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Name: Network for Good

Nominated Category: Organization

URL: http://www1.networkforgood.org

Area: Platform, Fundraising

About:

Among all of the donation sites available online, it’s no surprise that that someone came up with the equivalent of a charity-site-aggregator.

Imagine what the world would be like if every time you were inspired to help someone or something, you could — with just a few clicks of a mouse, anywhere online, reads Network for Good’s online mission statement.

Description:

The goal is to make donating and volunteering to its 1.5. million charity partners as easy as shopping online for people interested in supporting a cause, and to make recruiting donors and volunteers easy for non-profits of any size. Network for Good was founded by media and tech giants AOL, Cisco, Yahoo and Drummond Pike.

Network for Good approaches charity on a few different planes. It’s raised more than $300 million in online donations to benefit 50,000 different non-profit organizations. Through its volunteer network, powered by VolunteerMatch, its connected users with more than 200,000 local, international and online volunteer opportunities; the organization has also partnered with the Louisiana, California and Illinois state web sites to pair interested volunteers with volunteer opportunities.

Network for Good has also raised $2.7 million via fundraising widgets. The easiest way to get started is to enter the name of a cause or organization you’re interested in into its web site search tool, which will then direct you to a resultant charity’s page. It’s basically one-stop shopping for charity, and like shopping, if you don t know what to get for a friend, you can get them a gift card: Network for Good has Good Cards that can be applied to any of the 1.5 million charities registered in the U.S.

For non-profits who want to receive donations and find volunteers via Network for Good, the organization has created DonateNow and EmailNow systems that make these tasks easy though at a fee. Network for Good says that for every $1 invested, there’s a return of $25.

The Basics:

WHO: Network for Good

WHAT: One-stop shopping for charities.

WHERE: Online, Bethesda, Maryland-based, but with international causes and opportunities to volunteer locally, internationally and virtually.

HOW to get involved: Supporters can search for charities, donate and volunteer through the site. Or get involved via Network for Good’s Cause on Facebook. You can also follow Network for Good on Twitter.

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