Shopping For Charity Done RIGHT!
Written: Feb 25 '01
The Bottom Line
Few so-called charity sites benefit charities more then they benefit themselves. 4Charity.com is a wonderful exception.
|
| Full Review |
Many web-malls promise to donate money to charity, but only 4Charity.com doesn't take a cut for themselves.
What Is 4Charity.com?
Their Mission Statement starts: "4charity.com is an application service provider for the nonprofit sector. We create web-based products and services that enable organizations to achieve their goals more efficiently."
In other words, they are a for-profit company providing e-commerce services to non-profit organizations for a fee. They offer direct donation services, a shopping portal, event promotion (including ticket sales), volunteer coordination, email communication, online greeting cards, and web site design and development. Since I do not work for a non-profit directly I will leave the other areas for another Epinionator to review and instead cover the more consumer oriented areas of the site: direct donations and the shopping portal.
What Charities Are Supported?
At the time of this writing nearly 100 charities are involved with 4charity.com these range from large internationals (Amnesty International, World Wildlife Fund) to small local charities (Emerald City Outreach Ministries in Seattle, San Francisco Neighborhood Parks Council) and cover such diverse topics as a Hawaiian cultural museum (Bishop Museum) to animal rescue (Pets Unlimited) to curing cancer (Cancer Research Institute).
Although the FAQ refers to their database of non-profits and gives tips on how to search it, I have been unable to locate any way to search for individual charities. Instead, I located two separate lists of charities: one under direct donation and the other under shopping. Although there is some cross-over between the two lists, each contains charities not available on the other as well.
Making Direct Donations
When making a direct donation, you will be taken to the selected charity's direct donation page. These pages are created by the charities themselves, but hosted at 4charity.com and have varying amounts of information on the charities themselves. though the form provided is nearly identical.
You may select how much to donate ($10 minimum) and whether or not there is an honoree for the donation or if it is being made 'In Memory Of' a person. You may also elect to have a "Thank You" card sent to the honoree if you so wish. Then standard contact information must be provided as well as credit card info. They accept donations via Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.
Although 4Charity.com's biggest selling point is that 100% of your donation goes to the charity, an examination of the fine print will show that, in fact, only 97% does as 3% is used to pay the service charges required by the use of credit cards. I find this perfectly acceptable as these fees would be paid by the charity itself were you to donate directly via credit card.
Shopping For Charity
If you already shop online then Shopping For Charity via 4Charity.com will add only a couple of steps to generate money for your favorite cause. Essentially, instead of heading straight to Amazon.com (or wherever you regularly shop) you stop by 4Charity.com first, log-in and click their link to your shop of choice. The shop(s) pay the designated amount or percentage to 4Charity.com who pas 100% on to the charity you selected.
I won't list all the shops available through 4Charity.com (there are a couple hundred), but all the big names are here (Amazon, JC Penney, OfficeMax, etc) and quite a few you may not have expected (KTEL, 800-Trekker, Swiss Army Depot, and more). The amounts received by your charity of choice vary by company but are all clearly noted and range from $0.10 per transaction to 30% of the total purchase, with the average hovering in the 15% range. Bear in mind, these funds are being paid by the shops themselves as referral fees and your price will be the same whether you shop directly or through 4Charity.com
My Investigation
I sent an email to 10 different charities that work with 4Charity.com asking what they think about the company. I received 6 responses and all were positive. A couple informed me that there had been problems in the past, but 4Charity.com quickly resolved these to their satisfaction.
Since the charities listed on the site pay a monthly fee to 4Charity.com for services provided I didn't really expect any to be too unhappy. After all, if they felt they were being ripped off they'd simply end the arrangement. Several charities I contacted in regards to GreaterGood.com felt they were not receiving much benefit from the association, but stayed on as they weren't directly losing anything either. Thus, even though there is a direct cost to the charities I find this system to be better then the 'split donation' method used by most Shop For Charity sites as there is a larger incentive on the site's part to treat the charities well.
Conclusions
If you shop online and have a social conscience there's no reason not to shop through 4Charity.com. They've worked out the best system for changing referral/affiliate fees into social change that I've come across thus far and I highly recommend them to everyone.
The only things holding them back from a full five stars are site maintenance/functionality issues. Several links were broken the first time I visited 4Charity.com and have not yet been repaired or removed. Additionally, the lack of a search engine for either merchants or charities lessens the usability of the site as well.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Aahz
|
|
Member: Aahz
Location: ...Behind The Curtain
Reviews written: 60
Trusted by: 31 members
About Me:
Aahz has returned to Epinions after a short 7 year hiatus. Why? We'll see together...
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.