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Aware that the challenging economy is slowing charitable donations in some areas, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is offering its citizen fundraisers a trendy incentive—free gas cards and a chance to win a free vacation for four to Orlando, Florida. Clearly, the organization wants to help ensure that these important individual moneymakers are doing their best to raise money from their participation in the group’s annual Light The Night Walk this fall.

Light The Night walkers who fundraise online via personal Web pages provided by LLS can earn $50 worth of free gas for every $500 they raise during July and August. For every $250 raised, they will receive $15 in gas cards.

Says Nancy Klein, LLS chief marketing and revenue officer, "The goal of finding cures and helping patients is a great motivator, in and of itself. But with gas prices so high this summer, LLS saw this 'Save at the Pump' promotion as a great added incentive to do something good and get something good!"

Not every nonprofit whatever-a-thon offers incentives to volunteer fundraisers, but those that do appear to have grown their incentive programs to impressive levels, because the revenues raised by these a-thons are so large and vital. LLS’s incentive program, for instance, goes way beyond a tank of gas or T-shirt, though. Folks who raise more than $10,000 get a 26-inch LCD high-definition TV or GPS unit or $500 e-Store card. For fewer amounts, fundraisers can get digital cameras, camcorders, portable DVD players, printers, radios, and more.

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but personally, I question the effectiveness—and more importantly, the message sent—with all of this giving-to-get. Does this really focus attention on the true message of such an event—finding a cure or solving a serious social problem?

To me, it seems counter to the core values behind why people volunteer. I’ve never heard, for instance, of someone anxious to walk 20 miles just for a DVD player or, ironically, to fill up their cars. Maybe it’s time to re-examine such incentive programs to consider other ways to reward excellent fundraisers that respond more basically to the core values of both the nonprofit and the volunteer. Anyone for sending a teddy bear to a lymphoma patient if you raise $200, for instance?