Aug. 2, 2016

How fundraisers crunch numbers, sift Facebook chatter, and analyze their results to learn exactly what donors want.

Ideas that analysts noodle around with today could become the cutting-edge approaches of tomorrow. Here are two still largely on the drawing board.

Outgoing Stanford President John Hennessy raised billions for the university by steering clear of talking about goals in dollar terms and communicating clearly what a gift would accomplish.

Mothers2mothers employs HIV-positive women as mentors to coach others on how to give birth to healthy babies. The transmission rate for program participants has dropped to less than 5 percent.

People sometimes give more to benefit the fundraiser than the charity, which has surprising implications for how to use social media to do good.

From “chief progress officer” to “director of e-philanthropy,” nonprofits say they are trying to better reflect the heart of the job. Are they sowing confusion instead?

Far less than 1 percent of all grants go to groups working to reduce the influence of money in politics and preserve the integrity of self-government.

Climate change, inequality, jobs, and many other issues foundations care about require more attention outside the cities where so many grant makers focus their work.

It’s hypocritical for organizations committed to social justice to complain about paying workers decent wages.

Marvin and Mae Acosta, who pledged some of their $328 million in Powerball winnings to charity, may want to give Alcario and Carmen Castellano a call for advice. They hit the jackpot 15 years ago, and dozens of San Jose area charities ended up as winners, too.

Foundations could reduce the heartbreaking violence of recent weeks by helping cash-strapped cities so there’s no reason for them to ask cops to raise revenue by targeting people of color for fine- and fee-producing minor offenses.

In a world where politeness reigns, some argue there is value in sharing painful professional experiences.

More than 60 staff members, trustees, and volunteers at Jewish Voice for Peace manage about 600 major-donor relationships in addition to other roles they play at the organization.

What to do when a donor wants to talk politics — or uses old-fashioned terms that make you cringe.

Your nonprofit wants to be inclusive. Your donors don’t. Can your relationship be saved?

New efforts aim to identify charity’s “true costs” and invest in the financial health of nonprofits.