Thursday, 21 May 2009

Just Giving for a Decade


Have you heard of Justgiving? It's an online fundraising site that has helped thousands of charities get the cash they need to do good works. The company is not a nonprofit--it makes money through a complicated process that includes Gift Aid from the UK government. What makes the business possible at all is technology (a key factor in the external environment, as discussed in Chapter 2 of my book).

Since launching in 1999, Justgiving has helped more than 7,000 charities raise hundreds of millions of pounds on the Web. Recently Procter & Gamble's Pampers brand used Justgiving's Internet capabilities to raise money for UNICEF to use in vaccinating babies against tetanus (see above). Now Justgiving is reaching out to more companies, charities, and contributors through social media such as Facebook and blogs. As technology evolves, watch for Justgiving to evolve as well.