Gail Bower, astute specialist in sponsorship, published a book more than a year ago titled, How to Jump-Start Your Sponsorship Strategy in Tough Times.

Well, tough times continue, and Bower's advice in this small, jam-packed book remains as relevant as it was a year ago.

Bower was inspired to write her book in the wake of the financial pressures on companies as they rode the tide of recession, but also because of the waves of public disapproval that battered many corporations and financial institutions. As the government poured money into rescuing entire business sectors, every move and expenditure was publicized and questioned by a chorus of critics from the general public to congress to the White House.

Bower realized...Read More...

This month marks the ninth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. 9/11 is also an official National Day of Service when we are all encouraged to find an opportunity to give back to our communities.

This year, there is a new website at www.911dayofservice.org where you can find a way to volunteer, record your support of a particular cause, and share the information with your friends and family.

All of the activities this year are in preparation for the 10th anniversary next year. The hope is that 100,000 organizations will enroll between now and 9/11 2011 and connect individuals to service opportunities.

Meanwhile Scholastic, the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology and children's media, has developed a course of study for teachers and schools to help instruct students in age appropriate and constructive ways on the events of 9/11. The goal is to inspire students to pay tribute through voluntary charitable service and good deeds.

Television and radio service announcements, featuring actors Gary Sinise and Denis Leary, will be viewed nationwide this year thanks to the support of the National Association of Broadcasters, Clear Channel, many of the major networks, and cable channels.

Your resources for 9/11:

• For volunteer opportunities, go to www.911dayofservice.org.
• For information about the Scholastic program, including lesson plans, go to Scholastic.
• To see the public service announcements go to What To Say and Just Another Day.

Related:

• National Service Makes a Comeback
• 7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Volunteering

Social Media

Megan Hill, of Service Is Power, tells us How to engage your Facebook fans. It's not enough just to have a Facebook page, but Megan provides great tips about how to make it interesting enough for people to come back.

Susan Gordon, writing at NTEN, reveals the secrets of How to Use Causes for Your Year-End Fundraising Appeal. There are new tools, and Susan has several tips that should achieve results for your year-end push.

Mark Walsh, of MediaPost, does a fine job of dissecting the latest Pew Report on mobile use in Grown-Ups Text Too. Apparently the number of adults who send and receive text messages is growing like crazy. It's fun to see the changes we adults are willing to make these days.

And, of course, mobile isn't just about fundraising, as Avi Kaplan, writing for FrogLoop, reminds us in Nonprofits Take a Dive into Mobile Apps. Avi lists apps developed by nonprofits around the country that are helping those organizations extend their missions.

A large part of successfully using social media has to do with listening. Beth Kanter has the scoop on what tools are available in What Tools Are You Using for Listening, Engaging, and Social Media Management?. Be sure to read the comments at this post as Beth's followers chime in with their favorite tools.

Fundraising

Mark Phillips, writing at queer ideas, takes on direct mail in What happens after that mailing pack lands on the mat? Mark pulls together data from several studies that connect direct mailing to online giving.

Pamela Grow, of Pamela's Grantwriting Blog, lists Five Ways to Sabotage Your Fundraising. Believe me, you don't want to do these things...ever.

Cause Marketing

I love Groupon and get alerts whenever there are great deals near me. Now, there is a similar program for nonprofits. Joe Waters, of Selfish Giving, provides all the details in Causeon: Groupon for Cause Marketing. Find out what organizations are already doing with Causeon, and what Joe thinks of its future.

Food for Thought

Allyson Kapin is featured in a Fast Company blog with her post, Too Few Women in Tech? Stop Playing the Blame Game. Kapin is coordinating the Women Who Tech Telesummit on September 15th. In this post, she provides some excellent tips about how men, who seem to dominate the tech world, can increase their inclusion of women.

Best Opportunities

Rebecca Leaman, of Wild Apricot, has posted her monthly list of free webinars for September. Get them while they're hot!

The August Nonprofit Blog Carnival has been rounded up by Kivi Leroux Miller. Visit for numerous links to Ideas to Boost Your Creativity.

Elizabeth Ricca, of duck call, is hosting the Sept Nonprofit Blog Carnival and says, "'Tis the season for freshly-sharpened pencils and year-end appeal strategies, so we invite you to submit your best and brightest blog posts on September's theme: back to school in nonprofit communications." The details at Share your posts with the nonprofit blog carnival.

Photo by Getty Images

A recent survey of donors by marketing firms Russ Reid and Grey Matter Research & Consulting resulted in numerous insights about how donors think and give.

The survey asked about many aspects of the respondents' giving patterns, including donating in response to the appeal for funds in the wake of the Haiti earthquake earlier this year. For those of us who have been thinking hard about disaster giving recently, these data are helpful in answering the question of who might give in these situations, to what, and by what channels.

Here are the points from the study about giving to Haiti:

• 38% of Americans gave to help Haiti.
• 52% of active donors--those who give to nonprofits regularly--donated.
• Nearly 30% of Haiti donors said they did not support any nonprofits in the last year. This included 16% of what the researchers called "fairly determined non donors."
• Most likely to give to Haiti were African Americans (51%), Latinos (53%), Asians (59%) as were people not born in the US (59%).
• Four out of ten donors said that if they hadn't responded to the Haiti appeal, that money would have gone somewhere else (presumably to another cause).
• 58% of donors said their donation to Haiti was unique. It was over and above what they normally give.
• Haiti was a first-time gift for 3% of all Americans, 6.7 million people.
• 32% of Haiti donors gave to nonprofits working in Haiti through their places of worship; 22% gave online; and 19% gave through texting. Ninety percent of the texting donors said that if texting had not been available they would have donated in some other way.

The researchers noted that emergency donors are different than everyday donors, and that many such donors give above and beyond for disasters, not instead of their usual donations. That is comforting since there has been a general belief on the part of nonprofits that disaster giving detracts from other causes.

It is also clear that people who never give to causes can be persuaded to give during an emergency; and that minorities are heavily involved in emergency giving. It might be wise for a nonprofit involved in disaster fundraising to rewrite its message to appeal to potential donors that may be substantially different than their mainstream donors.

The data also raise the question, but do not offer a definitive answer, "would people who texted their donations give more through other channels?" Do the restrictions on the amount of a donation through texting limit the actual amount of money ultimately raised?

Every disaster is different. We'll be wondering for a long time what differences matter. Why was the response to Haiti so huge and immediate, but in the case of the flooding in Pakistan, giving has been slow and much less? But this study provides some tantalizing clues.

More about the study:

• News release about the study.
• The study: Introducing The Heart of the Donor: Insights into donor motivation and behavior for the 21st century.
• Study Sheds Light on Who Gives and Why Nonprofit Quarterly.
• 'Old" donors give more - so do we stick to the same 'old' fundraising? Katya Andresen
• New Survey Gets to the 'Heart of the Donor' Fundraising Success Magazine

Related:

• Why Aren't We Helping Flood Victims in Pakistan?
• Disaster Philanthropy: Why Are Some Disasters More Appealing than Others?

Photo: Getty Images