As more charities develop business ventures to further their missions and generate revenue, a series of challenges is erupting both for organizations and for fund raisers, according to a panel of fund-raising consultants who met in Baltimore just before the Association of Fundraising Professionals opened its annual meeting.

Charities that are successful at raising money through social entrepreneurship may have a harder time making a case to donors that they still need to provide support, noted Kristina Carlson, president of Ketchum, a Pursuant Company, in Dallas. She spoke about a charity she has worked with that had gone public with a business venture, raising $300-million in an initial stock offering. "Their major-gifts officer quit," she said.

On the other hand, the opportunity to invest in certain business ventures by nonprofit organizations—such as helping to bring new drugs or...

As charities plunge into the world of social networking — but struggle to raise money from their efforts — they may find intriguing this story about fund raising and Facebook, recounted by Ken Goldstein on The Nonprofit Consultant Blog.

Last month, when Jenni Ware lost her wallet at a California supermarket, a fellow customer she’d never met before, Carolee Hazard, offered to pay her $207 grocery bill. Later that day, Ms. Ware found her wallet and sent Ms. Hazard $300 — the food bill, plus an extra $93 for her trouble.

Ms. Hazard, a Facebook user, asked her online “friends” what they would do with the extra money. As people suggested she donate the amount to charity, Ms. Hazard not only donated Ms. Ware’s $93 tip, but matched the amount. So did several of her Facebook connections.

“The result for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, where it all...

The Linchpin Campaign, run by the Center for Community Change, has released a new free resource to help community organizers raise money more effectively, writes Elisabeth Anderson on the Future Leaders of Philanthropy blog.

The guide, Untapped: How Community Organizers Can Develop and Deepen Relationships With Major Donors and Raise Big Money, is “a great addition to community organizing’s fund development toolbox, and is full of insights and specific how-to’s to engage long-term supporters,” writes Ms. Anderson.

The Center for Community Change, which focuses on nurturing leaders of low-income, mostly minority communities, created the Linchpin project to garner greater support for community organizers. The profession — which has gotten increased attention since the election of the former community organization Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency, “is certainly a popular career path...

As public radio stations around the country once again interrupt their regular programming this winter to cajole, badger, and bribe their recession-plagued listeners into pledging their support, Alan Smith, a public-radio alumnus, muses on the PhilanthroMedia blog about what other charities can learn from such efforts.

June Thomas’ recent list on Slate.com of the 10 most effective fund-raising tricks employed by public-radio stations during these drives prompted him to recall his own experiences with such campaigns, he writes.

“Her list seems spot on to me, calling out the impulse towards fund raising by guilt (major turn off) and complementing the ways in which public radio has come to really know its audience and know how to motivate them,” Mr. Smith writes. Ms. Thomas’ list includes such perennial ploys as donor gifts, flattery, offers to match donations, and a strategy she...

Six Degrees, the social networking Web site created by the actor Kevin Bacon, may have raised more than $2.5-million so far for causes championed by its users, but it has thus far failed to impress Dana Variano, who writes this week about the site on the PhilanthroMedia blog.

The actor, who is the subject of a popular game called “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” in which players try to connect him to other actors in six or fewer personal connections, started the site two years ago with the nonprofit Network for Good. Like other social-networking sites, it allows people to create a profile and add connections, and also to announce their support of specific charitable causes.

“Despite the impressive monetary results, I’m a little skeptical of this approach to fund raising,” writes Ms. Variano. “It seems a little incomplete: the site only deals with monetary donations. What about...

California’s new nutrition standards for food sold to students during school hours is causing trouble for a fund-raising staple—the bake sale, writes Dan Prives, a nonprofit financial expert, on his Web site, Where Needed Most.

Articles in The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle detail the effects of the new guidelines, he writes. “It seems to me that moderation is exactly what the guidelines implement, and exactly what the opponents reject,” he argues.

The new code he writes, “simply requires that snacks sold in school should not have more than 35 percent of its calories from fat (no more than 10 percent from saturated fat) and no more than 35 percent of its total weight from sugar. It also sets a limit of no more than 250 calories per food item. Trouble is, the standard bake sale items like brownies and muffins far exceed these reasonable standards.”

As a result...

Nonprofit organizations are always seeking experienced fund raisers, and studies show that members of the millennial generation, made up of those born since 1980, are more interested in civic engagement than are previous generations.

But those young people won’t enter the pipeline for those jobs unless they’re introduced early to the broad range of careers available in fund raising, writes Erin Hall-Westfall and Naomi Marshall on the Future Leaders in Philanthropy blog.

Ms. Hall-Westfall, director for recruitment and human resources at the University of Michigan’s development office, and Ms. Marshall, conference director for advancement at Academic Impressions, a Denver organization that offers training in academic administration, note the scarcity of candidates for higher-education development jobs in particular.

“One of the richest pools for recruiting young professionals...