Charity Blossom

501(c)harities -- Accelerating Charities onto the Internet

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:40:00 -0400

(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 you’ve been living in a cave, you know that Charity is going online. It’s not just about donation processing. Rather, how you communicate, motivate, and, in general, interact with your donors, volunteers, and supporters is happening over the Internet. You need to be where your constituents are — online.

Perhaps you’ve been wringing your hands over this. You know you need to make this transformation. But how? Do you have the time, money, resources, and expertise to do so? After all, at least from a development perspective, offline has worked just fine — fund raisers, phone calls, and USPS mail.

But deep down you know — you need to get online. Fund raising certainly. But how you will you deliver program services and communicate in general with your peeps online. And, how will you make the transition?

Overwhelmed?

We’re Here to Help

We understand the difficulties, issues, and promises, but how do you even get started? We are here to help. We have deep expertise with respect to software, the Internet, technology, and social media — in the context of nonprofits and charities. We have over 20 years of experience. Our expertise is working with small organizations — those will less than 20 people or budgets smaller than $10 million/year. We want to use our blended experience to help you.

But how can we deliver help? And how do so at scale? Certainly, we can provide consulting services. However, this only enables us to help only a small number of nonprofits, certainly not hundreds or thousands.

Our solution: The Incubator

We’re taking an approach we’ve learned from the technology community. Over the past several years, incubators (or accelerators) emerged to help startups realize their dreams. Namely, the incubators provide guidance, support, and sometimes financing to help entrepreneurs get companies started. Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars are among the most well known, but there are others that are helping entrepreneurs all over the United States. Additionally, the incubator provides a network of seasoned professionals to help. Further, because the incubator runs groups of startups through a program in parallel, participants are cohorts that can help each other. You are not in this alone!

The 501(c)harities: The Charity Incubator

We’re taking a page from the technology incubator playbook.

501(c)harities is an incubator for charities and nonprofits.

We’re taking applications for early entrance int our first 2012 classes now. We’re just putting the “final” touches on the program now. (We say “final” parenthetically, because, as you’ll learn, iteration, experimentation, evaluation, and adaption are part of a process to get things built. We subscribe to this model for our incubator as well! The “job” is never done.)

Cut off date for the 2012 class is June 30, 2012. However, sign up now and get a head start. We’ll give preferential treatment to the first 21 charities that do.

Sign Up Today and Apply

Registering is easy. Go to 501(c)harities and enter your email address. We’ll send you an email confirming your registration and give you instructions on how to apply.

We're giving away money to your favorite charity.

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:33:00 -0400

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. If you support them, that’s all the “social proof” we need to know that they are up to good stuff. And, we want to help too.

Second, we want to introduce them to Charity Blossom. We can help them get new donors and more donations. But, of course, they have to know about us. What better way than for you and us coming together to make a donation to help them? They get the double benefit of money plus an introduction to all the great tools to help them thrive as a nonprofit.

The “catch” you ask? Well, we want to help your friends’ favorite charities too. So, we
want you tell your friends that we’ll donate $10 to their favorite charities. If you can get three friends to donate to help their favorite charities, we’ll kick in $10 to yours. Of course, we’ll also match 10 cabbages to your friends’ charities under the same circumstances. Everyone wins!

The basic idea is simple: You Give. (3) Friends Give. And, We’ll Give too. It’s that easy!

However, restrictions apply, so read the fine print.

Form 990: More Data. Deeper Insight. Better Decisions.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:39:00 -0500

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 a donor is making a contribution to a charitable cause, oftentimes there is a sense of (legitimate) entitlement to more information.

At Charity Blossom, want to surface as much information as possible.

For this reason, we provide a forum and meeting place for nonprofits, donors, and other constituents to provide information, opinions, and insight into nonprofits. Our goal is to be a valuable community resource of information about charities and nonprofits.

Form 990s at Your Finger Tips

In furthering this goal, we’ve decided to publish the Form 990 for all charities and nonprofits. Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, is submitted by tax-exempt and non-profit organizations to provide the Internal Revenue Service with annual financial information. This form is roughly equivalent to the Form 1040 that an individual files with the federal government.

Form 990 contains a plethora of information. Find out about donations made, how money is spent, salaries of key executives and other pertinent financial information.

