Target

Following is a sampling of lists available to reach potential donors to international relief efforts.

Come back with me, if you will, to a time very early in my career with FundRaising Success. I had been editor for about five minutes. Then-Associate Editor Paul Barbagallo and I were meandering around one of our first fundraising conferences, sitting stiffly among our new colleagues, all of us dressed for business with our game faces on.

In the back, at a table far from the rest of the crowd, was a tall, laid-back-looking drink of water in a suit jacket and blue jeans. And I knew from the moment I saw him that I would know him better.

Someone 20 years old, or 30 or 40 — even 50 — might never become a direct-mail donor. He or she probably will give online from the beginning. And there’s evidence that online donors might act quite differently than their direct-mail responsive parents and grandparents.

Following is a sampling of lists available to reach men and parents as potential donors.

EDITOR'S NOTE: New Massachusetts Rules Target Financial Abuses Last week, Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas L. Reilly took steps toward implementing strict new rules for governing charities, including a requirement that board members sign off on financial audits; curbs on executive compensation; and $5,000 fines for violations -- all in an effort to "stamp out" financial abuses. According to a report in The Boston Globe, if implemented, the proposed legislation would be among the most comprehensive nationally to address financial governance of charities. Reilly's "An Act to Promote the Financial Integrity of Public Charities" legislation, sponsored by Rep. Daniel E. Bosley (D-North Adams) and

Rewarding Greatness In the formative years of online fundraising, many nonprofit organizations assumed that if they built a Web site with a device to accept donations, donors would come. But to the chargrin of many fundraising pros who thought that was the only thing needed for effective online fundraising, donors came in fits and starts. What fundraisers learned -- albeit slowly -- was that donors want information, information and more information. They want ways to voice their opinions to elected officials, tips on how to cope with dibilitating disases and a resource bank chock full of places to go, both online and off, to

There were 13.2 million black households in the United States in 2001,constituting 12.4 percent of all households in the country. Within these households, income, wealth and charitable giving have risen at a steady rate in recent years.

This according to “Wealth Transfer Estimates Among African-American Households,” a recently released report by researchers at the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, authored by Paul Schervish and John Havens.

FS Advisor -- Nov. 15, 2006 Partnering with a corporation or other business can be a major coop for nonprofit organizations. And such for-profit entities see a real value in these partnerships. Safeco, for example, is a Seattle-based property and casualty insurance company that considers community relations a driver of good will and also a supporter of its business objectives. As an insurance company, Safeco aligns its community relations activity in a way that builds, protects and helps neighborhoods thrive. Its funding and volunteer efforts support things like neighborhood small business development, helping homeowners prevent loss, safety and disaster preparedness, and the creation

You Get What You Pay For April 26, 2005 While nonprofit execs have long grappled with high turnover, searching for ways -- sometimes fruitlessly -- to retain the best and brightest that pass through their development departments, a new Association of Fundraising Professionals' survey reveals that money might no longer be a stumbling block. According to the AFP, which recently surveyed members in the United States and Canada about their compensation and benefits packages, the median salary of U.S. fundraisers rose last year by more than 15 percent, to $72,050, or roughly $100,000 more than in 2003. Chief development officers fetched a median salary

This might turn out to be a rant. But you see, I’m getting a lot of fundraising appeals I can’t read because the type is too small, the paragraphs are too long, and the copy is too intensive and technical.

I’m eligible to critique this mail, not because I’ve been in the business for 42 years but because I’m now the target audience.