How Charities Tweak Their Approaches to Stand Out in a Difficult Climate
Fund raisers at America’s top charities are looking overseas for gifts, showing donors how their money makes a difference, and taking other steps to stand out in a bad economy.
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
A Health Group Gets Drug Companies to Step Up to Support Patients
The Chronic Disease Fund seeks to help people of moderate means pay for treatments that their insurance won’t cover.
By Raymund Flandez
Contributor
Charities That Rely on Food, Medicine, and Other Noncash Gifts Grew Fastest
Gifts of food, medicine, and other items fueled the growth of many of the biggest gainers on the Philanthropy 400 over the past two decades.
By Ben Gose
Senior Editor
Economy’s Downturn Forces Charities to Change Tactics
Though giving dropped in 2009, some charities in the Philanthropy 400 see a slow thawing in their support for 2010 and beyond.
By MAUREEN WEST and Caroline Preston
An Animal-Welfare Charity Wins Donors With Cheerful Appeals
Best Friends Animal Society, a Utah charity, emphasizes the feel-good aspects of its mission to lure donors.
By Debra E. Blum
Contributor
Community Fund Makes Gains by Appealing to a Sense of Kinship
The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation conducted a study of what mattered most to donors and engaged both small and large donors with a family-oriented fund-raising approach.
By Eric Frazier
Contributor
Philanthropy 400 Reflects Generational Shift in American Giving
The changes in the Philanthropy 400’s makeup from 1991 to today reveal a lot about how charities have changed over two decades.
By Ben Gose
Senior Editor
Applying Kiva Approach to Fair Trade
The Hoop Fund is a new Web site that uses an approach popularized by Kiva to increase the market for fair-trade goods, such as chocolate and hand-woven clothing, and to help farmer and craft cooperatives in the developing world that make the products borrow money to improve their businesses.…
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
New Resource Offered to Grant Seekers
The Foundation Center has started GrantSpace, a new site designed to make it easier for nonprofit workers to get information on financing their operations, securing grants, and operating effectively. New features on GrantSpace include a live-chat service with a Foundation Center staff member, job…
By Raymund Flandez
Contributor
A closer look at the three U.S. organizations that have increased their private donations by $1-billion or more over the past two decades.
For-Profits Should Drop the ‘We Know Better’ Attitude
All the effort to make nonprofits more like businesses is backfiring. Instead, it’s time to make sure nonprofits achieve their potential.
By DAVID GRECO
Contributor
Nonprofits Can’t Always Borrow From Business
Business ideas work well in many parts of the nonprofit world, but not when it comes to closing a nonprofit and leaving clients without anywhere else to turn.
By DAVID GRECO
Contributor
Desperately Seeking Innovation
Given all the problems boards have carrying out their key duties, why have nonprofit leaders been so slow to develop new ways to handle governance?
By RICK MOYERS
Contributor
Doctors, Lawyers, Humanitarians: Do Aid Groups Need More Professionalization?
As natural disasters intensify and warring parties seek more control over aid groups, a new report urges donors and humanitarian charities to make changes.
By Caroline Preston
Contributor
Nonprofits Struggle to Keep Up With Suburban Poverty
The number of poor people in the suburbs is growing in record numbers, but government aid to help them goes mostly to the cities, a new study finds.
By GRANT WILLIAMS
Contributor
Charity Seeks to Move Beyond Making Loans to Entrepreneurs
The fast-growing charity Kiva hopes to use its technology and pool of supporters to solve problems that go well beyond its initial efforts to help entrepreneurs in the developing world.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor