Oxfam America

The strongest-ever earthquake to hit Japan triggered a tsunami that moved across the Pacific Ocean. The Associated Press reports that at least 300 people have already died.

Here are early responses from large international-aid charities, grant makers, and other groups:

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.

Controversial fundraiser Dan Pallotta believes that in order for charities to do their jobs and do them well, they must operate more like the private sector: Salaries must be comparable to those in business, donations should be spent on advertising, and nonprofits should be permitted to invest in the long term.

In a free webinar last month titled "It's All About the List! How to Grow and Cultivate Your Most Valuable Online Asset" sponsored by Network for Good, Justin Perkins, director of nonprofit marketing strategy at Care2, an online community that allows people to sign and send petitions and take a variety of actions on behalf of nonprofit organizations, offered advice to charities interested in building their e-mail lists.

Peter Singer is on a crusade to convince Americans that they can play a vital role in ending world poverty, without undue sacrifice.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference hopes to mobilize 50,000 people in the Mississippi Delta this summer in a campaign to draw attention to the poverty of a region where some Americans still live in homes with dirt floors and brown water flows from their faucets.

Judging for the Gold Awards was a little more low-key this year, it seems. (We think it might be because the ASPCA’s Steve Froehlich couldn’t make it. But please … don’t tell him we said so.) Also, there was no hotly contested tie for Package of the Year that had us seeking tiebreaker after tiebreaker like last year. But the competition was just as fierce.

Editor’s Note: Perhaps the best way for nonprofit organizations to learn how to effectively increase their online presence through innovative multichannel programs is to look to their peers that already are utilizing Web 2.0 channels for advocacy, friendraising and fundraising. We asked Katrin Verclas, executive director of NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network, to talk about some of the organizations that she sees as leading the way.

Online social-networking applications have emerged as one of the new frontiers for nonprofits. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and others offer organizations a public stage on which to present their causes, rally support, spur activism and build relationships with constituents and potential donors.

Nonprofit direct-response fundraising programs historically have centered around one channel, usually direct mail. But as other channels become more viable and new ones emerge — can you say W-E-B? — innovative organizations have become aggressive in incorporating them into their fundraising mix.