American Red Cross

Even as the nation weathers an economic downturn for a third straight holiday season, the majority of Americans are more committed than ever to charitable giving, according to a new American Red Cross poll.

A telephone survey of 1,020 adults conducted earlier this fall found that even though 67 percent of Americans didn’t think the economic downturn would last this long, they still want to give to charities, with more than seven out of 10 saying they expect to donate more or about the same this holiday season as they did last year.

When wildfires hit Central Texas, donors opened their wallets to help survivors by giving more than $3.8 million in cash.

The donations ended up mostly in the hands of six nonprofit organizations and church groups, led by the Austin Community Foundation with $1.2 million. The groups began distributing some of that money immediately after the fires began Labor Day weekend.

The majority of the donations, however, will go toward long-term relief for hundreds of residents in Bastrop and Travis counties.

World Food Program USA has put into place a new leadership team to help expand upon the organization’s mission to build support in the U.S. to end global hunger.

America’s big charities expect fundraising to rise in 2011, but the increase won’t come close to making up ground they lost in the downturn.

Nonprofits that made The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Philanthropy 400, the charities that raise the most from private sources, expect a median rise of 4.7 percent — meaning that half expect more and half expect less. That beats last year’s 3.5-percent median gain. Altogether, the charities in the survey raised $70.3-billion last year.

Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist and craigconnects, released an infographic detailing the use of social media by leading nonprofit organizations.

"How the Top 50 Nonprofits Do Social Media" is a fact-filled, comprehensive look at which leading nonprofit organizations are most proactively and effectively using social media channels of communication like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, and RSS feeds.

Gividend Inc., a Seattle-based company offering online donation and fundraising tools for nonprofits, has entered the daily deals industry with Gividend.com, a daily deals aggregator that allows people to support the local nonprofit of their choice with each purchase.

Gividend.com is organized in a way that helps people find the most relevant deals for their lifestyle and automatically donates a percentage of each purchase to community causes. Gividend partners with daily deals sites including Groupon, BuyWithMe and Tippr to offer each company’s daily deals in one convenient location.

Leaders of 19 nonprofits sent a letter to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (often referred to as the “Super Committee”), asking them to protect the charitable deduction.

In the letter released yesterday, the Alliance for Charitable Reform (ACR) explains the “potential damage to Americans seeking help from nonprofit services” that limiting the charitable contribution tax deduction.

Facing growing pressure to improve their impact and effectiveness, nonprofit networks that consist of multiple affiliates are pursuing a range of strategies to identify, connect and support their affiliates, a new study says.

"Networks, with multiple sites often operating similar programs, are increasingly expected to provide donors and supporters with a higher level of evidence that their work is effective and delivered consistently across the board," says Growing Network Impact: How Nonprofit Networks are Raising the Bar on Results, a report by the Bridgespan Group.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, inspired Americans to step up and help their neighbors like never before, donating billions of dollars to families who lost loved ones.

Four years later, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the Deep South, Americans pulled out their checkbooks once again.

Americans also donated nearly $2 billion to victims of the tsunami that slammed the South Pacific in 2004 and nearly $1.5 billion to victims of the earthquake that devastated Haiti last year.

Companies like UPS and Wal-Mart are teaching trade crafts to aid workers so they can deliver food and shelter to famine victims more quickly and cheaply, saving money and ultimately more lives.

When World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran visited hunger sites in Kenya and Somalia last month, she brought Peter Bakker, former chief executive of transportation company TNT and current U.N. ambassador against hunger. Bakker is helping rally businesses to provide support for those affected by the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.