Charity isn’t usually on the minds of people when they propose marriage. But good causes often benefit when people look for unusual ways to pop the question.

For example, Shawn Millard donated money to WAMU 88.5 FM, a Washington public radio station, so he could broadcast his proposal to Heather Curlee live last week on Christmas Eve.

In exchange for a $500 gift, donors to the Washington station are allowed to write up to three 15-second announcements to be broadcast on a single day. Donors get to choose the day and the times when they want their messages aired.

At about 7:20 a.m. on December 24, a WAMU broadcaster read Mr. Millard’s proposal: “Today’s programs are made possible in part by Shawn Millard, who asks that his most wonderful girlfriend become his most wonderful wife.”

Apparently, he got a prompt response. Just a few hours later, at 11 a.m., another announcement was ...

In a sign of how the recession is changing giving patterns, hospitals say more donors are making long-term pledges and fewer are making outright cash gifts, according to a new survey of 58 hospitals conducted by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.

The study found a 14 percent decrease in cash gifts last year and a 5 percent increase in pledges, bequests, and other future giving commitments.

The study also showed that charities worked hard to get those cash gifts. For every dollar spent on fund raising, the hospitals collected $3.92 in cash gifts, down from $4.53 in 2007 before the economy soured. But when pledges and other commitments were taken into account, the hospitals saw returns go up from each dollar spent on fund raising, from $4.48 in 2007 to $4.63 last year.

Grants from foundations rose by 4 percent, to an average of $52,000. And, although less than a quarter of...

At many colleges and other nonprofit institutions, the number of people who donated to annual funds —and the amount they donate — has been dropping.

Fund raisers at those institutions worry about how to recover once-loyal donors. If alumni “give for three years and then skip a year, it is hard to get them back,” says Jeffrey Lindauer, director of the annual fund at Indiana University Foundation where the number of annual-fund donors has declined. “I’m not sure people will come back naturally,” Mr. Lindauer says.

At Georgetown University, some annual-fund donors have been coaxed back into the fold this year with a brand-new appeal.

The solicitation allows donors to “buy back” any years that they have missed giving to the annual fund for $25 per year. That enables them to restore a record of unbroken giving – -and to join or be reinstated into a giving club for loyal donors.

So...

It is not uncommon for fund raisers to earn annual bonuses for meeting goals, such as conducting a certain number of visits with donors or obtaining written pledge agreements.

Because such bonuses are not based on a percentage of the money raised from donors — which is against the ethical standards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and other organizations — the payments are generally accepted. But at least one consultant working in higher education says the bonuses are “appalling.”

“Why should the man or woman who gets a number of donors to sign commitments receive a bonus when many people in several of the institution’s departments, academic as well as administrative, probably played roles in securing those contributions?” writes communications consultant John Ross in an opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mr. Ross waves aside the argument that...

In New York City, pounded hard during the recession, local fund-raising consultants and charity officials came together this week for a mutually beneficial “speed consulting” event.

The benefit for charity officials: The chance to get 15 minutes of free advice from one or more consultants at the event.

And the consultants, who have seen their business shrink along with the economy, were eager to interact face-to-face with potential clients while also helping the city’s beleaguered nonprofit groups.

Organized by Nancy Raybin, head of a fund-raising and strategic-planning consulting firm that bears her name, the event featured experts from three other companies: Phillips Oppenheim (executive search), Prasad Consulting (prospect research), and Susan Ulin Associates (special events).

A big key to the success of the event, which filled up to capacity just a few days after it was...

Scientists have found that giving to others triggers a warm glow, similar to the endorphin-induced highs that people have after sex, a good meal, or indulging in opiates. Now a new study finds another link between sex and charity — or, rather, the lack of charity.

The researchers, two California economists, studied the effects of the sex hormone testosterone on the generosity of male university students. Higher levels of testosterone, they found, made the students both more reluctant to give to others and more demanding that others give to them.

Here’s how the study was conducted: On varying days, the researchers had 25 male students apply a gel containing placebo; testosterone gel that roughly doubled the level of the hormone in their blood; and a third cream that pushed their testosterone levels even higher.

Afterward the students (who had no idea if they received placebo or...

Nearly two-thirds of Americans plan to give online to charities in November and December, and their donations could exceed $4-billion, $1-billion more than they donated during the holiday season last year, according to a new survey.

The survey, released today by Convio, an Austin, Tex., fund-raising software company, and Forrester Research, a technology research firm in Boston, found that charity Web sites have the biggest influence on consumers’ decision to give online (44 percent).

Even so, Americans said that online gifts are not the only methods they use for donations. Many donors send in checks after examining a charity’s Web site (61 percent), contribute money at fund-raising events (38 percent), offer a donation to support someone they know in a fund-raising run, walk, or other such competition (17 percent), or respond to a telephone pitch (16 percent).

The findings...

Despite the stock market’s upward trend in recent weeks, most wealthy people continue to be wary of making big charitable commitments, fund raisers say.

One way to work around the problem is to encourage people to make certain types of planned gifts — donations that provide income as well as tax benefits to the contributors, says Robert F. Sharpe, a Memphis fund-raising consultant. Among the types of gifts he thinks fund raisers should promote: gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, and lead trusts.

Many fund raisers have been trained to seek three- to five-year pledges to give a specific cash sum, he notes. When a donor hesitates to make such a contribution, he says, fund raisers typically ask the donor to put the charity in his or her will.

But donors can easily change their minds about whether to leave a bequest and the charity could end up with nothing. And even if the...

Many charities are concerned that donations will suffer this month and next with the weak economy taking its toll on the normally busy giving season. But recent surveys suggest that year-end contributions, as well as donations next year, may not drop as much as some fund raisers fear.

In the latest such research, the American Red Cross commissioned a poll of more than 1,000 adults this month.

Despite the fact that nearly one in four Americans said their pay had decreased because of the economy, nearly 80 percent said that their holiday donations to charity would stay the same (62 percent) or increase (17 percent) this year.

While 20 percent of Americans said their holiday contributions would decline, the people polled were more likely to trim costs by economizing on holiday travel (44 percent), decorations (40 percent), and parties (31 percent).

Sixty-seven percent of...

Most capital campaigns by colleges and universities that seek to raise $1-billion or more are on track to meet their goals, despite the bad economy, according to a new report.

The report, by Marts & Lundy, a Lyndhurst, N.J., fund-raising consulting firm, analyzed 26 of the biggest campaigns now under way. Seventeen of the drives started before December 2007, when the recession officially began, and the nine others began in 2008.

Using regularly updated data on billion-dollar campaigns in higher education from The Chronicle of Higher Education and “big gifts of $50-million” or more compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nelson Lees, a senior consultant at Marts & Lundy, conducted the analysis.

Mr. Lees first calculated the average monthly increase reported by all 26 campaigns. He then compared it with the average monthly increase it would take for those same institutions to...