Fund Raising http://philanthropy.com/section/Fund-Raising/268/ Charities Must Adapt Appeals to Reach Young Donors, Poll Finds http://philanthropy.com/article/Charities-Must-Adapt-Appeals/64719/ Charities will need to adapt their mailings and focus on the many ways that younger people want to connect in order to appeal to the next generation of donors, says a study released last week by Convio and Sea Change Strategies.

Conducted by Edge Research, the online study polled more than 1,500 people who contributed to charity in the past year to learn how people of different ages discover nonprofit groups, interact with them, and support them.

The study found that direct...

...]]> American Charities Raise Close to $1-Billion for Haiti, Chronicle Tally Finds http://philanthropy.com/article/American-Charities-Raise-Close/64684/ Nine weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, donors have contributed nearly $980-million to support relief efforts.

Donors gave approximately $66-million of that total in response to a star-studded telethon that was broadcast on major television networks in January. Organizers awarded $35-million in grants on February 5.

Among the results:

• ActionAid has raised more than $419,000 as of March 2.

• Action Against Hunger has raised more...

...]]> Getting Younger Donors to Give http://philanthropy.com/article/Getting-Younger-Donors-to-Give/64675/ People in their 20s have been called the next “greatest generation,” the “trophy generation,” and even “narcissistic praise hounds.”

For charity fund raisers, those people might be better known as the donors who are hardest to hold onto, according to the results of a study released on Monday. Members of Generation Y, the term most often used for this group, tend to be less loyal to an organization and hold high...

...]]> Charities Must Find Multiple Ways to Persuade People of Different Generations to Give, Study Finds http://philanthropy.com/article/Charities-Must-Find-Multiple/64673/

People in their 20s have been called the next “greatest generation,” the

... ...]]> Humane Society Faces Attack on Its Spending http://philanthropy.com/article/Humane-Society-Faces-Attack-on/64490/ A nonprofit organization in Washington long criticized as a front for the restaurant and beverage industries has lashed out at the Humane Society of the United States with a new high-profile Web and advertising campaign that attacks the animal charity for how it spends its donations.

The Center for Consumer Freedom, which is led by the lobbyist Richard Berman, took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times in February and unveiled a Web site,...

...]]> National Charity 'Embeds' Fund Raisers to Help Win Big Gifts http://philanthropy.com/article/National-Charity-Embeds-Fund/64488/ All too vividly, John P. Cerniglia recalls the times he visited wealthy donors as head of the Cincinnati Habitat for Humanity, only to learn that they had recently been solicited by a fund raiser from Habitat’s national office.

“Forget about how I felt as the local executive,” says Mr. Cerniglia. “Imagine the awkwardness the donor felt, feeling positioned between the national organization and the affiliate.”

When Mr. Cerniglia took a job at the...

...]]> Quarterly Fund-Raising Index Shows Slight Uptick http://philanthropy.com/article/Quarterly-Fund-Raising-Index/64417/ ...

...]]> American Charities Raise $895-Million for Haiti Relief http://philanthropy.com/article/American-Charities-Raise/64468/ Seven weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, donors have contributed more than $895-million to support relief efforts.

Aid to Haiti got a big lift from a star-studded telethon that was broadcast on major television networks in January. Donations made in response to the telethon totaled $66-million, and organizers awarded $35-million in grants on February 5.

Among the results:

• ActionAid has raised more than $419,000 as of March...

...]]> Fund-Raising Efforts for Chile Off to Slow Start http://philanthropy.com/article/Fund-Raising-Efforts-for-Chile/64430/ Donations are starting to trickle in to aid survivors of the massive earthquake in Chile—but at significantly lower levels than after the January 12 earthquake in Haiti.

The slow pace of donations is largely because the government of Chile is in a better position to deal with the destruction than the impoverished country of Haiti, said a spokeswoman from Oxfam America.

As of Monday afternoon, Oxfam America had raised $3,499 for relief efforts in Chile. Three days after...

...]]> Health Charity Faces Challenge of Expansion http://philanthropy.com/article/Health-Charity-Faces-Challenge/64258/ Partners in Health, a Boston charity that has been providing medical care in rural Haiti since the 1980s, has in the past month seen its supporters increase more than tenfold.

