Sun staff writer Kevin Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun
Originally published December 10, 2001

Online charities see rise in donors' gifts:
Convenience of the Internet amid a spirit of helping is a benefit to nonprofits.

If you want to donate to a worthy cause this holiday season, all you need is a credit card and a good Web portal.

Spurred by surfers' willingness to donate to victims' funds in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Internet is emerging as an alternative to mailing in a check.

While Web-based hubs for giving to nonprofits began to show up more than two years ago, many died or changed direction as the dot-com bust spread across the nation. But the charity Web portals that survived are showing renewed signs of life. They're taking donations in various ways for virtually every nonprofit organization that has filed paperwork with the Internal Revenue Service and a few others that haven't.

Thousands of surfers have given more than $120 million to Sept. 11 victim's funds via sites such as Yahoo, eBay, PayPal and America Online. For many, it was the first experience with using the Internet to make a donation. "I believe people have a better understanding of how the Internet can be used for philanthropy because of Sept. 11," said Chris Stinton, president and chief executive officer of Network for Good, a joint effort by several giant technology companies to stimulate charitable giving over the Web.

Cristine Cronin, director of CharityWave.Com, said the helplessness that many felt in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks spurred Internet giving. "People were anxious to follow their impulse," said Cronin, whose 2-year-old, nonprofit portal is supported by Wave Systems Corp. of Lee, Mass. "Many, many people just took the leap of faith because it was the fastest thing to do."

Cronin said New Yorkers were especially interested in finding a way to donate money once it became clear that there would be few survivors of the World Trade Center attacks who needed canned goods, clothing or blood. Overall, more than $57 million flowed in from online sources during the first week after the disaster.

A group of technology giants including America Online, Cisco Systems and Yahoo launched Network For Good late last month. It replaces AOL's Helping.org charitable Web portal and provides donors a way to find any one of the 850,000 charities registered with the IRS, learn about each through its financial reports and then donate money. "This is one-stop shopping for charitable giving," said Rich Cowles, executive director of the Charitable Review Council of Minnesota, a watchdog group for charities in that state. Scheduled to launch the week of Sept. 11, Network for Good's debut was pushed back because of the attacks.

Meanwhile, JustGive.Org, more than 2 years old, will hit the million-dollar mark in donations by the end of the year, according to Colleen A. Patrick, Senior Creative Director. She says part of its mission when it launched was to help donors become more informed. "People are coming to us, checking us out and asking questions, which is so important right now," Patrick said.

Financial reports for each of the 850,000 charities are offered through GuideStar (a national database of nonprofits), along with a guide to about 2,000 charities pre-screened by JustGive.Org. Moreover, making a donation through the Web doesn't mean losing a tax deduction. JustGive.Org sends donors tax information about their online donations at the end of the year, including statements for givers who wish to remain anonymous.

Many of the other Web sites provide similar tax information. Chosen as a Best of the Web for Winter 2001 for charitable donations by Forbes magazine, JustGive.Org offers a number of options for donating. Patrick said the wedding registry ranks as one of the most popular features of the site. Couples who register with the site can have family and friends donate to charities in their honor as a wedding present.

Other sites offer Web shoppers with a conscience a chance to buy goods and have a percentage of the purchase price donated to a non-profit of their choice. Among them are www.charitymall.com, www.4charity.com and www.ebates.com. IGive (www.igive.com) operates as a portal for 600 stores and sends a portion of the money paid for purchases to causes the buyer chooses. Many charitable organizations already are listed with IGive, but buyers also can choose a cause that isn't a nonprofit registered with the IRS as long as it is legal and benefits the public. According to IGive's Web site, it has donated more than $380,000 to such causes this year.

CharityAmerica.com, on the other hand, not only handles donations through credit cards and store purchases, but acts as a portal for several different kinds of donations. The site is designed to get donors, businesses and non-profits in contact with each other for in-kind donations, credit card donations and other ways of helping. Among those services is the "Ticket Causeway," in which individuals and corporations donate unused tickets to athletic contests and theater performances to non-profits, which can resell them. The donors can claim a tax deduction.

While some portals have held back a percentage of each donation as a transaction fee in the past, Network for Good and JustGive.Org both give 100 percent of the money to the intended recipient. For JustGive.Org, corporate sponsors support the Web site by paying costs and credit card transaction fees.

Although the cost of running CharityWave.Com is picked up by Wave System Inc., the site now requires givers to pick up the credit card fees on their donations, which range from 2.5 to 5 percent. These are fees that credit card companies charge to merchants. "At first, we were eating the credit card fees," so donations were capped at $500, Cronin said. With donors now picking up the fees, the maximum is $5,000.

Cronin says she is approaching credit card processing companies about reducing their charges. Many nonprofits also accept donations directly on their Web sites. If you're not sure whether a charity is online, the best way to find out is by using a search engine, such as Google.com. Type the organization's name into the search prompt and the Web site, if one exists, should appear in the list of results.

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