While this information is available from the IRS (for a fee) and some websites expose some of it, it is still difficult to get to. Our goal is to make this public information easily accessible and as inexpensively as possible (currently, free!). Just going to Charity Blossom and search for a nonprofit. If we have the Form 990 for it, you can easily view it.

Form 990 in Bulk

While getting access to individual Form 990s for specific organizations is interesting and informatiive (for example, many have checked out the 990s of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation during a recent controversy), many have requested getting this information in bulk. In other words getting access to all Form 900s for all organizations. We’ve found while this information is “free” from the IRS, it still costs a few thousands of dollars for “media and processing” fees. Further, it comes in an unmanageable set of about 200 DVDs. Other companies provide this data at around $30,000/year) in a format that might not be very suitable for consumption.

At Charity Blossom, we can provide this information at a much more affordable level in a much more palatable form — a big USB disk. Check it out.

We’re shining more light on nonprofits and charities.

Tick, Tick, Tick...Last Minute Valentines Day Gift Suggestion

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:45:00 -0500

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 loved one to his or her favorite charitable cause? What better way to show that you care by supporting the cause that your loved one cares about. We’ve done some research. The gift of giving is a surprise that is appreciated like no other.

So, if you are banging your head against the wall trying to find that perfect gift for Valentines Day, maybe giving the gift of giving is your savior. Or, if you are comfortably set for that perfect date tonight, maybe the a gift in name of a loved one makes all the more special.

Susan G. Komen: What's the "Truth?"

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:24:00 -0500

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 and chief executive of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, really take home $417,000 in salary in 2010 and pay 50 top executives more than $100,000 each?

At Charity Blossom, we attempt not to pass judgment over the missions and operations of nonprofits. We do provide a platform for data (that is populated in part with IRS information), user generated content, and opinions. Along with the capability for nonprofits for them to add information and make their “pitch” for their cause and operations. Our goal, in addition to bringing donors and donations to nonprofits, is to provide information and insight so that (potential) donors can make informed decisions about which organizations to support.

For the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, we have a plethora of data, including the Form 990s (basically a nonprofit’s tax filings) for 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

What’s the truth over this situation? Take a look and decide for yourself.

Getting the Gift of a Donation: Good or Bad?

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:33:00 -0500

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 Happiness: You’re Doing It Wrong“ and “The Secret to Happiness: Giving”, both reinforcing this fairly simple idea. And, at Charity Blossom, the most common requested feature in November was for the option to make a donation as a gift to someone else. So, we implemented the “Give the Gift of Giving” feature so you can do this. (BTW, here’s the cheat sheet on how to do this if you want to give a donation as a gift.) We’ve seen a significant uptake of this feature. Over 30% of donations are specified as a gifts to someone else. Maybe this is a seasonal thing but it certainly a significant number of our donations. Clearly people like to give the gift of a donation.

It’s Good to Give But Is It Good to Receive?

We’re encouraged that people like to give gifts of donations. And that it purportedly has a positive impact on their happiness. But, what about receiving gifts? And, in particular, what about receiving a gift of a donation made in their name? It seems so simple — shouldn’t we enjoy receiving gifts? However, growing up, I realized that in Japanese culture, and I presume others, this is really quite complicated. What are the rules of reciprocity? How should you acknowledge a gift? What if you don’t like a gift you’ve received? What obligations have you incurred in receiving a gift? In short, it seems receiving a gift, in a complicated inverted way, might suck.

And, Further…

What does it mean to receive the gift of a donation to a charity? Are the rules different since the recipient didn’t really receive anything themselves? Hopefully, the giver is giving to an organization that you support or at least he or she supports. So, some organization that at least one of you are passionate about gets benefit. So, there is some good here that we can all feel good about. But what about the recipient of gift of the donation made in their name?

So, we did an experiment to find out. Actually, let’s call it a “study” since it lacked scientific and statistical rigor for it to be called a experiment. I gave the Gift of Giving to a handful of people through Charity Blossom — $25 to the Charity Blossom Human Fund. When they received the card informing them of the gift, I asked,

“Do you feel good about receiving the gift of giving?”

Over 90% said yes.

After I asked them this questioned, I followed up with a second gift, a $25 Amazon gift certificate. I then asked,

“Which do you enjoy more — the Gift of Giving or the Amazon gift certificate?”

