Initiatives
spark up services of national online portal
Canada’s free national online charitable giving portal,
CanadaHelps.org, (CF October 31, 2003) is bringing new services
to the country’s charities and their donors.
Hoping to catch the holiday giving period and the
catch-up-on-my-donations-before-the-tax-year ends charitable
impulses of the country’s donors, CanadaHelps has introduced
gift cards.
The new Charity Gift Card is designed to allow people to
purchase gift cards online and get a tax receipt for the full
amount, but give it to a friend or family member to make the
decision on which charity will receive the donation.
CanadaHelps will eMail the card to the recipient and the receipt
to the donor. When the recipient comes back to the site to make
the choice of charity, the organization will facilitate that
process as well and remit the donation to the charity.
Although the facility was offered a bit late for holiday
gift-giving except for those who leave everything to the last
minute, Executive Director Jason Côté hopes it will help some
donors out of that “what do I do for so-and-so” quandary, and
that others may use it for end-of-year gifts.
Encouraging writers
To market the new service, CanadaHelps, which has, Côté notes,
“not a lot of financial resources” has sent out press releases
and provided sample cards for some writers to use so they can
understand the process and write about it.
It will also run a viral campaign, eMailing supporters and
regular donors and asking them, if they find the facility
attractive, to send the news to their own networks.
Coming early next year is another service for donors for which
Côté has high hopes – personal giving pages, like those which
are conventionally set up by such charities as the CIBC CBCF Run
for the Cure, or the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay For Life.
With these pages, an individual would be able to design the page
and invite friends and family to support any cause s/he cared
about, whether that was an event in which s/he was participating
but whose sponsors didn’t have a personal page facility, or
perhaps celebration of an occasion like a birthday or wedding,
where donations would be invited instead of gifts.
Why I care
Even if the person wanted to support a cause like South Asian
relief following last year’s tsunami, s/he could set up the page
to direct donations to the appropriate relief agencies, but
giving the message that personal fillip of “this is what I care
about”.
The facility would also be useful for a giving circle (those
ephemeral beings – CF November 30), Côté suggests; they could
set up a page and ask supporters to pledge back through the
site.
Donations received this way will be handled like all others that
come through the site – the money will go to the designated
charity, the receipt directly to the donor. In addition, the
person whose page it is will get as much information about who
has responded positively to the invitation as is consonant with
our privacy laws.
Celebrating its five-year anniversary, CanadaHelps will this
year process more than $10 million in online donations.
Why not sign up?
It is still a mystery, as Canadian Fundraiser noted two years
ago, that not all of the country’s registered charities register
with the site in order to place the “donate now” button on their
web site and receive donations more quickly.
As we said then, “the fact is that this three-year-old (now
five-year-old) open-to-all nonprofit donation portal has
facilitated more than $3 million in donations (now more than
$10.5 million) from more than 13,000 different donors (now
35,000) to more than 2,500 charities (now 5,000) – with very
little participation from the charities concerned (ie many of
the donations are sent to designated charities even though they
have neglected to register).”
Although all charities registered with Canada Revenue Agency are
listed on the site, those which register – FREE – can list their
mission statement, values and vision, contact information, and
anything else they feel would attract donors.
Come, then stay
One of the interesting developments Côté has noticed in the last
few years, and which should encourage charities to be sure they
get themselves registered, is that people who come to the site
to make one donation – ie through a particular charity’s donate
now button – find they can quickly and conveniently give to
multiple charities or arrange monthly donations with an annual
tax receipt all at one site and in one sitting.
Many have developed the habit of directing their end-of-tax-year
multiple donations through the site, rather than sitting down
December 31 and writing 10 to 20 cheques.
Although the organization has no way of tracking exactly how
many regular donors have been acquired this way, he says it does
know that about 50% of its visitors come through registered
charities and about 50% come directly to the CanadaHelps site.
For further information: Jason Côté, Executive Director,
CanadaHelps.org, 130 King St. W., Ste. 2370, Box 142, Toronto ON
M5X 1C7, 416/628-6945, fax 416/628-6949,
[email protected],
www.canadahelps.org. |