Charity ratings are highly unpredictable with highly appraised top ranking charities being overtaken by new charities that suddenly make their appearance in the horizon. Charity Water is a rather new but typical example of this. Innovativeness and the all-powerful Internet are causing charity ratings of brand new charities to skyrocket. A charity that could be relatively unknown today might get rated as the best the next day by the New York Times. And then the rating of that charity might shoot up from nowhere to the top of the chart within the matter of a single day.
Because the general public are swayed so much by the charity ratings the press and media give, a brand new charity can flourish very quickly with a flood of charitable giving being thrown its way. And of course when the media lose interest, then the charity rating can drop out of the sky overnight.
Directory listings of charity rating
With scepticism running quite high with charity watchdogs pinpointing charity problems such as misconduct, having exceptionally high amounts of funds spent on admin or the misappropriation of funds, charity rating directory lists are flourishing. It's so funny that philanthropic organizations that set out to give to others are now under the eye of charity watchdogs. Philanthropy is becoming a little complicated!
Organisations like Givespot.com and Guidestar.org list detailed charity ratings. Givespot.com has a detailed list called the GiveSpot 100 list, which shows its top 100 rated charities. Other organisations like charitynavigator.org have charity check systems as well as a charity Top Ten list so that look up a charity is easy. Guidestar.org is probably the biggest US charity directory offering an amazing array of charity information some free some at a cost. The Better Business Bureau in the USA, despite its name is also charity directory that lists both business and non-profit organisations.
So if you want to find the 100 top charities then there are so many charity rating guides out there and yet maybe charity ratings are actually about something else. What makes a charity stand above the rest often has nothing to do with its ratings at all. There are special ingredients that make any charity or non-charity organisation successful.
Charity Ratings and trust in the public
According to a YouGov poll of 2005, even well known charities like Save the Children and Oxfam did not enjoy a high amount of faith by the majority of the British population amounting to 56%. The public seemed to have faith only in about 15% of the charities even among those that had good charity ratings.
Charity Watchdog Scares are more common
People do not have faith in charities any more. They cannot be blamed for this state of affairs. Eagle eyed critics of charities complain about mismanagement in the field with high salaries for the staff and about 60% donations being spent on overheads for running the venture, leaving little for actual charity giving.
It has been shown in recent studies that the expenses for raising funds in places like UK and Australia amount to about18% in the case of the former and 22% in the case of the latter. The corresponding amount in USA is about 30% according to the Association of Fundraising Professionals. These are without administrative expenses, which might be higher. This is a big issue with donors especially in situations like what happened in Singapore a few years ago when the issue fell under the media scanner. This sort of negative attraction leads to a reduction in charity giving which is definitely not a good sign.
Charity ratings secret exposed
There is not much difference in the way in which charity organizations and commercial organizations try to get money. How they eventually use that money may be different, but their modus operandi for attracting that money is essentially the same.
To promote the charity rating and also to ensure better cash flow, there is a one and only formula - enticement.
When we see a thing and might prefer to buy it, or would consider putting money in it, or creating a bond with it, we are likely to make the decision based on how enticing the whole idea is. If it is a very attractive proposition, we might instantly choose to opt for it while if it is not very enticing, we may not do it immediately.
Charity Water is highly attractive and hence why it's charity-rating sky rocked so quickly and the media got behind the idea. The simple idea of selling a bottle of charity water for a premium price with the extra profit been giving as a donation to the needy to access clean water was highly attractive.
The factors that combine to make Charity Water so enticing, making it popular, are easily decipherable.
* They have a cool name - who would think of calling a charity Charity WaterThe person behind the charity was on overdrive with passion in sharing about their idea
* Their idea of the vocation and their message is lucid, plain and remarkable - sell water and give water - Buy One Give One
* Their focus was on how to solve the problem and not the problem itself. It is important for charities to properly define their focus if they want people to rate them highly. No one has interest in getting their attention turned to the unpleasant things in life. People want a positive focus. So when they are told that they can make a positive change in the lives of others by buying a bottle of water they feel happy.
How to let Charity Ratings plummet in a second
The quickest and easiest way to lose attraction or attractiveness and thus your ratings is by focusing on the problem. No one wants to listen to anyone complaining how bad things are. Yet everyone will listen to someone who has high energy, enthusiasm, drive and determination to create something better.