Over 80% said the Gift of Giving. Let me re-phrase that: Significantly more people enjoy receiving the Gift of Giving than receiving an Amazon gift certificate for themselves.

We were a little surprised. For those that preferred the Gift of Giving, I asked, “Why?” The most common answers (I paraphrase):

Doing good makes me feel good. It’s all good. Without guilt.
I’m not obligated to return a gift. I don’t even have to send a thank-you note.
It’s easy. I don’t have to do anything. (I guess there’s effort in the decision process in what to buy when you get a gift certificate.)

There you go. Give theGift of Giving. You feel good and are happier. Charities get money that is desperately needed. And your recipients of your gift feel good (in a significant way) too.

Happy Holidays!

[Side note: A donation to the Human Fund also has a bit more of trickiness to it as well. As you may know, the “Human Fund” is central a parody skit on the television show Seinfeld. At Charity Blossom, the Human Fund is real but there is a complicated mental interplay with the fictional fund on the TV show. At Charity Blossom, the Human Fund is playful but does serious good.]

Reviews, Ratings, and Nonprofits

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:44:00 -0500

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 restaurants, hair salons, and contractors. Consumers have increasingly turned to web to find user generated reviews to find the “go to” places in a city. The Yellow Pages, at least among the Internet cognoscenti, are left unopened and sent directly to the recycling bin. The professional reviewers in newspapers are no match for the “wisdom of the crowd” and their knowledge. The power of the masses, aggregated by Yelp, has become a dominant force. Local businesses owners depend on these reviews and reviewers — the collective masses of consumers validate and promote their businesses; ultimately, they have determined whether or not they would succeed or fail.

At Charity Blossom, we’ve taken note of this. Part of our mission is to be the “go to”place to find information about charities and nonprofits. In addition to objective information that we receive from the IRS and the information we get from the nonprofits themselves, we allow you — donors, supporters, and even detractors of nonprofits — a platform for you voice your opinions, comments, and concerns about nonprofits. We’ve democratized the knowledge available to you by allowing others to let you know what they think about charities and nonprofits. For every nonprofit/charity we have listing information (we get the exhaustive list of over 1.5 million nonprofits from the IRS), you can leave your thoughts and opinions.

User generated content shines light onto nonprofits. It provides valuable information to help you formulate informed opinions and conclusions about charities and nonprofits. Relying only on government, objective, or self-promoted information would leave a gap in the whole story. So, we’ve fully embraced social media as a mechanism to give more an better information about nonprofits.

Our implementation leverages Facebook to collect, disseminate, and authenticate information that gets generated by the collective masses. Using Facebook comments, Likes, and Connect, we’ve built a powerful platform to share user generated reviews and ratings.

So “Like” a nonprofit or write a review for a charity on Charity Blossom. You are helping charities and nonprofits as well as donors too. Much like Yelp, Charity Blossom is the go to place to ratings and reviews for charities and nonprofits.

I’ll close with a promotion of another place for you to find user generated reviews on nonprofits — Gre atNonprofits. They’ve been around for awhile. And, while it’s a little “old school,” it’s a pretty good place to find out about 11,000+ nonprofits where there are over 92,000 reviews. We’ve poked around a bit to see how they’ve done over the years. Good job!

Here are some numbers from Quantcast too:

Early Numbers on Charitable Giving in 2011: A Gift from Apple

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:47:00 -0500

‘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 into what is going on. However, we’ve seen some interesting directional trends for 2011. We’re only 2 weeks in from Thanksgiving, but here’s what we see developing.

The Trend Toward Apple

We’re seeing significant donations from users of Apple products. We see disproportionately more donations from Mac users than PC users. More interestingly, we’re seeing strong activity on IPhones and IPads. All most 10% of donations were made on either an IPad or an IPhone. Further, donors on the IPad seem to give significantly more than all other platforms. As we think about Charity Blossom products and features in the future, we’re taking a hard look at the trend towards Apple and towards mobile devices. We aren’t seeing any significant activity on other mobile systems. Last, we observe that the overall platform usage (as opposed to donations) by visitors tracks closely to donations.

Donations Are Up, Relative to Last Year at Network for Good

Overall, average donations are around $120. This is a promising sign, as Network for Good reports their average donation size of $73, for 2011.

