January 10, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
In its latest push to encourage philanthropy, the Case Foundation, in Washington, has started two online contests to give away $750,000.
For the first, “America’s Giving Challenge,” the foundation joined with Parade magazine, a weekly newspaper insert, to grant $500,000. Participants must either send an e-mail message with an electronic “badge” to someone or add it to their Web site or blog.
The badges — boxes of text, pictures, or videos that identify someone with a charity — are designed to be passed electronically from person to person, and Parade’s site includes instructions on how to make them.
The eight badges that prompt the most people to donate — not necessarily those that garner the most money — earn $50,000 for the associated charity.
Four winners will be selected based on donations made through the domestic philanthropy Web site Network for Good and four others based on donations made through the international site Global Giving. Each giving site requires a minimum donation of $10.
The foundation will also give $1,000 each to the 100 charities that receive the biggest number of donations from all the badges associated with their organizations.
Because Parade readers are generally older, this contest was designed to reach people “going online to do their giving for the first time,” says Jean Case, who runs the foundation with her husband, Steve, who founded America Online. She says she hopes it shows them “how simple technologies can be a force for giving and good.”
The other contest, while aimed at a different demographic — young people who use the social networking site Facebook — has similar goals. “On Facebook, millions of people self-identify with a cause,” says Ms. Case. She hopes the contest will transform their interest “from a bumper sticker into action.”
The Facebook “Causes” contest will give away $250,000. Charities keep whatever donations they earn, and the group that prompts the most donors to give wins first prize, $50,000. Second and third place earn $25,000, and the next 10 earn $10,000. In addition, the foundation will award $1,000 on each of the 50 days between December 13, when the contest opened, and January 31, when it closes, to the organization that attracts the most donors on that day.
Both contests emphasize donors and not gift size for a reason, says Ms. Case. “A big philanthropist could make a million-dollar gift to a charity, and that could be discouraging” if only total donations counted, she says. “People would think, ‘What would be the difference that a $10 gift would make?’”
Adds Ms. Case: “Over time the money will come. Right now we just want to expand the donor pool.”
