Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Philanthropy 2.0


Just in time for web 3.0-hype, the tech-savvy have discovered philanthropy. This post, on Read/WriteWeb by Richard McManus, has a great description of Kiva.org - the online microlending site is described as "web 2.0 meets the 2006 Nobel prize winner." Following the thread of comments I found a link to FirstGiving.

FirstGiving is close to an idea I've been thinking about for awhile - web campaigns for one-time, quick and dirty fundraising needs. For example, raising money for a local dog park, getting funds together for a street fair, getting the fifth graders to Washington, DC, etc.. This is the old fashioned "bakesale" moved onto the web. FirstGiving is not this - although its still cool. It allows anybody to quickly create a fundraising campaign for a registered nonprofit of their choice. Find out more here.

Commenotrs on McManus's post about Kiva also requested more information on changes in philanthropy and crowdfunding. Maybe some of them will become readers of Philanthropy 2173. Better yet, maybe they'll build a "web 2.0 bakesale" site.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From the FirstGiving website:

"Firstgiving charges a 7.35% transaction fee on funds raised"

No thanks!