Again, there are still over 3 weeks until New Years, so we’re not sure how this is all going to turn. We’re optimistic for a good end-of-year for nonprofits and charities.

Help do your part! Make a donation today!

Give the Gift of Giving

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:14:00 -0500

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 appreciated? Will you really enjoy giving those gifts? And, for the cynical, how much effort will you go through to figure out the perfect gift for all of those that you want to/need to give to?

We Have the Perfect Gift for You to Give. The Gift of Giving.

Through Charity Blossom, you can give gifts of donations. A heartfelt gift to a passionate cause of the recipient is always appreciated. Believe me. It might sound a bit strange, but we’ve done the surveys — much joy is received. Alternatively, you can also give the gift of a donation to one of your causes in the name of a friend. Again, our research shows that your gift is appreciated. Donations are gifts that both you and the recipient can feel good about.

It’s Easy and Efficient.

It’s easy to Give the Gift of Giving. Simply search and find the nonprofit or charity for which you would like to make a gift and click donate. You’ll can specify your donation as a gift. It’s that easy — just like making any other donation on Charity Blossom. An email note gets sent to the gift recipient (that you can modify or annotate), you get your tax deduction, and we keep track of all the receipts for you. Would there be the easiest and most thoughtful gifts you send this year?

Still Too Hard? Give to a Fund — It’s Even Easier

I know, I know — you want to Give the Gift of Giving. But to whom? Don’t have a favorite nonprofit that you want to support? Or you don’t know which charity will be appreciated by a recipient? No problem — we have a collection of Funds that you can make donations as gifts. We have funds to:

Give a donation as a gift to one of these funds and you’ll be helping where help is needed most. You give and we’ll figure out which organization best help these causes.

Still Not Convinced or Confused?

We’ve created one last fund — the Human Fund — Money for People. While the Human Fund was a snarky joke in an episode on the television show Seinfeld, giving a gift to this fund, our general fund for humanitarian aid in the United States, is real. Indeed, you’ll have have a little fun by giving a gift to this fund. But be assured that your gift will do real good for those that need it.

One Last Thing

Still skeptical? Research shows that the secret to happiness is giving, according to Science. What could be better than giving a gift of giving?

Charity of the Day: Operation Nightwatch

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:24:00 -0500

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 Operation Nightwatch, I’ve learned that most all want to “help.” But “how” and to what end is not obviously clear. Sometimes we donate (used) sweaters, blankets, socks, food, and hygiene products. Such tangible giving might help and it makes “us” feel good to do so. By making such donations, perhaps we assuage our consciences, get a tax deduction, and *maybe* do some good. I’ve further learned of the (logistic) complexities of distributing such goods to those in need. This is a nontrivial problem. So, perhaps our giving isn’t as efficient or effective as we think or hope.

Second, what does it mean to “help?” Should we strive to “End Homelessness?” Should our goal be temporary relieve? Can we really end the cycle of poverty and homelessness? What is the end goal?

Last, does direct contribution to those in need — those asking for it, “panhandlers” — really help? Or does it potentially hurt? I’m sure you’ve been approached by a man or woman with a hand extended, asking for spare change or a few dollars. Like many, perhaps you’ve wondered, if I give, will it go to food/clothes or will it be “squandered” on liquor or drugs? And, left with such questions, maybe you give or maybe you refrain, uncertain with what the right thing to do is.

I’ve thought about all of these questions: What should I give? How will it help? What do I hope to accomplish? Would giving actually hurt not help?

I’ve concluded, for myself, that giving cash to organizations such as Operation Nightwatch is the best option. Rick Reynolds and his team at Operation Nightwatch are experienced, trained, and compassionate. They understand the issues of homelessness and execute their mission to provide help and hope. And, while donated goods might help, donated dollars are a more efficient and effective way for you to help too. And, by giving through Operation Nightwatch, your nagging worry that your contribution won’t actually be detrimental , as you feared in giving a direct “hand out,” are relieved.

This is why I support Operation Nightwatch. I hope you join me.

If you aren’t in the Greater Seattle Area, perhaps you’d like to provide support in your local community. You can do so by giving to the Charity Blossom Help for the Homeless Fund. We bring compassion to the homeless. You can too. Click here to help.

