September 7, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
GlobalGiving, a site that connects donors with more than 600 charities working in dozens of countries, has sparked a surge of donations with a series of fund-raising contests.
The latest Global Open Challenge 2009, a month-long contest that ends on September 18, involves 167 of the charities on the organization’s site. They are competing to see which group can raise the most money through the Web site. The goal is to persuade donors and others associated with a charity to solicit friends, relatives and others.
Charities that win first, second, and third place will receive $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively, from GlobalGiving. And the organization that has the most donors will win another prize of $3,000. To qualify to win, competing organizations must raise at least $4,000 from 50 donors.
More than $180,000 has been raised in the current contest. Now in first place: the Transitional Living Center, a Hillsboro, Ore., organization. So far, the group has raised more than $10,000 for its overseas work. The charity provides shelter, education, medical care, and other services to girls in Cambodia who have been rescued from sex trafficking.
The Transitional Living Center may have a shot at beating one of the winners of GlobalGiving’s last contest, which ran for a three-week period in June: Critical Exposure, a Washington charity that teaches photography to youngsters from poor families, raised more than $15,000. The organization received another $2,000 for taking second place and an additional $3,000 for recruiting more donors than any other organization.
