First, Get a Worthwhile Cause; Then Get Wired

Since Netscape popularized the Web browser in the mid-1990s, nonprofit groups have looked to an online donor pool as a source of increased revenue, yet the growth of Internet philanthropy has been nothing like the explosive power of the commercial Web itself. The greatest growth for philanthropy has accompanied disastrous news stories: the 2001 terrorist attacks and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the South Asian tsunamis. And those surges have often been about convenience and immediacy — donors' instincts tell them a fast online contribution may be the only way to "help now."