Facebook Like: A Beginner's Approach

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:36:00 -0500

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, a society — especially if you believe the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis.

In practical terms, from the perspective of a business or nonprofit using Facebook as a platform for social engagement, how do the concepts of “Friend” and “Like” impact how we use Facebook? And, specifically, how should you, a web application hack or marketing wonk, reason about how to deploy the concept of “Like?”

I think there has been a lot of confusion around Facebook “Like”s and the concept of Like continues to evolve. For the uninitiated, here’s a simplified answer to how to use “Like.”

Please Like Us

Before getting started, if you like Charity Blossom, please “Like” us. Go ahead — click the Like button to the right:

What Does This Mean?

Without getting too philosophical, Liking Charity Blossom means that you Liked our Page on Facebook. So, in order to like us, we needed to create a Facebook page. When you clicked the Like button above, you “Liked” that Page. At this point, we can communicate with you through our Facebook page. When we (where “we” is a Charity Blossom administrator), post a status update on the Charity Blossom page, our status likely gets stuffed into your Newsfeed.

Also, once you’ve liked us, you have a communication channel to us as well.

Pretty simple, eh?

Why It’s Confusing

We’ll conveniently ignore the deep linguistic issues around the meaning of “like.” Rather, we’ll simply say that “Liking” something (e.g. clicking on a Facebook Like button), you’ve expressed a preference for something. Ambiguity arises when we reason about what “something” is. For example, when you “like” Charity Blossom, you are abstractly specifying a preference for Charity Blossom, the company and our mission. In concrete terms, you are expressing a preference for the Charity Blossom page on Facebook that we have created.

However, it’s possible to Like things other than our Charity Blossom page. In fact, you can Like (all most) any Facebook “object.” An object might be a Facebook application, a URL on the web, a Facebook comment…the possibilities are nearly limitless.

It’s up to the application program that implements the Like button that determines what is being liked when you hit Like. For us, it’s our Facebook Page.

What This Means for You, a Business or Nonprofit

Current best practices say you should have a Page on Facebook. And, you should implement Like so that people like this Page if you want visitors to express a preference for your business or nonprofit.

You can then “Use Facebook as a Page” to communicate with people that have Liked your page. (Click on the “down arrow” on the upper right corner when you are in Facebook.)

Resolving Some Confusion

As a Facebook novice, there are few things that are complicated about “Like” and Pages.

Facebook applications, arbitrary URLs (such as a URL to your home page), and your page are all distinct objects in the Facebook Open Graph. So, when you implement “Like,” make sure you are attaching the Like to your Facebook Page.
There is no such thing as a Facebook “Fan Page,” distinct from a Page. Rather, there are Pages that may be liked. People that like your page, are your “fans.” Hence, the Page is colloquially known as a “fan page.”
You can implement “Like” on any page on the web. When a user clicks “Like,” you, the implementor controls what (Facebook object) is being liked. (It’s probably unclear to the user what is actually being liked.
If you implement “Like” so that it likes a URL not your page, you have less control over how to communicate with those that have Liked your Page.
Facebook is rapidly changing and evolving. So, how this all works will probably quickly change as well.

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve implemented Like so that fans are Liking your Page, what next? First, it seems that being focussed on getting a lot of people to Like you is a key first objective. (Good Job!) You can now communicate with your fans through your Page. However, beyond this, there are many things that you can do. But that is subject for another blog post. Stay tuned.

Still Haven’t Liked Us?

Go ahead — give us a Like!

Further, even if you all ready Liked us from our Charity Blossom website (www.charityblossom.org), please Like us again. We made the neophyte mistake of originally attaching our Like button to the www.charityblossom.org URL object, not our Facebook Page.

Thanks!

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Donate Through Charity Blossom

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:00:00 -0500

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 you are gathering receipts for tax deductions, find all of your charitable donation receipts at Charity Blossom.

6. It’s fun. Do you like Farmville? Charity Blossom is “Donorville” for real life. But your work goes to doing real good, in the real world.

5. Get that deduction today. If it’s December 31 and you want to make that charitable contribution in 2011, you can get it done at Charity Blossom.

4. Engage friends. Want to reach out to people you haven’t seen in awhile? Re-establish relationships by letting them know about the causes you support. It’s better than a Christmas card.

