One of the most difficult challenges charitable organizations face is finding new ways to tap friends and potential friends for money. The need is ongoing – despite the annual holiday rush of good cheer, agencies from the Kids Center to the Family Kitchen need money 365 days a year. Without it, they are unable to supply services that range from help for abused children to free hot meals several nights a week for those in need.

Lucky charities have benefactors who give simply because they care. These folks appreciate the trinkets and the parties, one given in thanks for previous gifts, many of the others designed to extract money from those who otherwise might not be so generous, of course, but chances are good they'd have opened their wallets in any event. Unfortunately for most charities, the number of donors motivated simply by understanding the need is unlikely to be large enough to keep an organization and its services afloat.

Yet finding something new, or recycling with a new twist a proven idea used by another group, can be difficult, time consuming and guaranteed to raise the anxiety level of those involved in the staging of whatever the group comes up with.

Auctions, for example, can not only pull in dollars, they can be lots of fun, as well. They give the organization the opportunity to throw a party for supporters and, everyone hopes, extract money from some whose support might otherwise be limited to praise. Yet auctions, if they're to be successful, are an absolutely staggering amount of work, both for the volunteers and the paid staff involved.

Thus, almost every agency I'm aware of is reluctant to turn down a new way to raise money, especially if the idea comes in from a trusted friend and is unexpected.

The "trusted friend" part is important: Some charities are the beneficiaries of fund raisers they might not otherwise have gotten involved with – the proposal might be inappropriate to the agency's mission, for example – had they been given the choice. The agencies themselves have names and reputations to protect, and a school, for example, might legitimately have a serious problem with a group that hopes to use its name in exchange for part of the proceeds from a "Full Monty" evening of celebrity strip tease. The Oregon Food Bank, which distributes food to hunger-relief agencies throughout Oregon and southwest Washington, found just such a friend this holiday season in an unlikely place. A group of lawyers with offices in Portland, Bend and Astoria has come up with a nifty idea that, if it flies, will benefit the Food Bank and its recipients across the state. (I'll admit to a working relationship with the law firm, which is how I found out about this particular fund raiser.)

In Central Oregon, the Food Bank is a donor of food to the Central Oregon Community Action Network, which in turn serves agencies from Meals on Wheels to local senior centers. Some COCAAN agencies don't need food, of course, but those that do go a long way to making life bearable for many of the region's neediest families and individuals.

The lawyers – Stahancyk, Gearing, Rackner & Kent – have put together a Christmas compact disc that is both sly and appealing.

It's sly because the disc, "Mending Broken Hearts," is being given out largely to clients for whom the lawyers have provided divorce services. It's sly, too, in its content, which ranges from "What Becomes of The Broken Hearted" to "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

It's appealing because the music, performed by pianist Michael Allen Harrison and Julianne R. Johnson, is a good collection of songs we all know and generally like pretty well and the cause is, after all, worthy.

So how does the Food Bank benefit? SGR&K clients receive the disc for free, but it's available for purchase, as well. Simply make a check for $25 out to the Oregon Food Bank and send it off to the lawyers at Athena Plaza, 808 S.W. 15th Avenue, Portland, OR 97205, and you're done. While supplies last the lawyers will send you the disc (they'll pick up the postage, and they've already paid to have the disc produced) and send the check on to the food bank.

Simple? Yes. Creative? I think so. Effective? We'll see.

But meantime, the Food Bank gains two ways from this particular gift. It's sure to pick up at least some money from the venture.

And, it's likely to have its name come up to people who might otherwise have been unaware of it and its service. Who knows.

One of those who learns about it might turn out to be that rarest kind of donor, the person who gives simply for the sake of giving. That prospect is enough to make any charity's Christmas a merrier one.

Janet Stevens is deputy editor of The Bulletin.