Endurance sports, personal blogs and personal (often disease related) charities have merged into a new form of extreme fundraising. Dance-a-thons and charity auctions are too tame. These athletes pedal across continents and row across oceans for a cause.
Both charities and for-profit software companies such as Blackbaud (nasdaq: BLKB - news - people ) and Active Network are capitalizing on the trend, offering ready-made personal fundraising sites with blogs, payment capability and more. Blackbaud estimates online fundraising has hauled in $3 billion in donations worldwide over the past seven years, with the pace accelerating over the past year.
The full-text article by Steven Bertoni is available at Forbes Magazine, 3.25.2009.