3. Find charities that support your cause. If there is a cause you want to support but don’t know which charities help, you find them at Charity Blossom. Or donate to a Charity Blossom fund and we’ll figure out the right charities for you.

2. Feel good. Scientific studies show that the secret of happiness is giving: http://bit.ly/sxGEAo

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON TO DONATE THROUGH CHARITY BLOSSOM:

1. You are doing a world of good. Charities and nonprofits need your help!

You can help. Give today. Make a donation at Charity Blossom.

Support Your Passion -- Give to a Charity Blossom Fund

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:44:00 -0500

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 of you, we’ve found a gap — a gap between the good you want to do and the organizations that can deliver on the causes you want to support. You, as a willing and able donor, want to give. But you want giving to be an easy, efficient, and effective process. You don’t want to get bogged down with difficult mechanisms to deliver money (e.g. writing checks, licking stamps, and addressing envelopes), you don’t want to spend endless hours finding and verifying worthy organizations that support your causes, and you don’t want to hassle with paper work to manage your charitable giving (especially at tax time when you need to account for your charitable donation deductions).

In short, giving shouldn’t be so hard.

In response, we’re pleased to announce our Fund Based Giving programs.

We’ve identified causes that you want to support. Initially, we’ve created funds to support “A Better Africa,” “Better Health”, “Pet Salvation,” “Cure Cancer,” and “End Hunger.” You can make a donation to a fund and we will do the rest. We’ll identify the specific charities and nonprofits that efficiently and effectively support these causes. You can relax knowing that your donation will make it’s way to worthy organizations that aid in the issues that you are most passionate. In short, giving is easy, the causes are vetted, and you can take a deep breathe knowing that we keep track of your donations for you.

To be clear, when we say “we,” we mean Charity Blossom working with the Clearport Technology Group. Clearport, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is our trusted partner that handles all of our donation processing. Details on what that means can be found here.

You can help. Give today. Make a donation to a Charity Blossom Fund.

Helping Your Charity Blossom

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:08:05 -0500

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 need your help. And, we’ve found that you want to help! You are generous not just with your time but with your pocket book as well. We’ve known this at Charity Blossom. This is why helping charities through financial means is our primary objective.

Today, we’re happy to announce that we can help you help charities and nonprofits by allowing you to make donations through Charity Blossom.

Our goal is to allow you to make donations to any charity or nonprofit in the United States that willing accepts them. We provide you appropriate information for you to make an informed decision about where your charitable dollars are going. You should rest assured in our ability to deliver on our promise to get donations to your causes, easily and efficiently, and effectively.

We’ve treaded carefully before providing these capabilities. We first wanted to earn your trust before we took on this important function. In parallel, we’ve recognized that there are technical, operational, and regulatory details that required much attention. Handling donations is a serious and important matter. We want to make sure we “get it right.”

To execute on this mission, we are working with the Clearport Technology Group. Clearport, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is a trusted partner. We’ve known the principals behind Clearport for over 15 years. Through Clearport, we can help you help the causes you support by providing the desperately needed financial support to nonprofits and charities.

Let’s get started! Make a donation today.

Help Your Charity Blossom!

Get Form 990 Data on All Nonprofits

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:28:00 -0400

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 public service. We want to help nonprofits with their mission and we want to give donors and volunteers information about them to make informed decisions.

IRS Form 990

Fortunately, nonprofits that are recognized by the United States Federal government (specifically the IRS) as tax exempt organizations provide, as required by law, much information about their operations. In particular, nonprofits are usually required to file a Form 990 (or 990-EZ or 990-PF). Form 990 is public information. Form 990 is a “treasure trove” of information. It’s sort of like a Form 1040 that individuals file to report their personal income tax to the Federal Government. For the most part, you are entitled to see this information. Legally, socially, and ethically, we, in America, embrace transparency about nonprofits as a core value. At Charity Blossom, we agree.

Information Wants to Be Free

We’ve figured out how to get this information from the IRS. We think you are entitled to it too. And, we think it should be free. However, except for a few exempted circumstances, the IRS charges thousands of dollars for this information. And, it’s in a form that is really difficult to read. So, we’ve cleaned this up and make it available on a single hard disk. We are working on getting it into PDF format and doing some fancy Optical Character Recognition on the Forms. However, that work is just starting. So, for now, we have it in TIFF. [Note: I’m told that there are other providers (who have a special relationship with the IRS and special access to the data) that charge 10’s of thousands of dollars a year to access this data in a limited way. It’s hard to tell if there is “added value” for the additional money. Maybe.]