The deadly earthquake that rattled Haiti last month, killing at least 200,000 people and wiping out many of Port-au-Prince’s buildings, has prompted an outpouring of generosity.

The group had anticipated raising $64-million this year, with 24 percent earmarked for Haiti. But in the last month, it...

...]]> Lawsuits Over University’s Fund-Raising Plan Raise Concerns http://philanthropy.com/article/Lawsuits-Over-University-s/64266/ Dueling lawsuits over a plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for Oklahoma State University’s athletics programs through life-insurance policies—and other lawsuits that involve similar arrangements—should give charities pause, fund-raising and legal experts say.

The disputes involve charities that take out life-insurance policies to cover a group of board members, donors, or other constituents. In some cases, the premiums are paid by the individuals; in...

...]]> Haiti Recovery: How Much Charities Have Raised and Spent http://philanthropy.com/article/Haiti-Recovery-How-Much/64312/ American Red Cross

$276-million raised
$80-million so far committed to emergency relief
Where it has gone: 69 percent of the money is providing food and water, 20 percent is for shelter, and 11 percent is for health and family services
How much it needs: The group is in the process of determining with other Red Cross organizations how much it will need for recovery efforts

Partners in

...]]> Charities Keep Fund Raising as Haiti’s Needs Mount http://philanthropy.com/article/Charities-Keep-Fund-Raising-as/64256/ American charities have raised more than $774-million to help Haiti recover from the earthquake that leveled much of the nation’s capital last month.

Relief workers say that the money will go a long way toward supporting a years-long recovery, outlines of which are still being worked out. But very few groups say they have enough money to be able to stop fund raising for Haiti now, and some organizations say they could use considerably more money to help the country rebuild....

...]]> Community Funds Work to Help Haiti and Local Immigrants http://philanthropy.com/article/Community-Funds-Work-to-Help/64273/ Shortly after the earthquake hit Haiti, the Boston Foundation got a call from a longtime donor offering to match up to $1-million in gifts to a new Haiti fund. Donors in the New England city, home to the country’s third-largest population of Haitian Americans, met that goal in less than a month.

A handful of other community foundations have been making similar appeals to help local immigrants and earthquake victims in Haiti.

One quarter of the money raised by the Boston...

...]]> Web Sites Ask Public to Monitor Relief Efforts in Haiti http://philanthropy.com/article/Web-Sites-Ask-Public-to/64257/ As scrutiny is intensifying over how the hundreds of millions in donations to Haiti relief efforts will be spent, several Web sites are now trying to help monitor the work by asking aid workers and Haitians to weigh in about what is going right and what is not.

Ben Smilowitz, founder of a nonprofit group that has monitored disaster relief in the United States since 2007, started a Web site to encourage aid workers to supply information about needs that have not been met and problems...

...]]> How a Boston Health Charity is Responding to Haiti http://philanthropy.com/article/How-a-Boston-Health-Charity-is/64330/ Paul Farmer has been working in Haiti since the 1980s, helping to strengthen rural communities’ ability to provide health care.

The nonprofit group he co-founded, Partners in Health, employed nearly 5,000 Haitians before last month’s earthquake, making it one of the largest providers of medical assistance in the island nation.

Immediately following the disaster, Partners in Health and its Haitian sister organization, Zanmi Lasante, set up mobile clinics and began...

...]]> American Charities Raise $774-Million for Haiti Relief, Chronicle Tally Finds http://philanthropy.com/article/American-Charities-Raise/64243/ Five weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti donors have contributed more than $774-million to support relief efforts.

Aid to Haiti got a big lift from a star-studded telethon that was broadcast on major television networks in January. Donations made in response to the telethon totaled $66-million, and organizers awarded $35-million in grants on February 5.

Among the results:

• Action Aid has raised $300,000 as of February 17.

• Action...

...]]> American Charities Raise $709-Million for Haiti Relief, Chronicle Tally Finds http://philanthropy.com/article/American-Charities-Raise/64193/ A month after the devastating earthquake in Haiti donors have contributed more than $709-million to support relief efforts.

Aid to Haiti got a big lift from a star-studded telethon that was broadcast on major television networks January. Donations made in response to the telethon totaled $66-million, and organizers awarded $35-million in grants on February 5.

