March 2012
2 posts
501(c)harities -- Accelerating Charities onto the...
(Taking applications to our 2012 program. Apply here.)
Summary
501(c)harities is a nonprofit incubator. We’re here to help charities get started, grow, and thrive. We help you understand and use the Internet and social media to transform your organization. If you are starting up or stuck in the offline world, 501(c)harities is here to help you.
The Internet Changes Everything
Unless...
We're giving away money to your favorite charity.
We’re giving away free money to your favorite charity. That’s right. Free. Well almost free.
Here’s how: Come to Charity Blossom and make a donation to help any nonprofit of your choice. We’ll kick in an extra $10. There’s a catch….wait for it….But first, you might be asking,
“Why are we we doing this?”
First, we want to help your favorite charity....
February 2012
3 posts
Form 990: More Data. Deeper Insight. Better...
For a variety of reasons, we have a different set of expectations from nonprofits relative to for-profit businesses with regards to transparency and information disclosure. Some of it is legal and regulatory — as required to qualify as a nonprofit organization (for example a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization). Some of it is a societal expectation for a nonprofit to be more transparent. If...
Tick, Tick, Tick...Last Minute Valentines Day Gift...
We’re down to the wire. It’s Valentines Day. Have you bought that perfect give for that perfect person and planned that perfect event for tonight? Or, are you struggling in despair, frantically trying to figure things out at the last minute? Chocolates? Flowers? Dinner reservations available only at 9:45? At at the Olive Garden? What to do? How about a gift in the name of a...
Susan G. Komen: What's the "Truth?"
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has been under fire. First, over policies regarding grant distributions to Planned Parenthood. Or rather, the decision not to provide grants to Planned Parenthood. And, then reversing its policy. And funding.
And now, they are under the microscope for other issues, such as executive compensation and spending. Did Nancy Brinker, founder...
December 2011
3 posts
Getting the Gift of a Donation: Good or Bad?
I saw “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” last night. It tells the the often forgotten story that “stuff” does not make us happy. And, related, it reminded me of its corollary that it’s better to give than it is to receive. In fact, as usual around Christmas, I’m seeing stories about how giving is the key to our happiness. This week, I read “Chasing...
Reviews, Ratings, and Nonprofits
Rate a Nonprofit on Charity Blossom.
Review a Nonprofit on Charity Blossom.
As co-founder and first engineers at MerchantCircle, Jason, Jeff, and I are well versed on the impact of online ratings and reviews of local businesses. While MerchantCircle was not focused on providing reviews for businesses, we watched how Yelp became *the* place to find good information on businesses such as...
Early Numbers on Charitable Giving in 2011: A...
‘Tis the Season to Be Giving.
According to Network for Good, one-third of charitable giving is done in December. Given the state of the global economy, we’re taking a look at the early indicators on charitable giving this year. We’re hoping it is going to be a good year for nonprofits and charities.
Unfortunately, it’s too early too give statistical significant insight...
November 2011
6 posts
Give the Gift of Giving
Giving gifts during the holiday season is a time honored tradition. It feels all most silly that I mention it, because it is so obvious. And, herein lies the dilemma — we want to give super awesome, meaningful gifts; however, because they are all most expected, giving gifts that truly delight or surprise is oftentimes a difficult if not impossible task. Will the gifts you give really be...
Charity of the Day: Operation Nightwatch
Operation Nightwatch brings compassion to the poor and homeless. It brings immediate shelter to women, men, and families in need. Especially at night. And, beyond the short term, it helps provide long term solutions, education, hope, and spiritual care for those in need. It services the Greater Seattle area.
Homeless is a complicated issue. After spending much time with my cousin, a director at...
Facebook Like: A Beginner's Approach
I’ve watch with amazement how Facebook has changed the semantics of words in our lexicon. It’s forever altered what it means to be a “friend,” for better or worse. With equal impact, Facebook has changed the meaning of “like.” ”Friend” and “like” are fundamental words — words that shape who we are as individuals, a culture and,...
Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Donate Through...
