To help protect charitable nonprofits and the generous donors who support them, the National Council of Nonprofits and its network of state and regional associations of nonprofits have published four principles for ethical online fundraising platforms:

https://councilofnonprofits.org/articles/protecting-donors-nonprofits-and-communities-unethical-online-fundraising-platforms

From Lauren Dobson-Hughes on BlueSky:

A major problem with donor funding is its project-based faddishness

Of the 65 funding calls I'm tracking this month, 28 are for AI. AI in education, AI and GBV, AI and health. Donors are pivoting from core support to AI

But for grantees, you cannot do project work without core funding

If you're an education organisation, it's no good getting $100k in philanthropic funding to explore AI in education, if you have no money for staff, office, and basic education programs

And you don't even want to explore AI in education. You mostly want the fringe 15% overhead to support core work

Original post below:

Clermont, Florida police warned shoppers about a scam outside a local Walmart where people posing as sports team fundraisers are accused of charging donors more than they agreed to give.

According to police, the individuals approached customers and asked for donations to support various sports teams.

In some cases, they sold candy and told customers they could not accept cash, only card payments. Police said victims later found their cards were charged for more than the amount they had agreed to donate.

Police said the individuals used flyers to make the sports teams appear legitimate.

Each incident involved multiple males described as being in their late teens to early 20s, typically wearing hoodies and shorts and carrying backpacks, police said.

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/10/03/clermont-police-warn-of-donation-scam-outside-walmart/

A Mobile, Alabama couple was arrested in Indiana, accused of using children in what investigators describe as a football fundraiser scam: the couple dressed children in football uniforms and sent them to businesses claiming they were raising money for football equipment.

Quite the story. Feel bad for the kids:

https://www.fox10tv.com/2026/05/07/mobile-couple-accused-using-children-fake-football-fundraiser-during-custody-dispute/

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year | Fortune https://share.google/WZ43M63JdW5VcmkcJ

Retired NBA star Russell Westbrook, a Los Angeles native who became one of basketball’s most accomplished players, was honored by the Los Angeles City Council on Friday for his career and efforts to support young people in underserved communities.

Councilwoman Heather Hutt presented Westbrook with a certificate during a ceremony at City Hall recognizing his achievements on the basketball court and his work through the Russell Westbrook Why Not? Foundation.

Westbrook established his Why Not? Foundation in 2012 to support underserved communities, particularly in Los Angeles and Southern California. The foundation focuses on educational opportunities, workforce development and access to mental health resources, encouraging young people to pursue their goals and overcome obstacles.

In 2015, Westbrook returned to 75th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles, which he attended as a child, to open a reading room and donate books through his foundation’s literacy initiative.

Westbrook has also supported youth basketball programs in Southern California, including camps and other activities aimed at providing opportunities for children.

In 2015, he made what UCLA described at the time as the largest donation it had received from a former basketball player to support construction of the Mo Ostin Basketball Center.

The men’s basketball practice court at the facility was named in his honor.

https://www.dailybulletin.com/2026/10/09/la-city-council-honors-retired-nba-ucla-star-russell-westbrook/

Newly released documents suggest taxpayers covered most of the cost of the Trump administration’s Freedom 250 celebrations, leaving unanswered where tens of millions of dollars in private donations went, according to The Washington Sun.

The watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) released the records Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported in August that Freedom 250 raised more than $50 million from private sources. Lobbying disclosures reviewed by the outlet Sludge show companies including Chevron, United Airlines and RTX gave up to several million dollars each, the Sun reported. The administration "has not disclosed the donors, the amounts or how the money was spent," according to the report.

More from https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2678066517/

(I did run this through an editing program to tidy up my wording)

I set up a donor-advised fund (DAF) a few months ago after having a good financial year. I thought I'd enjoy spending the next decade or more supporting local charities, and the fund is large enough that I can give away a decent amount each year for at least 10+ years.

My plan is to give grants of around £1k–£5k each quarter, focusing on smaller local charities where that amount could make a meaningful difference. I've been emailing charities, explaining roughly how much I have available and asking if they have any specific projects or programmes that could benefit from the funding. I like the idea of knowing what my donation is actually supporting.

There's one charity in particular that's absolutely tiny, with an annual operating budget of around £80k. It's in my neighbourhood, and I have a personal connection to its mission, so I'd really like to support it. I had it on my list for Q4 of this year.

The problem is that I can't seem to get anyone to respond.

Over the past few months, I've emailed their main contact address two or three times. I also had a friend talk to and then forward my email to her neighbour, who happens to be a trustee. I'm emailing from contact @ mycharityname.org

More recently, I discovered that the charity's main administrator, who I've been emailing, is a member of my very small, social gym and is actually organising a fundraiser there. I asked the gym owner to put us in touch and messaged her directly, basically saying I'd love to contribute and asking if she could reply to my emails.

She said that she had seen my emails and she'd get back to me this week. It's now Friday, the working week is almost over, and I've still heard nothing.

At this point, I'm kind of over it. I understand that small charities are often understaffed and stretched thin, but I've spent months trying to offer them several thousand pounds, and I feel like I'm chasing them to take my money.

I don't want to pressure anyone into accepting a donation, and there are plenty of other local charities that could use the funding.

Am I being unreasonable to expect a response? And if she eventually gets back to me after this week, would it be fair to politely say I've decided to direct the funding elsewhere? Or am I underestimating how difficult it can be for a tiny charity to respond to potential donors?

I appreciate your thoughts.

Edit: I wanted to say that I'm not asking them for a grant application and a lot of paperwork. I expect an email back from a charity that either says something like - here are 2 specific projects we need £3-£5k for - OR - we actually just need general funds, here is where we are short this year. That's the response I've gotten from other orgs.

The Nashville Symphony announced in late September that it was suspending its 2026-27 season and furloughing dozens of employees and all of its musicians as leaders work to address what they said was a financial emergency. The board said the organization was facing a $10 million gap in this year’s operating budget and had exhausted its available cash. The suspension was to take effect Oct. 18. The announcement affected 27 full-time staff members and all 77 members of the Nashville Symphony orchestra.

Oracle then announced a 10M gift to allow the Nashville Symphony to reinstate season and avoid furloughs. The announcement came as Oracle continues work on its new headquarters on Nashville’s East Bank.

But without knowing any details at all, I think it's safe to say that this funding is not a permanent solution. Something happened at the Nashville Symphony that got them into this mess, and if that's not addressed, they will be in this mess again.

The Business Journals have articles about the leadership problems and the trust that now has to be rebuilt between this nonprofit, but those are behind paywalls, and I can't afford subscriptions to everything I want to read.

But renowned musician Mark O'Conner posted this to Facebook, talking about his friend and benefactor, philanthropist Martha Ingram, a long-time supporter of the symphony. Apparently, the symphony was expecting a huge endowment of tens of millions of dollars in her will. And that didn't happen. As he notes in his post:

Martha was the sole major benefactor for the NSO for decades, until she started pulling back in the last few years (not because she died two months ago) because in part, her requests for just a couple of soloists to appear with the symphony that she would additionally underwrite (including myself and my wife Maggie – see email screenshot above), were being ignored, but mainly her frustration with their business practices where they could not keep up with the interest payments on her 20M loan to them. She’d complain to me that at the same time they were not renting out the hall to country music artists to perform on nights they were not using it, to bring in any extra revenue, while paying themselves a healthy salary in the front office.

At the same time, Martha continued to be an underwriter and sponsor for my own American-classical concerts with Maggie in Highlands Chamber Festival the last several years, as she evidently pulled back her support for the NSO. And then you have the financial emergency there last week, while she is no longer here to help restructure that loan for the umpteenth time.

His comments are worth a read (though he then goes into a diatribe about AI replacing human musicians and creators).

This article from WSMV says

Leaders said the Symphony had leaned too heavily on one major donor whose support has since run out, and the board said it is now working to diversify its donor base and build a stronger endowment.

If you have a link to any other article or commentary not behind a paywall that says more, feel free to drop it, and a summary, in the comments.

While the organizations on the America’s Favorite Charities list tend to raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year, their top fundraisers say small and midsize nonprofits can adapt the techniques they’re using to produce good results. 

The Chronicle asked development pros from America’s Favorite Charities — among them leaders of the 25 groups that grew the most in our analysis — for their best advice smaller nonprofits can use to turbocharge their fundraising. Here’s what they had to say.

https://www.philanthropy.com/solutions/raise-money-like-americas-favorite-charities-with-these-tips/

(if you aren't subscribed, sign up for a free account, and you should be able to see this article)

Hello!

I’m newer to development and was wondering if anyone knew how to get corporate sponsors and donor matching established? I have relations with some folks in philanthropy and foundations but have zero idea how to navigate this world or how to make an ask.

A lot of groups I’m in provide very vague responses of contacting your relations, but what does this actually look like in practice and how does it work?

I’ve seen people connect at a conference and a $250k contract was in the works and I have zero idea how that happened. I even saw a foundation randomly decide to give an organization $350k and asked other organizations to support that NPO by matching their donation, but how do you get a foundation to start that process and do that? These are just some things I’ve witnessed in philanthropy and I have zero idea how it works as I am navigating fundraising and development within the organization I work for.

Forgive me as well if this is not the right group to post this in.

There are more than 13,000 members of the r/philanthropy subreddit, and posts are submitted to it almost every day. And I can't moderate this subreddit well by myself. I need help.

Moderators - volunteers - help make sure posts are on-topic and that posts and comments don't violate Philanthropy rules. Moderators also guide people who submit a post or comment on WHY it's being deleted, so the original poster (OP) can edit the info and resubmit, in case that's all that's needed to be appropriate for the subreddit.

If you want to be a moderator, you can choose just ONE MORNING, AFTERNOON OR EVENING A WEEK where you check the queue or read the group to delete or approve messages. Or you can check several days a week. Or every day, several times a day. It can take as much time as you want - just a few minutes a week or several minutes a day.

You also will be asked to fill in for the lead mod - me - when I am unavailable (and I always let mods know when that's going to be).

All you need is:

• To have been on Reddit for at least six months.
• Have a public Reddit profile (so that all of your posts and comments can be seen, and I can see what your general demeanor is online, and better ensure that you don't have a hidden agenda).
• A willingness to help out and a commitment to read the mod queue at least once a week.
• To have read the rules, to regularly re-read the rules, and to understand the rules and the spirit in which they are written (they aren't meant to shut down conversations - they are meant to keep this forum on-topic, informative and civil).
• To approve posts and comments that meet all of the rule requirements but aren't necessarily something you agree with, and to NOT delete posts and comments ONLY because you don't agree with them or because you don't like the person posting.

I'd prefer that you also be someone who has participated in conversations here, but it's not mandatory.

New mods get very basic privileges:

• they can approve or delete posts or comments. Some of these will already be public, some will be held in the mod queue.
• they can send a message to someone as they delete a post or comment, telling them why (if the automatic reply isn't good enough)
• they can read messages sent to the mods - and you do NOT have to reply to them unless I'm out of town (and I always let you know when that is).
• they get messages from Reddit especially for moderators.

Mods get more privileges as they show their reliability and commitment.

Moderating experience looks really great on a résumé, FYI: it shows you can facilitate discussions and manage online communications.

I really do NOT want to be the mod forever for this or any other subreddit. So a lot of mods means there will be plenty of candidates to take over when I'm done with this.

So, if you are interested, please DM me. And please show you've read this message. Don't write and say, "I have 15 years of fundraising experience!" - that's nice, but wouldn't automatically make you a great moderator.

An all-volunteer group of fans of the band Phish, who've already made more than 800 grants nationwide totaling over $3M, have no endowed a fund to provide scholarships in music and music education to a student in Vermont, and the fund is structured to last... forever. Just fans. All volunteers. With a forever impact. That seems like pretty interesting philanthropy, no? https://mbird.org/2026/09/vsac-scholarship/

Just went through the mod queue and found more than a dozen submissions sent during the two weeks I was gone. I've gone through them all now and approved or rejected, based on the r/Philanthropy rules. Apologies to those who were waiting to see their submission.

I really need active mods on this group, people who will go through the queue at least once a week, especially when I'm out of town. If you are interested, DM me - but your profile needs to be public so I can see a bit about you.

I work with the CharitySense Data team that produced this analysis. We compared the latest full Form 990 filings for 49,183 filers across nine faith-affiliation groups. The share of group expenses reported as foreign grants varies widely, and a dollar share does not tell us how many organizations reported grants. The article explains the comparison groups and limits: https://data.charitysense.com/blog/the-geography-of-faith-and-giving

Anyone here have success with small nonprofits asking larger entities for donations, such as live or silent auction items? Just curious as we have a lot of local support and don't usually struggle for donations, but I'm always curious and reaching out to big or national companies just in case!

Hi there! I'm looking for any advice as I ramp up development efforts at my organization.

For context: I work at a very small advocacy organization with just a few employees and under 700 members. We don’t charge for our advocacy services, and most of our current revenue comes from individual member donations.

We’re also a fully remote/digital organization without a physical office. Our members are geographically dispersed across the state, and engagement levels vary.

Our development infrastructure is pretty limited. We’ve historically operated in a very grassroots way, and we’re only recently starting to build more formal fundraising and communications systems. For example, we previously relied heavily on a basic email list (bcc) and only began regularly using an email marketing platform for broader email blasts this year.

I’m trying to figure out what we should realistically prioritize at this stage and would love advice from anyone who has been in a similar position.

Thank you so much! Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Are you a member of any of these service clubs, or clubs that engage in philanthropic activities:

• Rotary International
• Optimists International
• Civitan International
• Kiwanis Key Club
• Lions Clubs International
• Leo clubs
• Rotaract
• Ruritan
• Soroptimist International
• Zonta International
• Elks (Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks)
• Moose Fraternity
• Eagles (Fraternal Order of Eagles) Odd Fellows
• P.E.O. Sisterhood (Philanthropic Educational Organization)
• Junior League
• League of Women for Community Service (LWCS)
• Alpha Phi Omega
• Omega Phi Alpha

Or one not named here? And, if so:

• What kinds of volunteering, in-kind donations and financial support have you provided lately?
• Why did you join, and what keeps you involved?
• What are the biggest challenges to your chapter, if any?

Announced in today's (30 Sep) NYTimes. Interesting for several points:

• He isn't a CM alum (he went to Harvard, which he has also generously funded).
• It will principally be used to establish a CM campus in Miami (where Griffin's firm, Citadel moved a few years ago). I'm personally on the fence about 'remote campuses', but it seems to be the trend.
• Half of the amount that goes to the home Pittsburgh campus appears to be relatively unrestricted (so around $500m for “flexible support for the university’s highest priorities”).
• He is one of the few at the top of the heap in finance that are writing significant checks to institutions.

Full article (direct link): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/us/3-billion-donation-carnegie-mellon-largest-university-gift.html

Archived article (not paywalled): https://archive.is/EuCtk

I have monthly donations to several charities, both small/local and large/national, and it seems like there’s not any good way to manage donations, like no portal or account or anything.  I imagine they do this so people don’t cancel donations, but I want to increase my donation to several places after getting a raise, and switch to a different credit card. It just seems like so much effort that I’ve been putting it off for months (I know that’s dramatic but I have so little mental energy right now). Is there an easy way to manage charitable donations other than just emailing the organization directly?

I also don't really have a good way to track the total amount I'm donating per year, since I give different amounts to a variety of organizations, so when doing taxes I just do several searches through my bank statements, not sure if other people have better strategies

I prefer not to give the specific list of charities I give to but this seems to be the case across the board for most charities so wondering if people have general advice

This is from the post pinned at the top of the r/Philanthropy subreddit. What would you add?

RESOURCES TO LEARN THE BASICS OF FUNDRAISING, GRANTS RESEARCH, ETC.

Fundraising in general:

Hands On Fundraising. A fundraising blog from someone who has been a VERY successful fundraiser for small and medium nonprofits in the USA. Focus is on building support for your organization using resources you already have, like how to leverage client stories.

Don't Just Ask for Money! A list of ways to cultivate financial support for your organization, often without ever asking for money.

Funding and Donor Development Strategies for Small Nonprofits. From the American Public Health Association. PDF. USA-specific and focused especially on nonprofits focused on public health, but some good, basic info here.

How to fundraise for a nonprofit: 10 steps to create a fundraising strategy [+ 28 ideas]. Very basic guide to fundraising, focused on nonprofits in North America. It's from a software company that is trying to sell you its software package, but this advice is all generic. Uses a lot of jargon, but still decent in explaining the basics of creating a fundraising plan.

How to research funders - grants reserach tools.

Foundation directory. From candid.

Grand Advisory. Reviews of Granters.

Grant Station. Access 150,000+ funding profiles, 15,000+ curated grants

Also visit your local library or your local university's library - they may subscribe to a grants research tool.

Specific to NGOs in the developing world:

Basic Fundraising for Small NGOs/Civil Society in the Developing World. This is a free guide, in PDF form, that goes through the basics of how to fundraise, written especially for small NGOs in countries where the United Nations or richer countries are focusing their efforts on development. Note that this has not been updated in years, and many of its links are expired. But the advice is still valid.

africanngos.org publishes a list on its web site of funding opportunities for African NGOs.

In this episode of Spill with Me Jenny D Podcast, host Jenny D speaks with Aliesha Walz President and CEO of the Washington County Community Foundation. They discuss the foundation’s 30-year history, how it connects donors and nonprofits, its signature programs like WCCF Gives and the Close to Home Disaster Fund, and the focus on education and sustainability for local charities.

Aliesha explains fund types, ways to give (including QCDs and anonymous gifts), volunteer opportunities, and the importance of supporting local organizations—highlighting current needs such as youth mental health and how donors can get involved.

We're talking about giving back, supporting local nonprofits, and the power we all have to make a difference right where we live.

https://www.wccf.net/about

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https://www.drmarkseraly.com/

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