Tag Archives: charity

Newly launched Xperedon to revolutionize the act of giving

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In the current economic climate, more and more people start looking into ways to ensure that despite all the difficulties, donations and funds keep flowing in for charities and nonprofit organizations. One of these people is British-born businessman Julian Worth, who might have just found a way to revolutionize the usual process of charity donations. His brainchild, the recently launched Xperedon (a Swiss-designed platform applications that was built from a $5m investment and some three years of development) combines the act of giving with the functionalities and the benefits of social media, a concept that hallmarks practically all successful new media ventures of the recent years.

In the core of the Xperedon platform are an ever-growing database of charities (5,629 charity organizations are listed at the time of writing this article) and the innovative idea called „charity profile” or „charity portfolio”, a handpicked selection of registered users, that consists of up to 20 charities of their choice, that they intend to support. Users manage these portfolios freely, adding and removing charities, sharing their profiles to show off, or opting for private donations, that are not visible to others. They can select regular donations, with monthly plans starting as low as $10, or they can obviously choose occasional donations with any amount. „Think of it as your personal charity DNA,” says Julian Worth, who hopes that it’s just a matter of time, when these charity profiles will become as popular and important to their users, as their Facebook accounts or Twitter feeds. „Xperedon is all about lifestyle giving, making it relevant and fun, while putting control firmly in the hands of the donor,” he adds.

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Red Cross Holiday Giving Campaign gets celeb support

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Television personalities, music stars and other celebrities – all members of the American Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet – decided to support the American Red Cross to give and to encourage their fans to donate in the frameworks of the organization’s Holiday Giving Campaing.

Participating celebrities include actors  Josh Duhamel, Marlee Matlin, Jane Seymour, Jackie Chan and Jimmy Smits; television personalities Dr. Phil McGraw, Nancy O’Dell and Leeza Gibbons; and award-winning music stars Chayanne, Reba, Rascal Flatts, Wynonna Judd, Sara Evans and Pat Green, American Red Cross said in a statement earlier this week.

Part of the holiday charity campaign is an online catalog whithin the American Red Cross’s webstore, called “Gifts that Save the Day“, enabling people to make donations that could provide food and shelter for victims of disasters. The donation can be a military comfort kit with a robe, a phone or a music card, or simply basic necessities that would help families that lost everything in a catastrophe. Donations made through the “Gifts that Save the Day” program, that are Red Cross program area-specific, rather than attached to a specific program of the organization, are entirely tax-deductible – Red Cross notes. Other ways of donating in this holiday season includes the making of a $25 donation by texting the word “GIFT” to 90999.

“This holiday season, I’m giving the gift of hope by supporting my local American Red Cross,” Reba said in a video message about the campaign. “Instead of sweaters and ties, I’m giving gifts from the Red Cross Holiday Giving Catalog.” Reba also has sent an e-mail to Red Cross supporters nationwide encouraging them to donate this holiday season.

“Perhaps it’s because my father was a doctor, or because I played one on television, but I think my favorite gift in the catalog is the gift of vaccination against measles,” Jane Seymour, the primary celebrity spokesperson for the campaign said. “It’s a great honor to be asked to take part in this worthwhile endeavor for the American Red Cross. I can tell you from personal experience that the time I spend volunteering has enriched my life,” she added.

Celebrities, such as Wynonna Judd, Chayanne, Rascal Flatts, Reba, Matlin, O’Dell, Evans, Green, Gibbons and Chan also used their Twitter and Facebook pages to encourage their fans and followers to participate in the campaign. “$25 vaccinates 25 children around the world against measles. Wanna help? http://bit.ly/RCHoliday“, Judd tweeted.

According to the American Red Cross, a recent survey shows that despite economic difficulties and the current downturn, 57% of Americans are planning to give at least $50 to charitable causes throughout this year’s holiday season.

Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg to give most of his wealth to charity

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Facebook’s now 26-year-old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, freshly honoured as Man of the year 2010 in Times Magazine, may not be best known for his philanthropist attitudes. His social network, Facebook finds itself amidst fierce arguments over privacy and user-friendliness from time to time.
Zuckerberg’s public image, however, seems to be subject to change as the youngster billionaire announced that he would become one of the 16 billionaires that agreed to give most of his wealth to charities.