10. Easy. With a few easy clicks or swipes, you can find and give to the charities and causes that you support.
9. No stamps, no checks, no envelopes. No more licking, writing, or stuffing.
8. Efficient. We’re among the most efficient (if not the most efficient) mechanisms for getting money to your favorite charities and nonprofits.
7. Receipts at your finger tips. Come April when...
Support Your Passion -- Give to a Charity Blossom...
Our mission at Charity Blossom is to bring donations to charities and nonprofits. The charities and nonprofits do the hard work — delivering on services that are desperately needed for a wide range of causes. We bring the money, in the form of donations, from you.
We are pleased that you want to help. Your donations are the lifeblood of help, relief, and hope. After talking with many...
Helping Your Charity Blossom
Donations are the lifeblood of charities and nonprofits. For all the good the charities deliver, financial resources are needed for them to execute on their mission. A few nonprofits are “self-sustainable.” They have figured out how to operate their mission without funding from external sources. This is an ideal situation.
However, this is not the case for most charities. They...
July 2011
2 posts
Get Form 990 Data on All Nonprofits
Get Form 990 Data for all nonprofits here.
Truth, Trust, and Transparency
Making information about nonprofits available to anyone that wants it is a key goal at Charity Blossom. We believe that an informed public is good for all society. By making data public, allowing users to participate in the discussion, and giving nonprofits a platform to communicate, we believe we are providing a valuable...
My $1000 Challenge: Dance. Or Swim, Bike, and...
For the first ever, I will dance at the Seattle Buddhist Church Obon this weekend, in honor of my father and grandmother. I’m told my “two left feet” make it especially hard when the line moves in a counter-clock-wise direction. :-) However, I’ve been faithfully practicing every week. It should be fun.
My cousin Kelly (shown here with my grandmother), for the...
June 2011
1 post
A Billion Dollars Isn't Cool. You Know What's...
A Billion for a Million.
At Charity Blossom, we’ve had a clear goal:
Help bring a billion dollars a year to a million nonprofits.
Now, we’re just getting started. We haven’t processed any donations as of yet. As we’ve previously mentioned, we’re treading carefully here to make sure we earn your trust to help you with this important task. Plus, we are carefully...
Truth. Transparency. Trust.
Trust.
Perhaps more important than any attribute, a nonprofit must be trusted. Your work is only as good as you can be trusted. Too often, a charity or nonprofit is tainted because of a lapse of trust. Trust is not only something to be earned but an attribute you must exhibit every day.
We believe that Trust, along with Truth and Transparency, are fundamental values that a nonprofit must...
May 2011
6 posts
MerchantCircle: Insights into Charity Blossom and...
In 2004, Jason and I, the founders of Charity Blossom, started another company — MerchantCircle. Today, we’re happy to announce that Reply! has purchased MerchantCircle for $60 million. As I noted over on my personal blog, this is a great outcome for all — the companies, employees, the investors, and, most of, the small businesses (all 15 million of them) that we help and...
Truth, Transparency, Trust: Shining More Light on...
When deciding to support a charity or nonprofit, donors, and potential donors, ask some basic questions:
What is the purpose and mission of a charity?
How trustworthy is the organization?
How financial efficient is it?
Will my money go to a good cause?
Where can I find more information?
Why should I give or help?
Most of this information is public in nature, as tax exempt organizations...
Buy Shoes and Help the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
I know next to nothing about women’s shoes. I am, however, fascinated by the obsession some of my friends have with them. (As far as I know, it’s only my female friends but I’m sure there are few men out there too!) Nonetheless, I respectfully acknowledge the relative importance shoes play in the lives of many, even though I don’t quite get it. However, today,...
Eolian -- College Students with a Dream
As mentioned in my last post, I traveled with Geeks on a Plane to South America last week. We visited many companies and talked with many entrepreneurs. We saw many “cool” ideas but, for me, it was very difficult to understand whether or not these ideas could have any hope of being companies. Or even formulate some criteria to decide whether or not to invest without more...