How You Can Get It

We’d like to give this data to you for free. And, we are trying to figure out how to do this. However, there is a fair amount of work to process this information and there are costs with just keeping the lights on here at Charity Blossom. So, in the mean time, we’ll charge a minimal fee of $1,999. The intent is that once purchased, it is your data to keep for as long as you like, for whatever purpose you want (so long as you adhere to any restrictions by the government, of course). If you’d like to give a little more, we’re much appreciative—you can buy our “Gratitude Package” which is exactly the same as the regular package but you’ve graciously decided to give us a few extra dollars so that we can continue to provide this service.

Thank you so much for your support. We hope you find this information useful.

Get Form 990 Data for all nonprofits here.

My $1000 Challenge: Dance. Or Swim, Bike, and Run.

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:08:00 -0400

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 first time in years I think, will not be dancing. Instead, she is doing the Vineman Triathalon — a half marathon Ironman comprised of swimming, biking, and running. While she will be missed at Bon Odori, she’s raising money for a good cause in conjunction with Vineman — the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. And, she’s dedicated her training in honor of my father and grandmother.

So, I’d like to make a final plug to help her in this cause — You can donate in support of her here. Also in support of Kelly, Le Bunny Bleu will make a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society when you buy shoes. (Use the discount code BunnyGiver)

Finally, I offer this challenge in honor of my father and grandmother. If we raise an additional $1000 dollars in Kelly’s cause, I will match it with another $1000 dollars. (Tweet out your new pledge @charityblossom and let me know!) Let’s help find a cure for Leukemia & Lymphoma.

And wish me luck on Saturday night!

A Billion Dollars Isn't Cool. You Know What's Cool? A Trillion Dollars.

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:50:00 -0400

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 considering the legal, regulatory, and operational issues regarding donation processing. So, we’re moving conservatively on this front.

When we’ve described our goal of delivering a billion dollars a year to nonprofits, most nod in agreement over the potential for good we can do, especially for smaller nonprofits and charities. After all, in the United States, we give around $300 billion dollars a year to charitable causes. And yet, most nonprofits see only a sliver of this if any at all. And further, many good causes don’t have the time, expertise, or money to attract such donations.

And, for all the good that others (such as Network for Good, FirstGiving, Jumo, and Causes) in the online charitable giving space do to help get donor dollars to worthy nonprofits, only a fraction actually flow from donor to charity. Network for Good, perhaps the best at these efforts, processed only $112 million in donations in 2009. So, as a new comer, our goal to do 10 times better than this might seem a bit audacious.

However, on a percentage basis, $1 billion is less than 1% of the dollars that are donated every year. Pretty modest. Maybe are goals aren’t audacious enough?

Further, this report by the Planned Giving Design Center got us thinking — maybe we’re undersizing the value we can provide by a lot… It says the “intergenerational transfer of weath” between 1998 and 2052 will be between $41 trillion and $136.2 trillion. Of that, between $6 trillion and $24.8 trillion will be bequested to charity. The report goes into a lot of details at how these numbers are derived and the validity of them. Nonetheless, even accounting for a large variance in accuracy, the distribution of $6 trillion to $24.8 trillion dollars is a lot of money.

Interesting, from our perspective at Charity Blossom, the report goes on to say,

“…there has been evidence … of a growth in the systematization of charitable giving during the donor’s lifetime…”

Given this large amount of money, we, at Charity Blossom, are more than intrigued by this report. First, how can we help donors plan and execute a charitable giving strategy both while alive and afterwards? For charities and nonprofits, how can we help them align with the needs and desires of such donors? Of course, we’ve been thinking about this all along. However, the size of dollars that will flow to charities and nonprofits over the next twenty five years (basically matching up with the baby boomer demographic) make us think a bit differently on how to be helpful.

Trillions of dollars will flow to charities and nonprofits. We’re here to help donors and nonprofits alike. But, when we think about the scale for the good we can do, it seems a billion dollars a year is off by an order of magnitude. We should be helping on the scale of a trillion not a billion.

