Are you the victim of "accidental" branding? That is what happens when a nonprofit or business leaves its branding to chance. It results in confusion about what the organization is and does.

Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications, by Sarah Durham, is the clearest blueprint I've seen lately to rationally building your brand and implementing it. It is "branding in a box." If you do one thing about your organization's brand this year, make it reading this book. Once you do that, you'll be so excited to have a step-by-step plan that you're bound to start creating a better brand...More...

It's that time of year when we learn who gave how much and to what. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a list of the top 50 philanthropists of 2009, and Slate Magazine profiles the top 60 philanthropists. In a Wall Street Journal article, Robert Frank notes some trends in philanthropy after studying the lists. They include:

• Philanthropy is down. That's not much of a surprise given the state of the economy in 2009. But the percentage is large at 75% down. In 2008, the top 50 philanthropists gave $15.5 billion. That fell to $4.1 billion in 2009. That hurts. The median gift of these philanthropists fell to $41.4 million from $69.3 million in 2008.

• Philanthropy is going private. Rather than write checks to their favorite causes, many large donors are setting up their own foundations dedicated to solving some big global problems. Wealthy donors increasingly want to see concrete, measurable results from their giving. They also want to create large scale change, rather than a piecemeal solutions.

The top 10 American philanthropists for 2009 are:

1. Stanley and Fiona Drukenmiller, $705 million to the Drukenmiller Foundation.
2. John M. Templeton (Bequest), $573 million to Templeton Foundation
3. Bill and Melinda Gates, $350 million to the Gates Foundation
4. Michael R. Bloomberg, $254 million to 1,358 groups.
5. Louis Nippert, $185 million to Greenacres Foundation
6. George Soros, $150 million ($100 million to establish Fund for Policy Reform and $50 million to Central European University)
7. Eli and Edyth L. Broad, $105.2-million to the Broad Foundations
8. J. Ronald and Frances Terwilliger, $102 million ($100 million to Habitat for Humanity International and $2 million to other groups)
9. William P. Clements Jr., $100 million to Southwestern Medical Foundation
10. Pierre and Pam Omidyar, $92 million ($50 million to Hawaii Community Foundation; $41 million to HopeLab and Humanity United; $1 million to U. of Hawaii)

Photo by Don Bishop/Getty Images

The recession has changed us all in many ways. Not least among them, the return to some budgeting habits of yesteryear. We are saving more, spending less, and reviving old-fashioned techniques such as putting things on layaway so we can save up the money to buy them or pay them off in installments.

We are also giving to charity in more ways, but in smaller amounts. Nicole Wallace, writing on one of the The Chronicle of Philanthropy blogs, has pointed out that although charities raised millions of dollars in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, more than after the 2004 Asian tsunamis, the average gift was smaller - $109 for the earthquake compared with $208 for the tsunamis.

Micro-giving was already on the rise, in tandem with an explosion of online giving and the number of channels by which one can give. The interest in doing good that seems very strong in the younger generation, especially the Millennials, is a powerful force behind micro-giving, as is the perfecting of mobile giving which limits individual gifts to only small amounts such as $5 and $10. Many donors are also finding it's easier on the wallet to set up month-by-month giving plans or payroll deduction through their employers.

In a recent issue of AdvertisingAge, Christine Huang and Ozlioma Egwuonwu, of GlobalHue, a multicultural marketing firm, list five ways "culture" will become crucial for success in reaching consumers in 2010 and beyond. They list the diversity that will soon be uncovered in the Census; the multicultural sensibilities that corporations will have to show; the spread of "social gameplay" represented by Foursquare, CauseWorld, Twitter, and Facebook; and a return to humanism which shows up as increased interest in happiness, joy, and self-definition.

The fifth reason culture will become crucial the authors call "Micro Goes Mass," citing the outpouring of help for Haiti. They tie the reaction to Haiti with the "aftermath of the economic collapse," saying:

...the optimism that often accompanies the arrival of a new year is running thin in 2010. And yet, we're coming together to offer hope in smaller pieces, in the form of simple micro-actions....And beyond these times of need, micro-support is gaining traction as a straightforward, accessible way for everyday people to support the causes they believe in, finance promising new businesses, and make their creative visions a reality in small, easy steps.

I like the idea of framing micro-giving within the context of broad social change. We've already talked a great deal about micro-giving as the democratization of philanthropy where anyone can participate, no matter what their means. Now the picture widens and we can see that micro-giving may be intertwined with new economic realities and cultural shifts.

Whether we call micro-giving the new layaway or democratization, it does seem to coincide with a general feeling that smaller is better, slow is at least steady, and there are many ways to care for ourselves and others within a culture that is anything but ordinary or culturally monotonous.

Photo by Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

Related:

• Text-to-Give Fundraising Campaigns Take Off

• Buddy, can you spare a dime? So far the recession has not much improved for nonprofits. Philantopic discusses the outlook for this year and provides some excellent tips for where best to put your resources while we wait for the upturn.

• If not now, when? Tony Martignetti, in an article at GuideStar, says Make 2010 the Year You Start Planned Giving. Martignetti outlines how to do it and where to find prospects. This is the first of three articles on the topic, so you'll want to stay tuned.

• Haiti Is a Marketing Lesson. Dan Palotta, in his blog at the Harvard Business Review, uses the example of Haiti and the outpouring of help to further the argument that nonprofits should market/advertise and not be punished for doing so.

• Going, going, gone! Sherry Truhlar, a charity auction specialist, guest posts at StepByStep Fundraising with some great tips about how to use social media to leverage your auction. I would not have thought of these.

• Social Media for the Trainer. Maddie Grant, of SocialFish, attended Beth Kanter's recent webinar on how to incorporate social media into your training sessions. Maddie guides us to the best links to learn these techniques, from blog posts to resources, to the webinar notes.

• What's in, what's out, who's doing what? This Fast Company article sorts the most recent numbers from a Pew survey about who's doing what online. Hint: the younger set is not blogging and tweeting.

• Just in case you need more reasons to start a blog. Nonprofit Tech 2.0 has five more reasons for a nonprofit to blog and how that blog fits into a well-rounded social media strategy. Keywords here are traffic and content.

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