The newspaper Ba'Kehilla is quoting Rav Elyashiv as having said to the board of the Vaad HaRabonnim tzedakka fund that there is nothing wrong with using gimmicks and "stories of yeshuos" in their fundraising efforts.

(obviously this is only a quote from a newspaper article, and they probably were only told what he said and did not actually hear it from Rav Elyashiv himself, so whether he actually said this or not, as always, should be taken with a grain of salt)

I have previously heard from big rabbonim that for the purpose of teaching a lesson, giving mussar, etc. one can make up stories - in other words all those gedolim stories you hear, or stories of simple people who did something great, that get passed around to learn a lesson from, those stories might or might not have actually happened.

With tzedakka it might be different, because you are enticing someone to give you money using false pretenses. So the psak is a bit surprising, if true. I guess tzedakka trumps everything and aside actual deceit and theft, maybe there is room for leniency...


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UPDATE: I just saw this article in Kikar.net that says the paper was pulled and reprinted. As soon as it was discovered that they ran this "quote" from Rav Elyashiv, representatives of the Vaad HaRabbonim (associated with Rav Elyashiv) contacted them immediately and told them to not allow such a false quote to be printed in Rav Elyashiv's name.

So, while it might be ok to make up stories for inspiration and mussar, it is still not ok to make up stories to deceive people into donating money.