(Note: Apologies to all for riffing on Sean Parker’s/Justin Timberlake’s quote from the Social Network.)

Truth. Transparency. Trust.

Tue, 31 May 2011 20:01:00 -0400

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 exhibit. Without the “Three T’s” — Truth, Transparency, and Trust — your credibility with donors and supporters is severely compromised. Building and keeping a reputation of Truth, Transparency, and Trust require an on going relationship with your constituents. You must exhibit these qualities every day, with everyone you meet.

At Charity Blossom, we’re here to help. First, we’ve created a platform for you communicate truthfully and transparently with donors and supporters. Charity Blossom enables honest and open dialogues between nonprofits and donors.

Accredited Nonprofits and the Badge of Trust

And today, we are announcing the Charity Blossom Accredited Nonprofit(tm) program and the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust(tm). Your nonprofit can become accredited and then display the Badge of Trust. The Charity Blossom Badge is the symbol of Truth, Transparency, and Trust. Once earned, the Badge will be displayed on the Charity Blossom website and you can display the Badge on your website. Convey to your donors and supporters your credibility as a nonprofit by displaying the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust.

Claim your listing. Get accredited. Display the Badge. Start building a stronger trusted relationship with your donors and supporters today!

Charity Blossom: Truth, Transparency, and Trust.

MerchantCircle: Insights into Charity Blossom and Charitable Giving

Thu, 26 May 2011 21:11:00 -0400

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 serve. Congratulations to all — especially the MerchantCircle team and Reply!, for having the insight and vision to pull together two teams that will help small businesses thrive.

TechCrunch also reports on this deal here.

What does this have to do with Charity Blossom, you ask?

We learned a lot at MerchantCircle. While a small business is very different than a (small) charity or nonprofit, we believe there are similarities. Both work with limited budgets, personnel resources, and information technology. Both are “customer” (in the case of nonprofit, donor) focussed. Both need to communicate with their constituents in a truthful and transparent manner to succeed. Trust, is paramount to both. Both can unleash the power of the Internet, if only there were a platform to do so.

What MerchantCircle is to small businesses, Charity Blossom is to nonprofits. We’re here to help your nonprofit thrive. We are a platform to help the millions of nonprofits at scale. As with small businesses, we help you communicate with your constituents, so that you can build strong relationships with new and existing donors. While nonprofits and small businesses are different, we leverage our experience helping small businesses in building a successful platform for nonprofits.

So, while today we’ll celebrate this milestone for MerchantCircle, we look to the future — making Charity Blossom a successful operation for charities to thrive. We’re here to help your charity blossom!

Truth, Transparency, Trust: Shining More Light on Nonprofits

Wed, 18 May 2011 14:30:00 -0400

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 (classified as a 501(c) 3), in general, must file such information with the federal government (in Form 990). Also, it is in the best interest of legitimate and successful nonprofits to get this information out in the open. The web is an excellent vehicle for distributing such information.

Further, beyond, the factual information about a nonprofit, compassionate stories about what the organization does, the people involved, and the impact give compelling reasons why you should support the organization.

Surprisingly, much of this information is not easily available.

As Charity Blossom, we’ve decided to make such details more accessible. For nonprofits, we help them get their message out. For donors, we provide them with the information they seek. We want to provide compelling stories about why a nonprofit is important and impactful. Factual information combined with compelling stories shine light on a nonprofits and provide more trust between supporters and nonprofits.

However, we’ve found that information dispersion is not be best served as a monologue from the charity. Rather, a dialogue between the nonprofit and its constituencies is much more effective. To this end, we’ve enabled supporters and outsiders to also participate in the communication process. We’ve taken a wikipedia-style approach to “crowd source” information about your favorite nonprofits. Anyone can add information about charities and nonprofits. Charity Blossom is a community supported platform to make more data, insight, and wisdom available for all.

So, in addition to the publicly available information that we are able to find/publish and the information that a nonprofit wants to communicate, you can make a difference by adding your take as well. Find the Charity Blossom listing page for your favorite nonprofit and update or add information. Tell your story. Help your nonprofit by helping others find more and better information.

Come join us in building Charity Blossom — information by the people, for the people.