All we have to do is see ourselves with our own kids and understand how we easily answer in the affirmative when they request for things in an eager and happy and excited way. But when they prefer to make their demands in a peevish or weepy way, we may tend to refuse.
The images that a charity uses will affect its charity ratings. Using uplifting and inspiring images will uplift and inspire people. Uplifted and inspired people give more and spend more.
Social Enterprise raises Charity Ratings and reduces Fundraising Problems
Social Enterprise is a new business pattern that evolved a few years ago. This combines trading with a social purpose. This pattern is a result of the interest of some businessmen who have social objectives but does not find the type of functioning of charitable enterprises satisfactory enough.
The medium of a conventional business enterprise may not be suitable for many businessmen whose ideas of ethics and integrity would be contrary to the way decisions are made in a commercial world. Such people use a social enterprise to use their acumen and ability to create a profit and effect great changes in the social arena. A typical example of such a social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his rich contributions to improving social conditions.
Buy1GIVE1 commonly known as B1G1 (Buy 1 Give 1), is a global organisation that is a recent entrant into the world of charitable giving. It is a perfect blend of business and valuable causes functioning at the global level. Buy1GIVE1 has so minimised its expenses of fundraising and management that it is able to give for charity all the funds collected. The institution is similar in its attributes to the online organization Kiva.org, which has been promoted by Bill Clinton; unlike conventional charities, Buy1GIVE1 involves direct giving to charities. Many people are convinced that it is a better way for contributing things and receiving richly in return.
Entrepreneurs, who are forever on the lookout for avenues to give in return to the society in effectual ways and to donate to beneficial charitable causes, realise the exemplary worth and strong marketing principles of organisations like Buy1GIVE1. Each and every sale that is made makes a change - not merely philanthropically. It makes a change with its strong impact as well, for every sale that is made becomes a poignant story that is an eye-opener. Buy1Give1 is a far cry from the commercial enterprises that might donate a million dollars to charity, for it lets the customers fully relish the joy of giving. The transaction-based giving of Buy1Give1 is a lesson in perfection.
All ventures like Buy1GIVE1 particularize charities and these are mostly charities where help is considered to be fully necessary, with enough potential to attract contributions. Businessmen obviously understand how poignant situations attract customer interest and as such they tend to support such causes rather than give importance to the organisation's rating. They are only too conscious of the customers' proclivity to bond better with a stronger story than worry about charity rating.
The Australian company Maple Muesli collaborates with an Indian charity called Midday Meals in the city of Mumbai. Whenever someone buys a bag of muesli, the contribution from it feeds a needy child there. A meal for a child costs only the equivalent of 30 US cents and the charity in this way feeds 125,000 kids in Mumbai every day. This makes the children desist from begging, keeps them away from streets, and makes them remain in school.
Maple Muesli has familiarised the whole of Australia with the noble cause of the Midday Meals. The company has made all its customers aware of the stupendous service the charity is doing and how their money is helping it. This has made Midday Meals tremendously popular even though all they are doing is providing meals for the kids. The era of Effective Giving has dawned - that of Plain Charity Donations is disappearing at the horizon.
A change is impending in the setting of the top 100 charities and would become visible in a few years as more novel and productive ways of charitable giving take shape. Nowadays only limited choices exist for making donations for charitable purposes. All the existing ones are not good enough to create enough difference.
Other choices in Charity Ratings
Some of the new and different ways to give are highlighted and rated in the table below. Charity Comparison Points
Some better known and not so well-known charities as well as Social Enterprises are evaluated and rated below so as to be of help to those who contribute to these.
THE SALVATION ARMY
PATH TO GIVING : DIRECT GIVING
The Salvation Army is one among the most well-known 100 charities of the world - Both individuals and enterprises make contributions directly to it.
TRANSPARENCY - B - Lack of transparency - Sum of money is contributed - but result is not fully measurable.
MARKETING VALUE TO BUSINESS - C - Businesses' one-off contributions to Salvation Army may be mentioned in the press.
FUNDRAISING COSTS - B - Spends millions of dollars annually to raise funds.
DONORS' CHOICE POTENTIALS -B- For those who want to give directly, there are plenty of charities to choose from.
ABILITY FOR EFFECTING A CHANGE -C - Nothing specific in the activities that is likely to bring about a change.
