needy families outside the United States.

And if Mr. Nelson could manage to raise $50,000 for each charity, Mr. Bruyneel said,...

Many charities have stepped up their efforts to seek bequests, largely because it’s one way to overcome donors’ reluctance to make big cash gifts when the economy is still soft and people fear outliving their assets.

Now two direct-marketing experts, Deborah Block and Paul Karps, highlight a new twist in bequest seeking by the Natural Resources Defense Council in Mal Warwick’s Newsletter for nonprofit direct marketers.

In a November mailing, the environmental group told donors that a trustee will match any new bequest, dollar for dollar, up to $1-million. The trustee will pay the matching portion immediately, even though the organization may not get any money from the bequest for years.

Such an offer is “something, quite frankly, we’ve never seen before,” Ms. Block and Mr. Karps write. Matching gifts are common, they add, but using them to spur bequests in this way is not....

Six months ago Jason Dick, a college development officer in Redmond, Wash., put out a request on his blog, A Small Change, to get tips from other fund raisers on how to effectively use networks like Twitter and Facebook to raise money.

He published some of the advice he got back today in a new post. Among the ideas:

• Before starting a fund-raising drive using a social network, make sure key people have specified how they will help spread the work and otherwise back the effort.

• Form alliances with businesses, such as an agreement in which an online company donates a portion of online sales to the campaign.

• Ask for specific amounts and set short deadlines to create incentives to give immediately to online fund-raising drives.

What tips would you add to this list?

Feeding America, the national network of food banks, has joined with MoveOn, the progressive political advocacy organization to seek donations.

The organization sent an e-mail appeal on Feeding America’s behalf to its five million members on December 30, hoping to capitalize on the end-of-year giving spirit.

“A record 49 million Americans are going hungry because of the economy,” the solicitation read. “Our country needs change that gets to the root of the problem, but we also need to help people survive….For every $1 you donate, Feeding America can help provide 7 meals.”

In response to the message, donors contributed $237,000 online—most of it within 24 hours after the message was sent, said Paula Thorton Greear, a media relations officer at Feeding America.

Even more important than the money raised, she said, is the chance for the charity to reach the millions of people who a...