Web site highlights county?s non-profits

Business Report Correspondent

BOULDER ? Nearly every commercial product made is now on the Internet. Why not charitable giving as well? T. J. Heyman, a local entrepreneur, came up with the idea at the end of 1999. By November of the following year, the Culture of Giving Web site was launched.

Heyman teamed up with The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County, the Boulder Community Network (BCN) and Tesser Inc., a Web-site firm based in Boulder and San Francisco. Ross Shell, president of Tesser, authorized thousands of hours to be donated by his company’s employees to create the Internet pages at www.cultureofgiving.org.

“It’s philanthropy 101 ? a who, what, where, how and why of charitable giving,” Heyman said in a prepared statement. The site consists of testimonials from donors in Boulder County who explain why they think giving is important, a database of all the county’s non-profits, educational tools on how much to give, a link to Volunteer Match that describes thousands of volunteer opportunities and an index that measures the rate of giving in Boulder County.

“It’s a great idea, the way it is structured from the largest to the smallest non-profit,´ said Joelle Bonnett, former director of BCN, who was involved in the project as it got off the ground. “The Web site provides the technology so the non-profits can get the word out about their organizations.”

Lindsay Eklund, program officer at The Community Foundation, said two groups are encouraged to go to the site: donors and clients. “With more than 1,100 non-profits in the county, our goals are to get more of them on the Web site and to raise the awareness of donors,” she said.

The concept of the site is to do a search by category, Bonnett said. “It was designed from the point of view of donors who want to contribute. They may want to give to an environmental group, but don’t know the range of environmental organizations out there,” she said.

BCN’s part in the project was to provide technology for non-profits and get them access to the Internet without their having to be Web programmers. The Culture for Giving Web site allows non-profits to store online their “990,” the form filed with the IRS that describes their financial condition. “They can also provide their annual reports and other information about their organizations,” Bonnett said.

Bonnett, now executive director of Retired Senior Volunteers Program (RSVP) for Boulder County, said the difference between The Culture for Giving site and BCN is that BCN is more of a broad, anything-for-anybody information kiosk on Boulder County, not necessarily just giving.

The Culture for Giving Web site offers the national average of 3 percent of gross income as a guideline for how much to give. Links to other charitable-giving Web sites supply tools to help decide as well. Then donors search for recipients of their money.

All the non-profits in Boulder County were mailed a questionnaire last September and were invited to submit information for a database. At present, 150 have a home page. “The database creates a level playing field by giving all charities, including the smallest ones, a chance to be put in front of an audience who are looking to give,” Heyman said.

To track results from The Culture of Giving Web site, a Charitable Giving Index will be added. Similar to the Dow Jones Index, it will begin with the baseline of charitable giving in Boulder County based on 1998 figures and track the percentage change from year to year.

Also, the Volunteer Match provides donors with nationwide volunteer opportunities posted by local non-profit and public-sector organizations. Its online database allows volunteers to search thousands of one-time and ongoing opportunities by ZIP code, category, and date, with the ability to sign-up for those that fit their interest and schedule automatically by e-mail. Contributing organizations post their own opportunities, giving volunteers access to a source of activities, such as walk-a-thons, beach day cleanups, tutoring, home building and meal deliveries.

No Web sites like The Culture of Giving exists nationwide, said the creators. “It provides people with resources that empower them to give,” Eklund said.

on Facebook on LinkedIn