Peer to Peer

Chris Ulmer turned his passion for running into a fundraising drive for Teach for America, asking supporters to donate money for each one of the 250 miles he plans to run from Penn State to his home in Willow Grove, Pa., upon graduation.

Start your donor relationships off right with prompt, polite thank-you notes, and start lighting the fire for your end-of-year appeals today.

I just returned from a trip to Australia, and it’s interesting to me how different countries bring their own unique cultural context to online fundraising. There are also some important lessons to learn that we can import back into our North American fundraising mix.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For actor Edward Norton, philanthropy and activism are practically in his genes so launching a website on Wednesday to encourage charity fundraising seemed natural to him.

Norton, 40, joined forces with a couple of Internet savvy friends to create Crowdrise (www.crowdrise.com) that gives people a free way to create their own fundraising pages to share through social networks, winning points and prizes along the way.