May 31, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Two new sites, ChangingThePresent.org and Bring Light, are giving donors the opportunity to make gifts that support specific projects, rather than giving general contributions to a charity to use as it chooses.
Both sites also give donors the ability to set up online fund-raising drives to raise money from friends and family members for groups they support.
“We want to encourage giving by making it more rewarding, so the site lets you choose not just what nonprofit to support, but exactly what it is you want to accomplish,” says Robert Tolmach, president of WellGood, the company that created the ChangingThe Present Web site at the request of a charity called Important Gifts. “Someone said to us, ‘I didn’t just write a check for $10. I helped clear part of a farmer’s field of landmines.’ Whether it’s landmines or education, we want to give you that satisfaction.”
ChangingThePresent encourages visitors to its site to think about making a charitable contribution in lieu of giving a present to a friend or family member.
The site, for example, promotes a $100 gift to Opportunity International — which the site says would allow the group to make 10 small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries — as a possible Father’s Day gift.
The transaction fee for gifts made to the site, which covers the cost of credit-card processing, is 3 percent, plus 30 cents.
After several weeks of testing, Bring Light is scheduled to formally announce its site this week. Donors who make a gift on the site can send comments and questions to the charities running the projects featured on the site.
Research shows that online donors want to feel a sense of connection to the groups they support, says Drew McManus, one of two former Adobe Systems executives who founded the for-profit site.
“They didn’t want to drop a donation in a bucket,” he says, “and not really know what happened after that.”
All of the projects featured on the Bring Light site are posted by charities that have signed up to participate on the site. Most are in the San Francisco Bay Area, but Mr. McManus says that Bring Light will actively recruit nonprofit organizations across the country to participate.
Bring Light is working with the American Endowment Foundation, a donor-advised fund, to process gifts made through the site. Because of the partnership, visitors are able to start a giving account on the site that acts like a donor-advised fund. Donors receive the tax benefit of making a contribution when they set up a giving account, but would be able to decide which charities to give to over time. The minimum amount required to set up a giving account is only $5.
Ten percent of each donation made through Bring Light goes to the company.
To get there: Go to http://www.changingthepresent.org and http://www.bringlight.com.