PRODUCT (RED)
PATH TO GIVING : MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Product (RED) is a brand licensed to collaborate with companies, and collect money for their Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis in Africa
TRANSPARENCY - B - Lack of transparency - sum of money is contributed for every purchase - but result is not fully measurable.
MARKETING VALUE TO BUSINESS - A - People and businesses love to support (RED) as it is backed by adored personalities like Oprah & Bono. Marketing results a little hard to track though.
FUNDRAISING COSTS - C - Spends hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising - could have just given that money to Africa.
DONOR'S CHOICE OF CHARITY - C - Limited choice for collaborators on deciding to which charity they should donate - all their charity work is in Africa.
ABILITY FOR EFFECTING A CHANGE - B - All those who collaborate with Products (RED) are big enterprises and all the income is spent on Africa.
THE BODY SHOP
PATH TO GIVING : BUSINESS TRADE & GIVING
The Body Shop has a purchasing program known as community trade to help Third World countries; and from the income they generate, substantial contributions are made to charities.
CANDOUR - B - Insufficient candour - Lots of money is donated - but result is not completely quantifiable.
ADVANTAGE TO BUSINESS - A-tve - Clients are by and large happy to become part of the community trade and are encouraged to buy more - the enterprise could afford to be more visible.
EXPENSES FOR RAISING FUNDS - A - Costs are kept low - Business design is good enough to attract large contributions and further community trade.
DONOR'S CHOICE OF CHARITY - A - Enterprises are at liberty to choose where their contributions should go.
POTENTIAL FOR REAL GLOBAL CHANGE - B - Businesses' giving back is great - but very few take the added effort to push for change like Body Shop.
LIVE EARTH
PATH TO GIVING : EVENT FUNDRAISING
Live Earth was a series of worldwide concerts held on 7 July 2007 that initiated a three-year campaign to combat climate change.
OPENNESS - F - Intelligent Giving had reported that the takings from the concert tickets sales were not accounted satisfactorily.
MARKETING VALUE TO BUSINESS - B - Business sponsors got good coverage - but it was only a one time event and it is not easy to test and measure results.
FUNDRAISING COSTS - C - Spent millions of dollars on advertising on what some say was an unsuccessful event, which had no real goals.
DONOR'S CHOICE OF CHARITY - C - Only three charities could manage to get funds.
POTENTIAL FOR REAL GLOBAL CHANGE - C - These events are usually held one-off or annually. Money is often given to larger, more established charities.
Buy1GIVE1 (B1G1 )
ROUTE TO GIVING: SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
B1G1 is a brand licensed to collaborate with any enterprise - uniting them with any cause across the globe. A fully comprehensive model.
OPENNESS - A - The one for one style of giving sees to it that the donors' money reaches the specific cause that it is meant to help. Donors are provided information on how exactly their money is being utilised - how many kids were fed or how many trees were planted.
ADVANTAGE TO BUSINESS - A+tve - Outstanding marketing value due to:
* Measurable giving * Media attraction * Good stories * Word of mouth * Repeat customers
EXPENSES FOR RAISING FUNDS - A+tve - No cost at all - B1G1 can look after a charity's fundraising requirements which will include a good percentage of management also. All the funds that have accrued go to the cause.
DONORS' CHOICE POTENTIALS - A - Businesses have the option of choosing a particular project to donate to, or give to a worthy cause of their choice like feeding, knowledge training etc.
POTENTIAL FOR REAL GLOBAL CHANGE - A - Exponential. If more businesses partner charities globally, the potential for real change is massive.
You Would Think Giving away Money Would Be No Big Deal!"
Donating money may not seem to be a difficult job - it is just a question of handing over some money as cheque, cash or via the credit card. Still, someone like George Sores, who is as generous a donor as could be, agrees that effectual giving is no cakewalk. Underprivileged communities and countries receive millions of dollars in aid and still the situation remains much the same year after year.
Asking the right questions is necessary for bringing about the required changes. Social entrepreneur Mohammed Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, has done pioneering work in the field of Microfinance and is revolutionizing the ways in which indigence and environmental problems can be tackled. People like him are showing the way as to how consumerism and social enterprise can change the face of the world. Another such example is the 'Trade - Not Aid' of The Body Shop. The ideals of Buy1GIVE1 are equally potent and are a model for charities. Social enterprise needs total recognition.