Geeks on a Plane: Re-visiting Outsourcing
Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Buenos Aires
Every few years, I re-visit a key engineering question, ”Should I outsource engineering/product development?” Not surprising, this question is contemplated during the “start up” phase of the the various companies I’ve been involved with. Ultimately, the answer has been “no” for for varying reasons....
April 2011
3 posts
3 Cups of Confusion
I’m sure it’s been an exciting week, to say the least for Greg Mortenson. Greg is an American humanitarian, professional speaker, writer and former mountaineer. Mortenson is the co-founder (with Jean Hoerni) and director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute as well as the founder of the educational charityPennies for Peace. He is the co-author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones...
For Profits Doing Good @Stanford Women in Business
Last Saturday, I spoke at the Stanford Women in Business conference. I was on a panel called, “Solutions to Social Problems” and I sat in on a session called “Intersections of Business and Social Entrepreneurship. Going in, I had prepared a seemingly controversial position — A for-profit entity is the most effective vehicle for for social good. While acknowledging...
Palindrome Advisors: Changing How Leaders Give...
It’s been over year since I first shared my vision for making an philanthropic impact through Charity Blossom with Zaw Thet. I’ve known Zaw for many years — I met Zaw when I served on the Advisory Board of Spoke, and he was a rising star in Business Development at Spoke. (Zaw, as you might know, has gone on to be superstar CEO at 4INFO.) Last April, as I unveiled my idea, it...
March 2011
1 post
The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy
Last Sunday, I attended the annual meeting of the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy of San Francisco. The premise of the group is pretty simple — somebody from the “society” gives you $100 to give away, you give it away in a creative way, and then you tell your story at the “top secret” annual meeting. (Then, you too get to be in the society.) The New York...
February 2011
4 posts
Listings on Charity Blossom
At Charity Blossom, we’re here to help nonprofits and donors alike. Donors can find information about nonprofits, leave comments about them, and make pledges. (As previously noted, we don’t process donation transactions. We do provide links to other online resources that do.) For nonprofits, we provide a platform for communicating with donors. We want to bring awareness of a...
Help us choose our new logo
We’re redesigning our logo and we want you to help. Would you be be so kind to take a quick survey and help us choose a good logo set? We’re taking a “crowd sourcing” approach to find an expression of our brand that really resonates with our users. First, check out what the Charity Blossom brand is all about by reading this blog post.
Here’s the logo set:
...
The Charity Blossom Brand
We’re in throes a major site redesigned. When we first built out the Charity Blossom website, we focussed to understand and provide value to our users — donors and nonprofits alike. We wanted to understand the real needs of our constituency so that we could provide the most value. This has been quite successful. However, one of the trade offs that we made was a classic one —...
How much should it cost to process a donation?
At Charity Blossom, we’ve been proceeding very carefully with respect to processing donations. Currently, we don’t. As we’ve previously mentioned, we want to get this right. There are many issues — regulatory, financial and legal come to mind — that must be appropriately considered. On top of these, trust and efficiency are issues that we consider with great...
January 2011
2 posts
Twitter and Facebook: Sign up today
Executive Summary: If you don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, sign up today and get one:
Located in the Palo Alto, it’s easy to get caught up in all-things-technology. We’re in the center of the Silicon Valley, so we see the “new stuff” before it becomes popular. At least with regards to stuff on the Interwebs. Google, Facebook, Twitter,...
Bringing Your Newsletters Online
December seems to be the season for newsletters. I’m sure it’s related to the holidays. I received updates, notes, and newsletters from dozens of friends, familiy members, businesses, and charitable organizations. All delivered to my home through the United States Postal Service. I love getting these.
As I sat in my big chair next to the fireplace, reading a newsletter from one...
December 2010
4 posts
Blogging: The Importance of Getting Your Message...
At Charity Blossom, we conducted a survey to understand the top priorities of charities and nonprofits. It’s pretty clear:
Getting new donors
Engaging existing donors
Process donations
Intuitively, this was pretty clear to us. With some data behind it, we are more confident that we can provide real value if we can help you with these priorities. So, we’ve asked...
