E-Philanthropy

Today, Web sites are like opinions — everyone has one. This is certainly true for just about every nonprofit organization in the country.

The final installment in our year-long series on fundraising basics focuses on online fundraising.

Fountain Hills, Ariz., October 23, 2009 — AssetFair.com, a leading online barter trade platform in the United States, has added a fundraising component to the company’s website.   Not-for-profit charities boasting 501-(c)-3 status are invited to post their wish list and actively solicit donations through a designated section on AssetFair.com website.

SEATTLE, October 21, 2009 — Amazon Payments, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that leading nonprofit organizations are accepting Amazon Payments just in time for holiday giving, making it just as easy to donate to your favorite charity as it is to shop on Amazon. Organizations such as American Red Cross, UNICEF, Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Feeding America, Heifer International, Autism Society of America, International Federation for Animal Welfare, Children’s Miracle Network and United Way of King County now allow Amazon customers to make donations quickly and securely using information from their Amazon.com account. Customers can visit www.amazon.com/holidaygiving from now through January 10, 2009 to learn more about “Holiday Giving with Amazon Payments.”

Nonprofit organizations are resource constrained, as we all well know. According to a 15-question survey Convio conducted between September 2008 and October 2008 of 60 nonprofits, the most common response regarding their organization's top barrier to success was insufficient staff.

October 7, 2009, Forbes - In an age of packed schedules and dwindling funds, we may not feel we have the time or money to devote to charitable giving. Fortunately for the thousands of nonprofit organizations struggling to provide critical services to our communities in this challenging economy a new wave of young and innovative social entrepreneurs has created inventive Web applications to accomplish the seemingly impossible: to spur charitable giving during a recession and to allow us to give without even opening our wallets.

September 15, 2009, DMNews — Online purchases grew again in 2008, but retail sales were flat and call center sales declined, according to Epsilon Targeting, a recently formed data division of Epsilon. These were among the findings in its Annual Multichannel Trend Report, which is based on aggregated merchandise purchase data from the Abacus Cooperative database.

No matter how successful their direct-mail campaigns, organizations of all budgets, sizes and missions should consider what else they can be doing to bring in more donors, especially as new opportunities — Facebook, Second Life, SMS, MySpace, e-mail, Twitter, etc. — explode onto the scene.

So says Eric Rardin, director of nonprofit services at Care2, an online social network of nearly 10 million people worldwide concerned with a healthy environment and living sustainable lives.

ROCKVILLE, Md., August 31, 2009 — Shopgoodwill.com, the nation's first and only nonprofit Internet auction site, is celebrating its 10 years in existence and proving that Goodwill Industries(R) is not only a leader in job placement, but also innovative social enterprise through its use of technology. The charitable auction site, ranked one of the TopTenREVIEWS' Top 10 online auction sites and Time.com's "50 Best Websites of 2009," has created a window into cyberspace, bringing a whole new world of shoppers and donors in contact with Goodwill(R) and its mission of providing job training programs, employment placement services and community programs throughout North America.

SANTA CRUZ, August 26, 2009, Mercury News — A new Internet-based nonprofit that offers video portals into some of the world's poorest communities aims to make educated philanthropy as easy as a click.