When questioned on how one can bring about some positive global change, Bill Gates showed Kiva.org and Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com) as examples of charities that enrich the giver. Those who sponsor a business are updated by Kiva.org about the activities of the business. Buy1GIVE1 also does this. By this arrangement enterprises get enough stories to tell their clients - if they buy a laptop they will know that it will help in some needy person somewhere else getting a computer.
Other ways to improve your Charity Ratings
Adopt a questioning mind, hop onto a wired laptop, and with a few hours to spare look at some of the new and amazing giving systems that are being created. Most of these new systems are network based and driven from the Internet.
As of now if one is not connected with good international networks via the internet, the chances of losing out are substantial even with good charity rating, tomorrow things are bound to change - totally.
Many enterprises emerge out of thin air nowadays and grow enough in the matter of maybe three years to be sold for more than a billion dollars. This was unconceivable ten years ago, though today it has become a routine state of affairs. All these online enterprises are doing the same thing - drawing on international networks or themselves making international networks.
Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One)
Buy1GIVE1 is a rather new entrant to the world of Social Enterprises and was launched in 1997 by a Japanese lady called Masami Sato. Any business can avail a membership in Buy1GIVE1, and membership charges for smaller ventures will only be one dollar a day and donations can be as little as one cent on a sale. Buy1GIVE1 is in the forefront of the Buy One Give One transaction-based giving world movement. Joining hands with Buy1GIVE1 is totally uncomplicated for businesses as well as charity needs. The working pattern of Buy1GIVE1 is perfectly controlled and practical. It connects the products or services of any given business to a needy cause (Buy1GIVE1's or their own) and after that whenever a sale is closed, it has to be recorded and the contribution percentage sent to the charity at the end of the month or end of quarter year directly or through Buy1GIVE1.
You are strongly advised to create lasting bonds with Buy1GIVE1 and also motivate your business associates to join Buy1GIVE1. It is a singular and wonderful organisation doing stupendous work and no one can afford to ignore it.
A new epoch in charity giving
Organizations that have been non-entities just a couple of months ago have now invaded internet with resounding user acceptance. Having an online presence on sites like MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, NING or TipJoy are becoming survival requirements. Likewise companies like The Present, Buy1GIVE1 and Kiva are organisations that one should build a relationship with. These are the avant garde institutions that help to create and sustain charity ratings. Now is the time to give new life to a perfect future.
Because the general public are swayed so much by the charity ratings the press and media give, a brand new charity can flourish very quickly with a flood of charitable giving being thrown its way. And of course when the media lose interest, then the charity rating can drop out of the sky overnight.
Directory listings of charity rating
With scepticism running quite high with charity watchdogs pinpointing charity problems such as misconduct, having exceptionally high amounts of funds spent on admin or the misappropriation of funds, charity rating directory lists are flourishing. It's so funny that philanthropic organizations that set out to give to others are now under the eye of charity watchdogs. Philanthropy is becoming a little complicated!
Organisations like Givespot.com and Guidestar.org list detailed charity ratings. Givespot.com has a detailed list called the GiveSpot 100 list, which shows its top 100 rated charities. Other organisations like charitynavigator.org have charity check systems as well as a charity Top Ten list so that look up a charity is easy. Guidestar.org is probably the biggest US charity directory offering an amazing array of charity information some free some at a cost. The Better Business Bureau in the USA, despite its name is also charity directory that lists both business and non-profit organisations.
So if you want to find the 100 top charities then there are so many charity rating guides out there and yet maybe charity ratings are actually about something else. What makes a charity stand above the rest often has nothing to do with its ratings at all. There are special ingredients that make any charity or non-charity organisation successful.
Charity Ratings and trust in the public
According to a YouGov poll of 2005, even well known charities like Save the Children and Oxfam did not enjoy a high amount of faith by the majority of the British population amounting to 56%. The public seemed to have faith only in about 15% of the charities even among those that had good charity ratings.
Charity Watchdog Scares are more common
People do not have faith in charities any more. They cannot be blamed for this state of affairs. Eagle eyed critics of charities complain about mismanagement in the field with high salaries for the staff and about 60% donations being spent on overheads for running the venture, leaving little for actual charity giving.
