|
|
|
Cyber Giving
The Wall Street Journal - By Elizabeth Bernstein (Copyright © 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
30 December 2005
THIS WAS A BIG YEAR for online giving, largely due to Hurricane Katrina. Through September, the number of Americans making an online charitable donation grew by more than 50%, to 26 million, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. With less than two days left to donate and receive a 2005 tax deduction, some nonprofit groups are encouraging donors to make gifts over the Web.
Yahoo has been promoting online giving this week through a site, http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/ , that links to Network for Good, a Bethesda, Md., nonprofit that allows people to research charities and volunteer opportunities and to make donations. The group was founded in 2001 by Yahoo, Anerica Online and Cisco Systems to encourage people to use the Internet to get involved in the nonprofit world. So far this year, Network for Good, which is independent of the companies that founded it, has processed $30 million in donations.
The group's Web site ( www.networkforgood.org ) gives donors access to two online databases: Guidestar.org, which provides financial and programming information for about one million charities, and VolunteerMatch.org, which lists volunteer opportunities at about 37,000 groups. Network for Good allows people to search for charities by name, type of cause or ZIP Code. People can make one-time or monthly contributions and create a personalized account to keep track of their donations. The site also allows donors to make a gift in a third party's name and to send that person a notice of the donation.
San Francisco-based Just Give ( www.justgive.org) works in a similar way. But this site also allows people to give gift certificates for donations and let the recipient of the certificate choose the charity. The site also has a wedding-registry feature that allows someone to list his or her favorite charities and have friends and family make donations instead of buying a gift. The nonprofit site says it has processed about $18 million in donations this year.
Both Network for Good and Just Give deduct a 3% processing fee from each donation. Charities that accept their own online donations often have to pay banks a similar amount if they process gifts themselves.
Contact Elizabeth Bernstein at givingback@wsj.com.
|
|