The elite club includes AOL co-founder Steve Case, investor Carl Icahn, former junk-bond king Michael Milken Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, film director George Lucas and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
According to Philanthropy Journal and the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg wasn’t available for further comments. In a video he previously prepared, he stated “There’s so much that needs to be done, it would be better to start now.” According to Forbes’s estimation, Zuckerberg’s fortune is in the area of USD 6.9 billion, making him one of the world’s youngest billionaires. This estimation, however, is somewhat theoretical, since Facebook is yet to be listed on the stock exchange.
Zuckerberg’s current announcement followed his first charity pledge earlier this year: in September he promised to give USD 100 million to public schools in Newark. He made his decision public in the Oprah Winfrey Show. Zuckerberg, himself is a Harvard University dropout.
Details on Zuckerberg’s current charity pledge are yet unknown.

Allthis.com – The eBay for charities

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Donating cash or offering your work directly to the charity of your choice does definitely have its limits. If you are a car mechanic, there’s not much the local hospital can do with your work, and vice verse, if you don’t have any cash to give, there’s not much you can give to a charity, that it will find inevitably useful.

Except that now there is, thanks to a recently launched website Allthis.com, the “eBay for charities” or the “marketplace for things money can’t buy,” as its founders put it. The new type of auction site features diverse types of listings on behalf of “vendors”, who offer the income directly to the charities they chose to support. Bidders on the other and will receive te product or service they need, and wire the money directly to the charity. Any type of expertise, passion or product can easily be turned to cash for the good cause this way.

“We created allthis with a vision to leverage an individual’s expertise and network as an alternative method of donation, while giving non-profits a creative way to excite and unite their supporters,” said Paul Weinstein, CEO and co-founder of Allthis.com, when the website was launched in late May, following a year and a half of preparations. “Ranging from access to the influential, engagement with the creative, to the downright silly, what people have to offer is infinitely diverse.”

Among the moms offering Sunday lunch recipes all children will like, and designers with several decades of expertise offering brochure design for any business or good cause,

there are well-connect professionals who offer business lunches for anyone who cares to pay $10,000 for such an opportunity.

And, somewhat surprisingly, only a few weeks into its operations, there are already stars and A-list celebs, including Ashton Kutcher, Rihanna (who will give you one of her concert corsets to help children in need — starting bid, $150), Aisha Tyler (who will let the maker of the winning bid attend a recording session with her – starting bid $2,000) or Ben Stiller (who will record a greeting on your voicemail to help rebuild Haiti — starting bid, $200) offering various memorabilia and services for good cause.

All participants of the auctions support the good cause. Website visitors who create the listings offering whatever they have to offer pick the charity the bidding is to support, while bidders on the other hand will actually donate the charities. The money is directly sent to the charity – with five percent staying at Allthis to cover operational costs -, and whenever the offer is not fulfilled, the money is returned directly to the bidder.

The founders have high hopes and ambitions. They want to be as recognized as eBay, and as successful as the charities of Microsoft-chief Bill Gates. The Allthis team is located in Los Angeles, and the current headcount is 12. The plan is to go nationwide as soon as possible, covering the whole United States.

“Everybody has something to give,” Weinstein, who lives in the Bay Area was quoted as saying by Brand X Daily. “Now you can take whatever you do, whatever you’re good at, and turn it into cash for your favorite charity.”

The 13 Oil Spill Charities that are worth donating to

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Disasters happen, and with the focus of the world, there comes the not-so-much-welcome focus of those, who want to take their tolls on people with true intention to help.

Scammers and fake charities are just as swift to react using the peaks of the public urge for giving, as real charities (if not faster), and while in times of difficulties it is always easy to find camouflage to their malevolent efforts, this cover is only there to distract people from their real goals of making money on the back of the less fortunate. Thus, it is extremely important to watch out for all the tiny details when you decide to give – especially when you do it in the middle of a bigger movement of volunteer and charity efforts.

As the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon accident spread the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, many charities and fakes have spread the online world asking for help. So have people willing to grant money to mitigate the environmental and human disaster that is to follow the accident. While there are numerous organizations that are really efficient and transparent in their disaster relief efforts, others are not so much.

Scammers aside, there are quite a few organizations for whom good will is not enough – due to their size, the lack of professional skills or experience, they can not act effectively enough to become worthwhile for your donations.

To help direct money to charities and organizations that are efficiently taking part of the disaster relief, and are really capable of making an impact – and to help donors avoid scams in the charity business -, the U.S. Better Business Bureau (BBB) have recently published a list of 13 nonprofits working in the Gulf of Mexico that meet the Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance’s Standards for Charity Accountability.