It has been shown in recent studies that the expenses for raising funds in places like UK and Australia amount to about18% in the case of the former and 22% in the case of the latter. The corresponding amount in USA is about 30% according to the Association of Fundraising Professionals. These are without administrative expenses, which might be higher. This is a big issue with donors especially in situations like what happened in Singapore a few years ago when the issue fell under the media scanner. This sort of negative attraction leads to a reduction in charity giving which is definitely not a good sign.
Charity ratings secret exposed
There is not much difference in the way in which charity organizations and commercial organizations try to get money. How they eventually use that money may be different, but their modus operandi for attracting that money is essentially the same.
To promote the charity rating and also to ensure better cash flow, there is a one and only formula - enticement.
When we see a thing and might prefer to buy it, or would consider putting money in it, or creating a bond with it, we are likely to make the decision based on how enticing the whole idea is. If it is a very attractive proposition, we might instantly choose to opt for it while if it is not very enticing, we may not do it immediately.
Charity Water is highly attractive and hence why it's charity-rating sky rocked so quickly and the media got behind the idea. The simple idea of selling a bottle of charity water for a premium price with the extra profit been giving as a donation to the needy to access clean water was highly attractive.
The factors that combine to make Charity Water so enticing, making it popular, are easily decipherable.
* They have a cool name - who would think of calling a charity Charity WaterThe person behind the charity was on overdrive with passion in sharing about their idea
* Their idea of the vocation and their message is lucid, plain and remarkable - sell water and give water - Buy One Give One
* Their focus was on how to solve the problem and not the problem itself. It is important for charities to properly define their focus if they want people to rate them highly. No one has interest in getting their attention turned to the unpleasant things in life. People want a positive focus. So when they are told that they can make a positive change in the lives of others by buying a bottle of water they feel happy.
How to let Charity Ratings plummet in a second
The quickest and easiest way to lose attraction or attractiveness and thus your ratings is by focusing on the problem. No one wants to listen to anyone complaining how bad things are. Yet everyone will listen to someone who has high energy, enthusiasm, drive and determination to create something better.
All we have to do is see ourselves with our own kids and understand how we easily answer in the affirmative when they request for things in an eager and happy and excited way. But when they prefer to make their demands in a peevish or weepy way, we may tend to refuse.
The images that a charity uses will affect its charity ratings. Using uplifting and inspiring images will uplift and inspire people. Uplifted and inspired people give more and spend more.
Social Enterprise raises Charity Ratings and reduces Fundraising Problems
Social Enterprise is a new business pattern that evolved a few years ago. This combines trading with a social purpose. This pattern is a result of the interest of some businessmen who have social objectives but does not find the type of functioning of charitable enterprises satisfactory enough.
The medium of a conventional business enterprise may not be suitable for many businessmen whose ideas of ethics and integrity would be contrary to the way decisions are made in a commercial world. Such people use a social enterprise to use their acumen and ability to create a profit and effect great changes in the social arena. A typical example of such a social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his rich contributions to improving social conditions.
Buy1GIVE1 commonly known as B1G1 (Buy 1 Give 1), is a global organisation that is a recent entrant into the world of charitable giving. It is a perfect blend of business and valuable causes functioning at the global level. Buy1GIVE1 has so minimised its expenses of fundraising and management that it is able to give for charity all the funds collected. The institution is similar in its attributes to the online organization Kiva.org, which has been promoted by Bill Clinton; unlike conventional charities, Buy1GIVE1 involves direct giving to charities. Many people are convinced that it is a better way for contributing things and receiving richly in return.
Entrepreneurs, who are forever on the lookout for avenues to give in return to the society in effectual ways and to donate to beneficial charitable causes, realise the exemplary worth and strong marketing principles of organisations like Buy1GIVE1. Each and every sale that is made makes a change - not merely philanthropically. It makes a change with its strong impact as well, for every sale that is made becomes a poignant story that is an eye-opener. Buy1Give1 is a far cry from the commercial enterprises that might donate a million dollars to charity, for it lets the customers fully relish the joy of giving. The transaction-based giving of Buy1Give1 is a lesson in perfection.
All ventures like Buy1GIVE1 particularize charities and these are mostly charities where help is considered to be fully necessary, with enough potential to attract contributions. Businessmen obviously understand how poignant situations attract customer interest and as such they tend to support such causes rather than give importance to the organisation's rating. They are only too conscious of the customers' proclivity to bond better with a stronger story than worry about charity rating.
