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 these past few weeks, and I want to share our early thinking about it.
In the space of charitable giving, there is a key question by donors and nonprofits alike: How do I know that a donation made to a charity actually makes it to the charity? The second question, from a donor perspective, is usually, “How do I know a donation is used for the purposes given?” And, the third question is, related to the second, “How reputable is a charity?”
For Charity Blossom, there is a fourth question we need to satisfy: Since we are an intermediary between donors and nonprofit organizations, Charity Blossom itself must be trusted as well.
Let us address the last question first. As a relatively new company, we need to prove our trustworthiness. First, we will be very clear about our intentions and we’ll let you know how we are executing against those intentions. We’ll be as transparent as possible about our operations. We need to provide value to all of our constituents — both nonprofit organizations and donors. Trust comes only if we deliver value. Last, we’ll allow nonprofits and donors alike to provide public commentary and feedback about Charity Blossom and how we are doing. All said and done, you need to trust Charity Blossom or we have failed.
Once we earn this trust, we can play an effective role in the first three questions.
First, how can you be assured your donations make it to the intended nonprofit? Eventually, as a trusted provider of donation processing, we’ll handle this ourselves and let you know how we are executing. The minimal fees with donation processing will be readily apparent. However, as we are just starting out, we don’t currently handle transaction processing for two reasons. First, it takes time and effort to get this right from an operational perspective. We don’t want to screw this up! Second, we understand, that as a relatively new organization, you may have some concerns. For these reasons, all donation processing is handed over directly to Network for Good with a simple link to their site. We’ve done a deep investigation of Network for Good. As far as we can tell, this is a great, trustworthy organization. If we encounter issues, we’ll let you know. So, we hope this gives you assurance about our ability to execute on donation processing as well as increase your level of trust in Charity Blossom.
(UPDATE: We’ve received feed back that, when fulfilling a pledge, visitors might want to do so via means other than Network for Good. So, in response, we’ve provided links to other donation processors in addition to Network for Good. See this post for details.)
The second and third questions are basically, “How can I trust a nonprofit on Charity Blossom, even if I fully trust Charity Blossom itself?” First, let me say that our goal is not to rate, review, or recommend nonprofits ourselves. However, here’s what we are doing on this front. First, we are getting our listing information from the most reliable sources that we can. We start with the Internal Revenue Service. Currently, all of the nonprofits in the Charity Blossom directory must be included in the IRS’ Master File of Tax Exempt organizations. All of our listing information is based on this data. Second, we provide links out to Network for Good for further validation. Eventually, we are considering acquiring data on nonprofits from GuideStar to give further information on nonprofits. We believe GuideStar to be a trustworthy source of information about nonprofits.
In addition to third party validation of the trustworthiness of a nonprofit, nonprofits themselves will be able to make the case for what their purpose is, what they are doing, ad how they are doing. In effect, nonprofits will be responsible for telling you why they are trustworthy. Also, we’ll allow donors and visitors to comment, rate, and review nonprofits, so you can see what others are saying. Using the “wisdom of the crowd,” we can build trust in nonprofits.
Finally, we are considering some innovative ways to become a “Trust Authority” of nonprofits. As previously stated, our intent is not to rate/review nonprofits. Rather, we are exploring ways in which the web and social media can be used to “figure out” trustworthiness of non-profits. We are in the early stages of this effort, so there isn’t too much to say yet. And, more importantly, we want to first earn your trust in Charity Blossom before becoming the “Trust Authority.”
In closing, I have some practical, timely recommendations for donors making charitable contribution because charitable giving is so timely today. The devastating earthquake in Haiti has brought out the best in Americans. We’ve stepped up to the plate to offer aid. We want to give. Sadly, there are some organizations that are using this tragedy to “scam” money from well intended people. Here’s a Google search query to see what I mean. So, I’ve prepared a few tips to help you evaluate nonprofit causes. First, before you donate, check out the web first. Second, maybe surprisingly, I find that celebrity endorsements give good credibility to a cause. After all, would people like George Clooney or George Bush and Bill Clinton risk their reputations by supporting an unscrupulous cause? And lastly, here are some guidelines on how to avoid donation scams in general.
Trust. It’s a core value.
