Catholic Relief Services

Ten days after the devastating earthquake and tsunamis in Japan, American donors have contributed more than $136-million for relief efforts, according to a Chronicle tally. Nearly two-thirds of the total has been raised by one organization, the American Red Cross.

The rate of donations is slower than after last year’s earthquake in Haiti and after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Nine days after the disaster in Haiti, donors had contributed more than $355-million, and nine days after Katrina they had given more than $740-million.

The Twitter stream, which last month proved to be a vital link for anti-government protesters in the Middle East, quickly turned into a worldwide forum for comfort, heartbreak and hope for Japan's quake-stricken residents.

Social-networking powerhouses Twitter and Facebook once again became important communications tools in a natural disaster.

Fundraising professionals shared four ways to justify donor acquisition to the higher-ups during the 2011 Washington Nonprofit session "Asking Up: Making the Acquisition Justification to Your CFO/CEO/Board."

This new research shows that charitable organizations are still outpacing the business world and academia in their use of social media. The latest study (2009) revealed that a remarkable ninety-seven percent of charitable organizations are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging, wikis and Twitter.

American charities say they haven’t raised nearly what they need to help Pakistan’s flood victims.

Aid workers report that they are being forced to decide which assistance programs are most urgent, scale back plans to serve more people, and close clinics ahead of schedule because they lack sufficient cash.

When the Haiti earthquake hit back in January, the outcry and response were swift and plentiful. In this new era of the iPhone and other mobile devices, the biggest buzz in the fundraising sector was generated from the mobile-giving explosion following the disaster. But the biggest takeaway for fundraisers — all of them, not just disaster-relief organizations — is that donors have certain, higher expectations these days, and your organization must meet them.

Lynn Edmonds
President
L.W. Robbins

When FS' parent company, North American Publishing Co., set out to launch this magazine in summer 2003, the launch team wanted to establish an editorial advisory board that would ensure it started out on the right foot and stayed that way. The board had to include people from all areas of fundraising who were entrenched enough to have a solid grasp of its history but still open enough to be able to see into its future and head there without fear.

WASHINGTON, October 1 2009 — The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), recently awarded 30 grants totaling $8.6 million to 23 U.S. based non-profit, private and voluntary organizations (PVOs), under USAID's International Food Relief Partnerships (IFRP) program.

AMHERST, N.Y., July 29, 2009 — SofTrek Corporation, a leading provider of donor management software and fundraising solutions for nonprofit organizations, announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with WealthEngine, a leading provider of sophisticated prospect research and analytics for nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher education.

Amherst, New York, July 24, 2009 — SofTrek Corporation, a leading provider of donor management software and fundraising solutions for nonprofit organizations, announced today the release of ClearView technology for its PledgeMaker donor management software. ClearView enables users to achieve a complete and clear view of their donors by allowing them to personalize their workspaces and by giving them easy access to the donor-related information they need, when they need it, and in a format they find most useful.