The Australian company Maple Muesli collaborates with an Indian charity called Midday Meals in the city of Mumbai. Whenever someone buys a bag of muesli, the contribution from it feeds a needy child there. A meal for a child costs only the equivalent of 30 US cents and the charity in this way feeds 125,000 kids in Mumbai every day. This makes the children desist from begging, keeps them away from streets, and makes them remain in school.
Maple Muesli has familiarised the whole of Australia with the noble cause of the Midday Meals. The company has made all its customers aware of the stupendous service the charity is doing and how their money is helping it. This has made Midday Meals tremendously popular even though all they are doing is providing meals for the kids. The era of Effective Giving has dawned - that of Plain Charity Donations is disappearing at the horizon.
A change is impending in the setting of the top 100 charities and would become visible in a few years as more novel and productive ways of charitable giving take shape. Nowadays only limited choices exist for making donations for charitable purposes. All the existing ones are not good enough to create enough difference.
Other choices in Charity Ratings
Some of the new and different ways to give are highlighted and rated in the table below. Charity Comparison Points
Some better known and not so well-known charities as well as Social Enterprises are evaluated and rated below so as to be of help to those who contribute to these.
THE SALVATION ARMY
PATH TO GIVING : DIRECT GIVING
The Salvation Army is one among the most well-known 100 charities of the world - Both individuals and enterprises make contributions directly to it.
TRANSPARENCY - B - Lack of transparency - Sum of money is contributed - but result is not fully measurable.
MARKETING VALUE TO BUSINESS - C - Businesses' one-off contributions to Salvation Army may be mentioned in the press.
FUNDRAISING COSTS - B - Spends millions of dollars annually to raise funds.
DONORS' CHOICE POTENTIALS -B- For those who want to give directly, there are plenty of charities to choose from.
ABILITY FOR EFFECTING A CHANGE -C - Nothing specific in the activities that is likely to bring about a change.
PRODUCT (RED)
PATH TO GIVING : MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Product (RED) is a brand licensed to collaborate with companies, and collect money for their Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis in Africa
TRANSPARENCY - B - Lack of transparency - sum of money is contributed for every purchase - but result is not fully measurable.
MARKETING VALUE TO BUSINESS - A - People and businesses love to support (RED) as it is backed by adored personalities like Oprah & Bono. Marketing results a little hard to track though.
FUNDRAISING COSTS - C - Spends hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising - could have just given that money to Africa.
DONOR'S CHOICE OF CHARITY - C - Limited choice for collaborators on deciding to which charity they should donate - all their charity work is in Africa.
ABILITY FOR EFFECTING A CHANGE - B - All those who collaborate with Products (RED) are big enterprises and all the income is spent on Africa.
THE BODY SHOP
PATH TO GIVING : BUSINESS TRADE & GIVING
The Body Shop has a purchasing program known as community trade to help Third World countries; and from the income they generate, substantial contributions are made to charities.
CANDOUR - B - Insufficient candour - Lots of money is donated - but result is not completely quantifiable.
ADVANTAGE TO BUSINESS - A-tve - Clients are by and large happy to become part of the community trade and are encouraged to buy more - the enterprise could afford to be more visible.
EXPENSES FOR RAISING FUNDS - A - Costs are kept low - Business design is good enough to attract large contributions and further community trade.
DONOR'S CHOICE OF CHARITY - A - Enterprises are at liberty to choose where their contributions should go.
POTENTIAL FOR REAL GLOBAL CHANGE - B - Businesses' giving back is great - but very few take the added effort to push for change like Body Shop.
LIVE EARTH
PATH TO GIVING : EVENT FUNDRAISING
Live Earth was a series of worldwide concerts held on 7 July 2007 that initiated a three-year campaign to combat climate change.
OPENNESS - F - Intelligent Giving had reported that the takings from the concert tickets sales were not accounted satisfactorily.
MARKETING VALUE TO BUSINESS - B - Business sponsors got good coverage - but it was only a one time event and it is not easy to test and measure results.
FUNDRAISING COSTS - C - Spent millions of dollars on advertising on what some say was an unsuccessful event, which had no real goals.
DONOR'S CHOICE OF CHARITY - C - Only three charities could manage to get funds.