While BBB is not an ultimate “authority” to judge the efforts of the organizations in question, it seems fair and well-founded to conclude that the charities listed below are amongst the best choices to pick when you choose to donate to oil spill victims (below the names of the charities, we have also shown the section of the given organization’s website dedicated to their efforts in the Gulf of Mexico – where a section like that was available).

For the latest news and details of ABC’s Gulf of Mexico activities click here!

Visit the Latest from the Gulf section of Defenders of Wildlife’s homepage, or visit the organizations blog!

To donate or to get more info on the organization’s activities visit the Gulf Coast oil spill Action Center!

Visit EarthShare’s detailed Gulf Oil Spill page!

Visit EDF’s detailed chronicle of the BP oil disaster.

There are a huge amount of Oil Spill-related info on the Audubon homepage.

For the latest news and updates on the Oil Spill crisis (as seen from NWF’s perspective), click here!

At the moment the whole website of NRDC is all about the Oil Spill crisis.

Not much info and features but the ways you can help NC help in the Gulf Crisis are right here.

Previously on Fundraisr.org

Shine Together charity launched by comedian Justin Lee Collins

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Shine Together, a charity aimed at raising at least an annual £1m for Bristol-based hospitals Frenchay and Southmead was launched by comedian and presenter Justin Lee Collins, head of fundraising Trevor Reid told BBC Radio. Collins was born at Southmead hospital in 1974.

According to Reid and Collins, the Shine Together charity will appeal for both hospitals and will take over the management over 500 funds. The aim is to provide the hospitals with specialist equipments that the organizations could not afford by themselves. The charity will also help supporting patients and their families, Reid added.

“Obviously the services which are there are second-to-none anyway but this is about [giving] access to a particular piece of equipment, which might cost lots of money, or a particular service,” he was quoted by the BBC Website.

“By raising money in this way, and putting in extra services, it helps take some of the stresses away from the patients.

It really does make a huge difference to their lives and adds something extra to what we can deliver here in Bristol.”

Collins and Reid expect hundreds of local people to support Shine Together, raising money for patient care and research projects in Bristol.

Glide Foundation cashes in $2.6m via Warren Buffet charity lunch

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Glide Foundation, a San Francisco-based charity, serving the homeless in the city’s infamous Tenderloin quarter will be granted some $2.6m via Warren Buffet’s charity lunch auction this year. The bidding sets a new record after last year’s failed attempt to break 2008′s record of a “mere” $2.1m. The bidder, however remains unknown as of now.

The billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. drove this year’s bidding last Friday, drawing in much of the enermous amount ($1.9m) in the final hour of the auction, conducted by worldwide auction site Ebay. Even the last three minutes remained excessively eventful: the bids rose from $2.5 million to a final tally of $2,626,311.

According to Ebay spokeswoman Kathy Chui, the winning bid was made using the website’s automatic bidding application. The “Power lunch for 8 with Warren Buffet” as advertised by Ebay, may seem the world’s most expensive lunch for some, but also the most valuable for others. The bidding went on for four days, drawing in eight bidders and 62 bids altogether.

This year’s anonymous highest bidder is breaking a tradition of public winners, such as Canadian investment group Salida Capital, that paid $1.68m last year or the record’s previous holder, investor Zhao Danyang.

Glide founder Reverend Cecil Williams showed well-founded enthusiasm after the bidding. “I’m very excited,” he was quoted by Wall Street Journal. “I think there is a groundswell taking place for people to be more concerned with nonprofit groups.”

According to Reverend Williams, there is a substantial, 30% rise in the need for Glide Foundation’s services since the beginning of the economic downturn, while the foundation have seen a 20% dwindle in the amount of donations.

“We are going to put the money where it counts,” Rev. Williams told journalists. His foundation was picked the grantee of Warren Buffet’s charity lunch because the investor mogul’s late wife Susan, had been a volunteer at Glide. especially services for young people who were being drawn into violence.

Unlike in previous years, Buffet didn’t make it to San Francisco this time to celebrate the auction’s countdown. The winner of this year’s auction is allowed to bring a party of up to eight to the lunch, which typically takes place at Mr. Buffett’s favorite New York City steakhouse, Smith & Wollensky. Previous winners agreed that the lunch, during which participants covered various investment subjects, proved “helpful”.

