By David Goll
East Bay Business Times
December 12, 2003

Web firm rings the bell for nonprofits nationwide

It's a little bit dot-com leftover and a little bit holiday angel. And it's getting extremely busy with the holiday season upon us.

Oakland's JustGive.org channels allow small and big-time philanthropists alike to contribute to some 850,000 nonprofit groups throughout the country.

The idea that led to the founding of the JustGive.org nonprofit organization began in the dot-com heyday of the late 1990s. At the time, it occurred to Kendall Webb that as much of a wealth machine as the Web had become in the for-profit sector - however briefly - it was a greatly underused resource for nonprofit organizations.

Webb was working for More.com, a health information and e-commerce site with offices located in San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch. After the company was sold in 1998, Webb decided to marry her interest in the Internet with a well-developed social conscience to put the former to work for the latter.

By 1999, Webb had started JustGive.org, which serves as a high-tech bridge between altruistic citizens and charitable groups nationwide. Although it started in San Francisco, Webb moved the organization to downtown Oakland shortly after its birth to take advantage of not only the East Bay's more reasonable rents, but also its position as a strong center of nonprofit activity.

"This is the perfect location for us," said Webb of her offices at 625 Clay St. "We are surrounded by many nonprofit organizations, so it's easier to stay in touch with what's happening."

Webb tapped into her corporate connections to get off the ground: Berkeley's Clear Ink handled Web design, Katsin/Loeb Advertising Inc. did marketing and public relations work and the San Francisco-based legal firm of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski Canady, Falk & Rabkin helped her establish JustGive.org as a 501(c)3.

All for free. And she continues to get lots of volunteer help from friends and business contacts to keep the place running and to assist her paid full-time staff of four.

"This has been a work of passion for many people," Webb said.

Since moving to the East Bay, JustGive.org has continued to expand and this year will raise $2 million, according to Webb. While most donations initially came from the Bay Area, they are now coming from throughout the nation and around the world.

"We are tripling the overall size of our donations every year," she said, noting that about 10,000 people have made contributions through her Web site so far in 2003. "Between word of mouth and some media exposure, more and more people are hearing about us."