POTENTIAL FOR REAL GLOBAL CHANGE - C - These events are usually held one-off or annually. Money is often given to larger, more established charities.
Buy1GIVE1 (B1G1 )
ROUTE TO GIVING: SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
B1G1 is a brand licensed to collaborate with any enterprise - uniting them with any cause across the globe. A fully comprehensive model.
OPENNESS - A - The one for one style of giving sees to it that the donors' money reaches the specific cause that it is meant to help. Donors are provided information on how exactly their money is being utilised - how many kids were fed or how many trees were planted.
ADVANTAGE TO BUSINESS - A+tve - Outstanding marketing value due to:
* Measurable giving * Media attraction * Good stories * Word of mouth * Repeat customers
EXPENSES FOR RAISING FUNDS - A+tve - No cost at all - B1G1 can look after a charity's fundraising requirements which will include a good percentage of management also. All the funds that have accrued go to the cause.
DONORS' CHOICE POTENTIALS - A - Businesses have the option of choosing a particular project to donate to, or give to a worthy cause of their choice like feeding, knowledge training etc.
POTENTIAL FOR REAL GLOBAL CHANGE - A - Exponential. If more businesses partner charities globally, the potential for real change is massive.
You Would Think Giving away Money Would Be No Big Deal!"
Donating money may not seem to be a difficult job - it is just a question of handing over some money as cheque, cash or via the credit card. Still, someone like George Sores, who is as generous a donor as could be, agrees that effectual giving is no cakewalk. Underprivileged communities and countries receive millions of dollars in aid and still the situation remains much the same year after year.
Asking the right questions is necessary for bringing about the required changes. Social entrepreneur Mohammed Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, has done pioneering work in the field of Microfinance and is revolutionizing the ways in which indigence and environmental problems can be tackled. People like him are showing the way as to how consumerism and social enterprise can change the face of the world. Another such example is the 'Trade - Not Aid' of The Body Shop. The ideals of Buy1GIVE1 are equally potent and are a model for charities. Social enterprise needs total recognition.
When questioned on how one can bring about some positive global change, Bill Gates showed Kiva.org and Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com) as examples of charities that enrich the giver. Those who sponsor a business are updated by Kiva.org about the activities of the business. Buy1GIVE1 also does this. By this arrangement enterprises get enough stories to tell their clients - if they buy a laptop they will know that it will help in some needy person somewhere else getting a computer.
Other ways to improve your Charity Ratings
Adopt a questioning mind, hop onto a wired laptop, and with a few hours to spare look at some of the new and amazing giving systems that are being created. Most of these new systems are network based and driven from the Internet.
As of now if one is not connected with good international networks via the internet, the chances of losing out are substantial even with good charity rating, tomorrow things are bound to change - totally.
Many enterprises emerge out of thin air nowadays and grow enough in the matter of maybe three years to be sold for more than a billion dollars. This was unconceivable ten years ago, though today it has become a routine state of affairs. All these online enterprises are doing the same thing - drawing on international networks or themselves making international networks.
Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One)
Buy1GIVE1 is a rather new entrant to the world of Social Enterprises and was launched in 1997 by a Japanese lady called Masami Sato. Any business can avail a membership in Buy1GIVE1, and membership charges for smaller ventures will only be one dollar a day and donations can be as little as one cent on a sale. Buy1GIVE1 is in the forefront of the Buy One Give One transaction-based giving world movement. Joining hands with Buy1GIVE1 is totally uncomplicated for businesses as well as charity needs. The working pattern of Buy1GIVE1 is perfectly controlled and practical. It connects the products or services of any given business to a needy cause (Buy1GIVE1's or their own) and after that whenever a sale is closed, it has to be recorded and the contribution percentage sent to the charity at the end of the month or end of quarter year directly or through Buy1GIVE1.
You are strongly advised to create lasting bonds with Buy1GIVE1 and also motivate your business associates to join Buy1GIVE1. It is a singular and wonderful organisation doing stupendous work and no one can afford to ignore it.
A new epoch in charity giving
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Buy1GIVE1 ( www.buy1-give1free.com ) - the home of transaction based giving. Visit Buy1GIVE today and discover how a new way of tithing can help your business can flourish. This and other unique content 'charity' articles are available with free reprint rights.
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