June 11, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
- The proliferation of marketing deals between companies and charities and too many “product promotions that masquerade as cause-marketing programs” threaten to bring about consumer fatigue, Mike Swenson, an advertising executive, writes on Good Works, a blog run by Advertising Age magazine.
- Do donors care about charities’ performance? Sean Stannard-Stockton, an adviser to donors and a Chronicle contributor, kicked off a discussion on this topic, writing that information about charities’ impact has to be presented in an engaging way. Nathaniel Whittemore of Change.org says that if people are emotionally invested, they take it on faith that a charity is effective. Timothy Ogden, publisher of Philanthropy Action, and Jacob Harold, of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, also weigh in on Mr. Stannard-Stockton’s blog.
- The Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania has published a report that offers advice to donors on what types of programs are having the biggest impact in Haiti in health, education, and economic development.
- Simplicity is key for successful fund-raising appeals, but too often solicitations get bogged down in minutiae, Jeff Brooks, a nonprofit consultant, writes on Future Fundraising Now. “No matter how complex your organization’s work is, your fund raising must boil it down to something simple,” he writes. “The one-sentence version.”
- Mallary Jean Tenore writes on the Poynter Institute’s blog about a recent fund-raising campaign by Grist.org and what other nonprofit news sites can learn from it.
- Ellen Remmer, president of the Philanthropic Initiative, sizes up philanthropy in Ireland on her group’s blog, Deep Social Impact.
