Charity Spring Patch Digest: Celebrities and their causes

Charity and Freedom

Charity is an art form under the influence of freedom. We fight for the freedom to live life to our own beat. Will trends for 2013 include changes to how we care for each other? In the social world, arguably the very technological forces that make us as  free as ever, according to Nielson, of the total time spent online 22.5% are connecting and communicating in social networks, while gaming is at 9%, email at 7.6% and search is now just 4%.  As we become more connected and networked are we becoming free to be better to one another?  Can we get creative and come up with something revolutionary to change the way our society works? It's no longer enough to paint a banner and shout slogans in the street asking for freedom because guess what, we are already Free!

Charity & Donor News

Guidestar finds that nearly two-thirds of charitable organizations report that gifts, grants, and donations in the first nine months of 2012 fell or remained about the same on a year-over-year basis. Even as the majority of nonprofits were seeing donation totals fall or remain flat, however, nonprofits themselves were experiencing an increase in demand for services, with 38 percent reporting that demand had increased modestly and 26 percent reporting that demand had increased greatly.

The New York Times reports that although the field of philanthropy has long been dominated by white men, research published in the last twenty years suggests that women of all races are donating more to charity and are more involved in charitable work than their male counterparts.

Funding Opportunities

CELEBRITY: Look to the Stars is a searchable website that tracks the charitable initiatives of today's celebrities. Here is a description of the various causes that Larry Hagman championed.

MUSIC: The Aaron Copland Fund for Music is making grants of up to $20,000 to non-profit professional performance ensembles, presenting institutions, and non-profit or commercial recording companies for projects featuring contemporary American music. Deadline: 1/15/13

SMALL BUSINESS: While small businesses often see their giving to charity repaid in the form of good publicity and customer loyalty, they can leverage that giving even more by being strategic about their choice of recipient organizations and paying attention to tax benefits, Reuters reports.

Media Tips

PR Newswire describes the best practices utilized in this over-the-top successful press release.

Social Media Tips

8 Ways Google can power your nonprofit.

The Permanent Disruption of Social Media: This Stanford Social Innovation Review article describes how social media has chipped away at the foundation of traditional donor-engagement models. A new study highlights the realities of donor behavior and how organizations can redesign their outreach strategies to be more effective.

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Charity Spring

See what more than 7,000 people around the world are reading at Charity Spring (live since October 4th). For many additional links to help you build financial support and awareness for your Fairfield County cause see the Charity Spring Patch Digest homepage. Please comment here to let us know what news and opportunities you want us to find for you or to simply let us know what you think.