In the previous campaign, 10,457 donors contributed $6,061,024. In the 2007-8 campaign, 11,340 donors gave $7,642,135.88.

Readers’ response to the portraits of needy New Yorkers was good news, said Michael Golden, the president of the fund and vice chairman of The New York Times Company.

“I think what it really says is that the readers and viewers of The New York Times are touched by these stories and want to help people that they don’t know in this time when there is a lot of misfortune,” Mr. Golden said.

The fund works with seven multiservice agencies: Brooklyn Community Services, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, the Children’s Aid Society, the Community Service Society of New York, the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies and UJA-Federation of New York. The New York Times Company covers all administrative costs. Unrestricted contributions of $100,000 or more from trusts and estates are invested in an endowment. The income goes into the next year’s campaign.

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This campaign, donations and support came in many forms, including from Wall Street. As has been the tradition for years, analysts from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup delivered to The New York Times’s headquarters in Midtown the proceeds of their fund-raising drives.

Charlotte Xu and Xinna Zhang, who together led the effort at Goldman, and Kristina Nolte and Bianca Tylek, both of Citigroup, brought in envelopes containing checks, cash and loose change in February. In all, they raised nearly $190,000, down 36 percent from last year’s combined effort.

Ms. Nolte and Ms. Tylek, the leaders of the fund-raising committee at Citigroup, approached the effort with the kind of strategies ingrained in Wall Street culture. Their committee spawned subcommittees, and totaled 35 people. Spreadsheets were involved. Announcements were made at monthly meetings. Citigroup even ran a Neediest Cases banner on its internal Web page.

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But first, the analysts went to senior officials at the bank.

“In October, we began to meet with the heads of all the different businesses,” Ms. Tylek said. “It was really important to go to them and say: ‘This is our marketing plan. Can you support this? Can you sort of get the ball rolling?’ ”

Ms. Nolte added, “By having senior leadership really invested from the get-go, they were able to make this year a really strong beginning.”

They raised money through sing-offs and auctioned off events like a wine tour and a spa night that were sponsored by senior company officials, Ms. Nolte said.

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More gifts came in from the company’s “dress-down day,” according to Ms. Tylek: Employees paid $20 each to free themselves from their business attire.

In the end, Citigroup raised $101,672, surpassing the goal of $70,000 and beating its previous donation, $95,000.

At Goldman, Ms. Xu said, support for the fund-raising drive came from the top down.

“The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has been in Goldman for many, many years,” she said. “It’s just been a really good tradition in our firm.”

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Over all, 50 to 60 people were involved, Ms. Zhang said. They held bake sales, raffled off lunches with senior company officials and had a weight-loss contest. They hung up a story board with past Neediest Cases profiles to inspire donations.

Ms. Zhang said volunteers also placed piggy banks around the company’s pantry areas to inspire donations.

The contributions totaled $82,094.87.

Among those who have benefited from the fund is Carolina Martinez, a parent outreach coordinator in an after-school program held at Public School 225 in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. After Ms. Martinez was featured in November, she said, she received a living-room makeover from “The Nate Berkus Show.”

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The show also provided laptops for Ms. Martinez and her two sons and remodeled a bedroom of one of the boys.

“It was a joy that’s very hard for me to explain,” Ms. Martinez said. The episode is scheduled to run in May, she added.

Readers were also drawn to the story of Michael Mercado, 20, a cancer survivor who is studying to become an auto mechanic at Lincoln Technical Institute in Queens.

“Dear Mr. Mercado, Your strength and resiliency are inspiring,” one person wrote. A couple in Westfield, N.J., sent a letter with a $1,000 check for Mr. Mercado.

A car dealer offered Mr. Mercado a job interview (once he completes school). And Lincoln Tech waived his outstanding loans and tuition, totaling $34,688, according to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a beneficiary of UJA-Federation of New York.

Lystra Madoo-Devine, the site manager at the Queens Community Center of Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens called donors “everyday superheroes” for helping those who have hit hard times.

“The need was recognized a hundred years ago,” she said, “and the need still continues.”