Two designated charities are already benefiting from the publicity generated by the mock rallies announced by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their shows in recent weeks. The comedians have told supporters to donate money to help restore the park where the rallies will be held and to buy school supplies for classrooms in their community. So far, they've raised a total of $364,000.

On "The Daily Show" Wednesday night, Mr. Stewart encouraged attendees to his "Rally to Restore Sanity" on October 30 to contribute money to the Trust for the National Mall, which raises private money to restore and improve the national park.

"The National Mall is an incredible gathering place for all Americans, and it's in desperate need of upkeep and repair, especially after all of us rally on it," Mr. Stewart said. "It's the reasonable thing to do."

The Trust for the National Mall has...

The Foundation Center, a New York nonprofit organization that aids grant seekers nationwide, has started GrantSpace, a new site filled with educational content, videos, and podcasts. The new online resource is designed to make it easier for nonprofit workers to get information on financing their operations, getting grants, and operating effectively.

"We built out GrantSpace to be that one-stop shop for grant seekers worldwide to get information they need to advance their work," says Cynthia Bailie, director of the Foundation Center's Cleveland office and of Special Information Initiatives.

She says the Web site took a year to construct and came about after listening to grant seekers and "recognizing that they want to make the best use of their time." The Foundation Center's own Web site had grant-seeking "content segmented in a way that made it more time-consuming for someone who's really...

A new report has discovered what donors want when they go to galas and other events. The majority of eventgoers expect 50 percent to 70 percent of the ticket proceeds to benefit the cause. E-mail is the most efficient kind of invitation. And they expect to be served hors d'oeuvres if they pay more than $50 for a ticket.

What they don't want: long-winded speeches.

The study was conducted by CharityHappenings.org, a Web site that sells tickets to charity events. More on the report's findings can be found in an article in the latest issue of The Chronicle. 

The Chronicle had a chance to follow Justin Baer, the chief executive of CharityHappenings.org, one night recently for two of New York's biggest charity events: The New Yorkers for Children gala, which raised more than $1.6-million for New York City's foster children, and the Harvest in the Square food-tasting event, which raised...

Starting tomorrow, if you happen to be in the center of New York City's Times Square, you may catch a glimpse of a 30-second public-service announcement about homelessness and hunger by the charity St. John's Bread and Life.

You'll also be prompted to donate $10 via text message by entering the word "Bread" and 27138 to send.

The Brooklyn, N.Y., charity runs a soup kitchen and food pantry to feed 2,200 people a day. It received a surprising gift from one of its board members in June: the chance to tell its story on the Sony JumboTron in Times Square. At no cost.

The board member wishes to be anonymous, says Anthony Butler, executive director of St. John's Bread and Life. "He's a big supporter of ours, a very wealthy benefactor. He's very active in this. It was his idea."

The auction prize, valued at $10,000 to $15,000, was won through a spring gala in May from the Little Sisters of the...

Donations to nonprofit hospitals dropped by 11 percent last year, according to a new study.

Hospital gifts fell by $944-million to $7.6-billion from 2008, according to a new report by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. It was the first fund-raising dip since 2002, when giving dropped by 31 percent due to a recession.

Health-care giving in Canada last year rose 5.2 percent, or $56-million, to $1.1-billion.

The association said more than 80 percent of donors to hospitals were individuals, while 12 percent were corporations and foundations.

"What's happening with individuals is not unlike what's happening with corporations," said William C. McGinly, chief executive of the hospital fund-raising group. "They're holding on to cash because of the uncertainty of the times."

He adds, "They're giving less or extending their pledges over long periods of time. A lot of that goes to the actual ...

Stand Up to Cancer raised more than $80-million in pledges for cancer research and efforts to speed up new therapies to patients during its television special last week.

That's 20 percent less than the $100-million raised during its inaugural telethon in 2008, when the actor Patrick Swayze first made remarks about his battle with pancreatic cancer. He died a year later.

Major League Baseball donated the most—$20-million—to the cause this year; it pledged $10-million in 2008. Other major contributors include the philanthropist and businessman Sidney Kimmel, as well as Amgen, the Annenberg Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and GlaxoSmithKline.

More viewers saw the telecast this year, though, than the first—an audience of 18.3 million, up 15 percent, according to Nielsen.

The one-hour, commercial-free fund-raising event was hosted by the network news anchors Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer an...

Three years ago, the March of Dimes faced a dilemma. It was introducing a new image campaign, and had renamed its longtime signature fund-raising event from "Walk America" to "March for Babies."

The organization, founded in 1938 to improve the health of babies, had put on the event since 1970 and had raised more than $1.8-billion. The group figured "March for Babies" was a better name to communicate what the walk was all about.

But how to communicate that to its loyal supporters?

March of Dimes looked online for help. Spreading the word was essential. Its use of savvy online marketing techniques smoothed the transition, gained new followers, and established "March for Babies" as a marquee event.

In a session at the Direct Marketing Association's New York Nonprofit Conference, the group detailed its online strategy, what worked and what didn't:

• Found influential bloggers. During ...

Think about this: The American Red Cross received $32-million for Haiti relief efforts from people making donations through their cellphones. Among those donors, 1.3 percent agreed to receive e-mails from the organization. That means 20,000 new donors, 95 percent of whom had never previously supported the Red Cross.

Such results are why mobile fund raising is changing the landscape of charitable giving.

At the Direct Marketing Association's inaugural Nonprofit Mobile Day on Thursday in New York, speakers discussed how charities can take advantage of the new interest in text donations:

• Establish your building blocks. To run a text-messaging campaign, you're going to need a short code (a five-digit number) for people to use to text their donations. It's activated by a key word, such as "Haiti" to 90999. This works on all carrier networks. (You can go to usshortcodes.com to get an...

Nonprofits need to help their donors understand that charitable organizations have a lot in common with businesses, Dan Pallotta, a prominent nonprofit expert, told a  group of charity fund raisers in New York.

"We don't like to see a lot of people making a lot of money in charities," says Mr. Pallotta, the keynote speaker at this week's Direct Marketing Association's New York Nonprofit Conference. People have a "visceral reaction" to the notion.

But nonprofit compensation should match or at least correspond to the salaries in the for-profit world, he says. For one thing, nonprofit salaries at the moment don't attract the best and brightest. Why work as a chief executive for a medical charity at $230,000, he says, when others with the same MBA have salaries of $400,000 or greater?

Mr. Pallotta, the inventor of multiday AIDS Rides and Breast Cancer 3-Day events, says other items of neglect...

Engaging donors online is difficult enough as it is, but getting them to give is even harder. That's why it's important for nonprofits to apply direct-marketing principles to online marketing, says Barb Perell, vice president for online marketing at Avalon Consulting, in Washington.

Speaking at the Direct Marketing Association's New York Nonprofit Conference this week, she offered her top tips for effective online marketing efforts:

Drive traffic. The adage of "If you build it, they will come" is false. You need to guide people to your Web site in a variety of ways, such as search-engine optimization (using leading key words). One way to get this free is to apply for Google Grants, an advertising program for nonprofit groups. It's free for nonprofits to apply, sign up and be eligible for up to $10,000 a month of free Google advertising.

Limit sign-ups. Ask for appropriate information ...