The British affiliate of SOS Children’s Villages has pledged not to spend any of the money it raises for Haiti on administration–and it is encouraging other British relief groups to do the same.

The group asks organizations to sign an online petition saying they will not put any Haiti gifts toward advertising, administration, fund raising, advocacy, or any other work in the United Kingdom, except for the purchase of goods delivered to the Caribbean nation.

Andrew Cates, chief executive of SOS Children’s Villages, says in an e-mail message that while his group has long encouraged other groups to spend less on fund raising, Haiti is a “bit of a special case” because charities have already set their fund-raising goals and budgets for the year.

“It just doesn’t seem right for the charitable sector to ‘gain’ from something like this and use it to pay for our own targets,” he says.

Mr. Cates …

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Having trouble deciding between the Valentine’s Day card with the cute puppies or the one with the witty message?

What about the one that could help the Salvation Army win up to $1-million — or maybe the card that could help St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital do the same?

Target, the retail-company, is giving Internet users the chance to decide how much of a $1-million gift five charities could win, based on a selection they make when sending an online Valentine’s Day card.

Target’s Facebook page features the cards, all of which have videos with a football theme to help people get in the Super Bowl spirit.

The five charities — Kids in Need Foundation, United Through Reading Military Program, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, United Way, and the Salvation Army — will get a portion of the $1-million that corresponds with the percentage of cards that endorse them.

The money…

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Voting opened on Monday in Pepsi’s Refresh Project, the latest effort by a company to let consumers have a say in how its philanthropic dollars should be spent.

Visitors to the project’s Web site can choose among more than 700 ideas submitted by individuals and charities. Top vote-getters as of Monday afternoon were a proposal by an elementary-school teacher’s assistant to form a club to promote self-esteem among girls, and camping trips for disadvantaged young people that are run by a charity connected with the University of Arizona.

Pepsi plans to give away $1.3-million each month, with grants ranging in size from $5,000 to $250,000.

In the last few years, more corporations have been experimenting with ways to give consumers a chance to help direct their charitable money. Last May, the retail-company Target started an online campaign to let voting by its Facebook fans determine how big…

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Add online generosity to the list of things notable about the nation’s capital and its suburbs.

People in Alexandria, Va., a city located just outside of Washington, donated more money online per capita to charities that use Convio software in 2009 than Americans in any other large city.

For every 1,000 people, they gave $20,244.

Residents of Cambridge, Mass., donated the second-largest amount ($14,729 per 1,000 people), followed by Arlington, Va. ($14,362), another Washington suburb, and by Washington, ($13,746).

Convio, a company that provides software to charities, based the rankings on an analysis of online contributions it processed for 273 large cities. The company estimates that it processes about 10 percent of all online giving.

Other cities on the top 10 list were Minneapolis; Seattle; Berkeley, Calif.,; St. Louis; Bellevue, Wa.; and Ann Arbor, Mich.

Some fund raisers are privately concerned that the extraordinary outpouring of gifts to help victims of Haiti’s earthquake could depress other giving, adding another obstacle in an already difficult fund-raising environment.

But most experts say that the outpouring of generosity to Haiti will have little impact on charitable support for other causes.

“It’s a natural question but the reality is this kind of giving very seldom has any impact on other charities,” said Bob Carter, vice chairman of Changing Our World, a nonprofit group that consults with charities. “People who don’t normally give to charity will rise to a crisis and make a gift, and very few people who are generally philanthropic are going to stop giving to things they believe in.”

Melissa Brown, associate director of research at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, said the experience of charities after the 2004…

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Mia Hamm, Lance Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, and Tony Hawk are among 55 professional athletes extending their competitive spirit to charity fund raising this holiday season.

Athletes for Hope, a nonprofit group that helps sports players get involved in charitable causes, is ginning up competition among the athletes to see who can raise the most for their charity of choice by mid-January.

The fund-raising challenge was kicked off by Heather Mitts, a player for the Philadelphia Independence soccer team, in a video on the organization’s Web site.

Athletes who attract the most money and the largest number of gifts get prize money — up to $10,000 — for their charities. UGive, a nonprofit group that encourages young people to volunteer, is putting up much of that money, along with other sponsors.

Fans can track the athletes’ fund-raising progress on a Web page created by Global Giving, …

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A story about how a couple’s dance down the aisle to a Chris Brown song raised money to fight domestic violence drew more viewers than any other Prospecting article this year.

A YouTube video of the dance became an Internet sensation, helping to raise more than $15,000 for Wellstone Action, an antiviolence group in St. Paul, Minn. The newlyweds, Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz, chose the charity after the singer Chris Brown was charged with assaulting his then-girlfriend, Rihanna.

A story published in January about the factors that could shape fund raising in 2009 was the second most-popular story on Prospecting this year. Robert F. Sharpe, a planned-giving consultant in Minneapolis, identified a reduction in estate taxes, low investment returns, and the possibility of inflation as developments that could shape how much people would give this year.

Is it OK for charities to ban…

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