Bono turns street musician for charity

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Okay, it is news of yesteryear by now (quite literally), but still I am positive that it is worth a mention what Dubliners may have witnessed this Christmas Eve if they happened to walk the shopping streets of their city.

U2's Bono turns street musicion for charity on Christmas Eve in Dublin

U2's Bono turns street musicion for charity on Christmas Eve in Dublin

U2 frontman Bono teamed up with Swell Season’s Glen Hansard to become street musicians and play for charity. Bono and Glen were also joined by highly popular Irish songwriters Damien Rice and Mundy in the fundraising action, that aimed to help Irish charity Simon Community, that supports homeless people in various communities throughout Ireland.

The busking-turned -superstar-jam-session took place on Dublin’s well known Grafton street, that, interestingly, was also a most important location of hit cult movie Once, in which Glen Hansard’s character was a busker playing on the very same spot.

“That was incredible,” Hot Press quoted an astonished onlooker. “I was out innocently doing my shopping when I saw a crowd gathered. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I had a closer look – you might expect to see someone like Mundy doing something like this for charity, but there were three huge stars there, giving it loads. It really added to the Christmas eve atmosphere. The only problem is I had one more present to get but the shop is closed now!”

Although there is no word on how much the bunch of superstar buskers managed to raise for the good cause, but they were reported to play for over an hour. The “show” included U2’s One, Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door and You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, Ben King’s Stand By Me and a version of Mic Christopher’s Heyday, performed by Mic’s best friend, Glen Hansard. Obviously all of these songs were joined by the numerous audience singing along with the artists.

While Bono has been well known for his charity work (well, for other things, too), Glen Hansard is no different. A few days before Christmas, on Dec 21, 2009. Hansard was the special guest for the Dublin Simon Community’s ‘The Longest Night’ fundraising concert. The concert arranged on the longest night of the year (which is the worst night for the homelesses) aimed to raise EUR 100,000 ($144,000) to support homeless Dubliners. On the video above you can see a part of his show given at Dublin’s Button Factory.

The Dublin branch of Simon Community aids some 2,000 homeless people on a daily bases.

Polar Bear Dip raises $230,000

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A blood-curdling dip in Lake Ontario raises a heartwarming $230,000 for charity, breaking all previous records in Oakville’s Coronation Park.

Some 600 people gathered in Coronation Park, Oakville, Canada at 2pm sharp, 01. 01. 10. to kick off the new year with a refreshing and memorable dip in Lake Ontario’s freezing water. The Polar Bear Dip boasts itself as Canada’s Largest Charitable Polar Bear Festival, and the 600 participants aside it drew in several thousand visitors, who watched the brave volunteers holding their breaths.

Some used their inner strengths, others screamed or prayed, and yet others jumped straight into the water leaving themselves no option to avoid getting all cold and wet to serve a noble purpose. The water for water Polar Bear Charity Dip has been organized since 1995 raising fund to third-world water projects. Over the years, the charity dip has raised over $410,000 for various projects. This year’s grantee was a Kahi Water Project in Rwanda and a second project in Tanzania. This year’s amount was not only a new record: the increase in both the amount of participants and the amount raised was more than significant. Compared to last year’s 60 dippers and $55,000, this year the event saw over 600 participants, who managed to raise almost five times as much: $230,000.

“It was very refreshing,” Hamilton resident Michelle Pollington, 39, was quoted as saying. “I’ve been doing it since 1990 because my dad and I have been doing it since then. It’s all about mind over matter.”

“I’m so happy, I could almost cry right now,” Polar Bear Dip co-founder Trent Courage said.

“After visiting Rwanda this past summer and observing the tremendous need for clean water, and then seeing the difference in communities where donations to World Vision are at work, I am beyond ecstatic at what $230,000 will do for our brothers, sisters and friends in Africa.”

Polar Bear Dip in Oakville, Canada

Polar Bear Dip in Oakville, Canada

The Kahi Water Project aims to help provide a dependable source of clean water for the people of Kahi in the Umutara region of Rwanda. By drilling new wells and building reservoirs, the Kahi Water Project will bring safe water close to the people who live in the community. The new water system will reduce the suffering caused by drinking dirty water and save children hours of wasted time, which can now be spent at school. According to Courage Brothers (the founders and organizers of the Polar Bear Dip), the benefiting project will help 22,00 people get fresh water — that will help prevent disease, keep children in school longer and provide families a better life.