As fund raisers search for signs of the economic recovery, one bright spot already on the horizon, says a veteran fund raiser, is the potential for gifts of appreciated securities from donors who may have benefited from the decrease in stock prices over the last year.

“Last fall when everyone was selling, somebody was buying,” said Robert F. Sharpe, a Memphis fund-raising consultant, at the annual meeting of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning in Washington. And by early next year, he explained, those buyers will have newly appreciated stock ripe for charitable contributions.

You can read more about Mr. Sharpe’s observations in our conference notebook.