Among the results:

• Action Aid has raised $295,000 as of February 12.

• Action Against...

...]]> Text-Message Success Shakes Up the Fund-Raising World http://philanthropy.com/article/Text-Message-Success-Shakes-Up/63898/ The deadly Haiti earthquake disaster­—for which American groups have raised more than $644-million—marked the first big fund-raising test for collecting charitable gifts via text messaging. More than $37-million so far has been contributed, usually in increments of $5 or $10, using a cellphone.

The response has fund raisers throughout the nonprofit world examining relief groups’ experience with the new medium and asking tough questions about potential...

...]]> Fund Raisers See Glimmers of Hope Amid Challenges http://philanthropy.com/article/Fund-Raisers-See-Glimmers-of/63896/ The New Jersey Performing Arts Center expects to raise $10.7-million this year, 5-percent more than in 2009.

Peter Hansen, the center’s vice president of development, says he is grateful to be projecting an increase of any size. This is the harshest fund-raising climate in his nearly 30 years in the profession, he says.

Donors are more willing to talk about making large gifts now than they were right after the stock-market plunge in the fall of 2008, he says. But...

...]]> Donations to Colleges Dropped Nearly 12% in 2009 http://philanthropy.com/article/Donations-to-Colleges-Dropped/63897/ With a battered economy and volatile financial markets taking a toll on donors’ pocketbooks, private giving to American colleges dropped sharply in 2009, according to findings of the annual Voluntary Support of Education survey, released last week.

Donations were down by 11.9 percent, to $3.75-billion from the previous year—the steepest decline in the survey’s 50-year history. (Adjusted for inflation, the drop was 11.5 percent.)

Colleges brought in an...

...]]> Ex-Teacher Gives N.J. School $60-Million Bequest http://philanthropy.com/article/Ex-Teacher-Gives-NJ-School/63895/ How much: $60-million bequest

Who gave it: Henry C. Woods Jr., an English teacher, and his wife, Janie. Mr. Woods’s family founded the Sahara Coal Company, in Chicago, which is now an investment holding group. He died in 2005, and his wife died two years later.

Who got it: The Lawrenceville School, a private high school in New Jersey. Mr. Woods graduated from the school in 1940, taught English there from 1952 to 1986,...

...]]> Haiti Telethon Organizers Award First Relief Grants http://philanthropy.com/article/Haiti-Telethon-Organizers/64049/ Organizers of the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon, which has raised more than $66-million for earthquake victims, announced their initial round of grants today.

The first $35-million was divided among six charities picked in advance of the telethon by the Entertainment Industry Foundation, with help from the Bridgespan Group. The seventh telethon beneficiary, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, will apply for money during the second round of grants in May, which is dedicated to...

...]]> Haiti Donations Exceed $644-Million http://philanthropy.com/article/Haiti-Donations-Exceed/63887/ Donors have contributed more than $644-million to help earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

Aid to Haiti has gotten a big lift from a star-studded telethon that was broadcast on major television networks last week.

By Wednesday, donations made in response to the telethon totaled $66-million.

Among the results:

• Action Against Hunger has raised nearly $2.8-million as of Wednesday.

• Adventist Development and Relief Agency had raised more...

...]]> A Roundup of Haiti Fund Raising as of January 29 http://philanthropy.com/article/A-Roundup-of-Haiti-Fund/63823/ Donors have contributed more than $560-million to help earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

Aid to Haiti has gotten a big lift from a star-studded telethon that was broadcast on major television networks last week. By Wednesday, donations made in response to the telethon totaled $66-million.

Among the results:

• The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee had raised $3-million as of Friday.

• American Jewish World Service had...

...]]> Donations to Help Haiti Exceed $560-Million as of January 29 http://philanthropy.com/article/Donations-to-Help-Haiti-Exceed/63824/ Seventeen days after the massive earthquake struck, donors have contributed more than $560-million to 40 U.S. nonprofit groups, a Chronicle tally finds. (See a list of tallies from the organizations.)

The pace of giving for Haiti is running ahead of the amount donated in the same period after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the Asian tsunamis in 2004 but slower than the outpouring of gifts after the...

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