GuideStar Blog

• The clients of a culinary arts training program are all formerly incarcerated. It promotes itself as a “job training” program without mentioning that its clients have criminal records.
• A legal services provider for women caught in sex trafficking helps prostitutes, without any biases about the choices they have made, but has a hard time explaining its non-judgmental stance to donors.
• A retirement community has a foundation that raises money from residents to allow fellow residents to stay even if they have exhausted their savings. Their fundraising literature emphasizes that the fund is for people who have run into financial difficulty “through no fault of their own.”

When it comes to event fundraising, many organizations opt for the charity auction.

Although year-end fundraising plans are mostly finalized for many non-profits, it isn’t too late to incorporate a few additional best practices into your existing strategy.

For some time now, I have been writing to caution donors to check on the charitable status of a nonprofit before making a contribution. I know it sounds simple, but we continue to see nonprofit organizations that are phony and lack the IRS credentials for soliciting donations.

How much effort should an organization expend on documenting its good work for prospective donors? That was the question on the minds of participants at an interesting conference held in May by America’s Charities on the campus of Georgetown University. Under the new leadership of energetic Steve Delfin, the conference was an all day analysis of what it will take to increase workplace charitable giving. The story for affiliates of America’s Charities is that giving has continued to increase, but with a trend towards larger gifts from fewer contributors. Changing demographics and the impending retirement of baby boomers were key concerns as well.

We are on a regular basis updating information on our web site about giving to the Japanese earthquake relief effort . Thousands have died, thousands more are missing, and the death toll continues to rise. The race to find survivors is accompanied by the urgent need to prevent meltdown at nuclear power plants damaged by the natural disasters.