February 8, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
By NICOLE WALLACE
A new organization has been created to promote an environment in which contributors feel comfortable making gifts online. It also hopes to help charities use the Internet to strengthen their relationships with donors.
As its first order of business, ePhilanthropyFoundation.Org, in Washington, established a code of ethics for online charitable transactions.
The code recommends standards for donor privacy, security of online transactions, disclosure of all the organizations involved in handling online gifts, and resolution of complaints.
For example, it calls on charities and online-giving services to protect donor privacy by allowing donors to remove their names from lists that are sold to or exchanged with other organizations.
The founding board of the organization includes representatives of fund-raising consulting companies and dot-com philanthropy ventures, such as the Alford Group, eContributor.com, and GivingCapital.Com, as well as executives of organizations such as the American Red Cross, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and Youth Service America.
“Our focus from the very beginning has been to make sure that both for-profit and nonprofit organizations are advising in the creation of this foundation. Why? Because we believe that they are equally valid points of view,” explains Ted Hart, a fund-raising consultant who is president of the ePhilanthropyFoundation.
To kick off the educational component of its activities, the organization issued a list of 10 basic rules of online philanthropy. Among the tenets: “Don’t trade your mission for a shopping mall. Many nonprofit Web sites fail to emphasize mission, instead turning themselves into online shopping malls, without even knowing why.”
The ePhilanthropyFoundation plans to develop online training courses for charities on topics such as e-mail campaigns, electronic newsletters, and how to build a sense of community online.
The organization hopes to have four courses online by the end of the year, and is also writing a book about online fund raising, which is scheduled for publication in September.
Says Mr. Hart: “I think that the most important thing that we’re doing now is raising the educational level for nonprofit organizations to be wise consumers of all of the various products that are being brought to market — what questions to ask, how to be skeptical, how to make sure that they’re finding the right solutions for their nonprofit organization.”
To get there: Go to http://www.ephilanthropyfoundation.org.
