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What's in it for me?

That's the first question asked by many charitable donors these days.

People expect something in return for their money, "from coffee cups and calendars to your name on the wing of the new museum," said Hank Goldstein, chairman of AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, speaking at the Direct Marketing Association's Nonprofit Conference in Washington, DC. And that transactional giving is largely the result of marketing.

That's not the only problem that Goldstein has noticed in the nonprofit field. Another is that charities are on "the trailing edge instead of the cutting edge of technology." And they are wasting more time thinking about getting Bill Gates' money than tapping into their mid-level donor bases. In fact, wealthy people donate relatively little, he said.

But Goldstein's message wasn't entirely negative. One positive development is that small charities, entrepreneurial in nature, are proliferating. Another is that the Americans have contributed generously during to tsunami relief, and that this may stimulate other contributions. "You pros know better than I do that a lot of those don't get renewed," he cautioned. "But people are more acutely aware of need around them, and giving goes up."

Goldstein, referring to remarks made on video by former President George Bush, added, "Bush made an important point. Giving has not maxed out despite war, recession, recovery, government large or small, deficits, Republicans or Democrats."

But charities must figure out how to raise annual giving from roughly 2.5% of the gross national product to 4% or even 5%.

How to do that? One way would be to return to basics. Some so-called pros "haven't learned the basics. Their organizations should be teaching them, and they should be sticking to them before they wander off to some of these clever new ideas."

Another is that nonprofits should work together. "The smaller ones and even the large ones should be far more willing to collaborate with other nonprofits and stop reinventing the wheel," he said.

Charities should also realize that "connectivity is not connection," Goldstein continued. Emotional appeals, say, those for tsunami relief or by political parties -- do communicate urgency and emotion, "but the Internet is not an intimate or emotional medium," he said. And it has not caught on fully as a fundraising tool.

Goldstein also called for strong self-regulation on the Internet. "I'm in trouble with the ACLU because I had the effrontery to write attacking them for their privacy policies," said Goldstein, adding that the Donor Bill of Rights should be strengthened with a section on donor privacy. Despite his article, he noted that the ACLU is "still cashing my checks."