Help Me Support the Prostate Cancer Fund
As you probably know, Charity Blossom helps charities and nonprofits raise money. We have an ambitious goal of raising a billion dollars a year for a million charities and nonprofits. However, today, I want to make a personal appeal to you: I am raising money to support bladder and prostate cancer research through the Prostate Cancer Fund. Can you help? My father recently died of metastatic...
What Is Media?
We regard Charity Blossom as a media platform to help nonprofits raise money, engage donors, and get new donors. Dissiminating information about your nonprofit is key to our mission. Hence, we often think of our selves as a “news media” company. Our CEO blogs about this over here on kazabyte.
Ask Questions, Get Answers
Do you have questions about charitable giving? Ever thought about starting a nonprofit? Or maybe you want to promote an event for a charitable cause but have no place to do so. We have just the place for you for all of these things.
We’ve launched a new feature that we call “Forums” — www.chartityblossom.org/forum. Want to find out about starting and running a...
August 2010
1 post
Donation processing at Charity Blossom
Charity Blossom is here to help you raise money for your nonprofit. This is key to our mission. The process of fund raising is a coordinated and cooperative task between you, your supporters, and donors. Our goal at Charity Blossom is to help make this process efficient, easy, and effective. If you’ve been following this blog, this should come of no surprise.
One area of particular...
May 2010
1 post
What's Happening? -- Tell the World What Your...
At Charity Blossom, we’re continually rolling out new features. Most of our efforts are focused on providing capabilities for nonprofits to get more and better information about their efforts to their constituencies. We believe that nonprofits need to get the word out and that the Internet is a great way to do so. By “publicizing” the great work that a nonprofit is doing, it...
March 2010
1 post
Claim Your Listing
We just launched a handful of new features that should make it much easier for you to improve your organization’s visibility in Charity Blossom, and elsewhere online.
The most important one is the ability now for you, as representative of your non-profit organization, to claim your listing in Charity Blossom. This will let you validate your relationship, update important contact...
January 2010
3 posts
Trust at Charity Blossom
At Charity Blossom, trust is a core value. I’m guessing all companies, for profit and nonprofit alike, say this. However, what does this really mean? How do we act upon it? And, how do we measure how we are executing against this value? In the business that we are in, I believe that trust is even more important than in other businesses. We’ve been talking about trust every day...
"Send a $10 Donation by Texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999"
In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I’m proud that Americans have responded as we always do when such disasters strike — with compassion and generosity. We do what we can to help. And, more often than not, it’s opening our proverbial wallets and giving money. The Haiti earthquake is no exception.
What is changing however, is how we give. In particular,...
One month in...
It’s been a great month for Charity Blossom. We’ve launched the site and added a bunch of features. Because December is the season to be giving, we’ve seen a lot of people come by to check things out, leave comments, and make pledges. Yes, make pledges.
And, beyond the pledges, many of you have made donations. Thank you. This is season has proven to be a great test period...
December 2009
3 posts
The Size of Charitable Giving
As the holidays approach, charities/non-profits nervously wait; Will you be giving this year and how much? The economic down turn, not surprisingly, has impacted our ability to donate to our favorite charitable causes. Perhaps because it is the “season to be giving” and perhaps because we contemplate our tax deductions, December accounts for ~30% of our charitable giving (most of it...
Welcome to Charity Blossom
We’re a handful of technology entrepreneurs with a mission of social good. And, we want to do it “at scale.” Helping our personal favorite charities is a noble and worthy cause. However, we wish to make a larger impact. Namely, helping the millions of charities help themselves. So, we’re out to leverage our expertise in technology, the Internet, and media to help at very...
About
We’re a handful of technology entrepreneurs with a mission of social good. And, we want to do it “at scale.” Helping our personal favorite charities is a noble and worthy cause. However, we wish to make a larger impact. Namely, helping the millions of charities help themselves. So, we’re out to leverage our expertise in technology, the Internet, and media to help at very...