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Williams-Sonoma Inc. was recognized as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Corporate Partner of the Year during the presentation of the ALSAC/St. Jude Volunteer Appreciation Awards on June 24. St. Jude honored partners, volunteers and donors from across the country at the annual event.

Williams-Sonoma has raised more than $15.5 million for St. Jude through the annual Thanks and Giving fundraising campaign since 2005. In 2010, Williams-Sonoma Inc. associates collected $4.1 million during the campaign through its Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, PBteen, West Elm and Williams-Sonoma Home stores, catalogs and websites.

Every year tens of millions of Americans ask friends to sponsor them in events ranging from 3-mile "fun runs" to 100-mile bike treks. The largest such event — the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life — raised more than $400 million last year. Meanwhile, the ever-growing movement includes tens of thousands of tiny "thons," collecting for schools, hospitals and homeless shelters. As soon as the weather warms, the walkathoners take to the streets, proudly parading in their oversize T-shirts and ribbon pins.

Two seemingly disparate developments spur this writing. One is the fiscal disaster that is the United States Postal Service and the other is the unprecedented attack on the deductibility of charitable donations. I see these as related and stemming from the same problem.

For many charities this holiday season, sharp increases in fund raising are an unexpected holiday gift, a new Chronicle poll finds.

Fifty-three percent of the 181 organizations that reported on the state of their November and December appeals told The Chronicle that they were raising more than they had during the same time a year ago. One in five said their donations had jumped by 20 percent or more.

Hawaii’s people and businesses are as generous as ever, despite the economic slump.

But how local people and businesses give is rapidly changing and that transformation has some nonprofit leaders heartened, while others are worried. Optimists welcome the decay of what they saw as paternalistic philanthropy. These optimists see the rise of a new philanthropy in which individual donors are more empowered, and nonprofit success is rewarded with recognition and more donations.

The Direct Marketing Association and the DMA Nonprofit Federation today asked the Postal Regulatory Commission to dismiss the United States Postal Service’s request to increase postal rates by 10 times the rate permissible by law. The petition was filed by the Affordable Mail Alliance.

This action by USPS comes just three years after Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which was supposed to prevent rate increases that exceed the rate of inflation.

April 23, 2009, Detroit Free Press — The $10-million check was delivered in a FedEx envelope to Michigan State University. No personal note. Just a banker’s business letter.

City of Hope, a leading research, treatment and education center for cancer and other life-threatening diseases, has been selected by FOX Sports as one of four charities to be featured in FOX Sports Supports, the network’s on-air charitable initiative designed to raise awareness, provide funds and boost volunteerism for health-related charities. Final selection of the charities was determined by a vote of FOX Sports employees.

Over the past year, constituent relationship management software vendors for nonprofits have been parading around the concept of “open” to the marketplace like presidential candidates touting “change.” Like “change,” “open” is something everyone wants, but few people define it the same way. This creates confusion and, inevitably, disappointment for customers who expect their concept of “open,” but get the vendor’s version instead. Even worse, all the marketing buzz around the “open revolution” is obscuring the real question: How does your organization truly get the unique CRM features and functionality its business processes require to execute your mission and change lives? CRM today is the