GiveMN.org for ZERO transaction fees for Minnesota charitable giving
Last week the Kari Ruth from St. Paul Foundation and GiveMN.org spoke at the Tuesday NetSquared event about GiveMN.org. GiveMN.org is a new charitable-giving platform for Minnesota nonprofits. The site goes public in November but it's up now and you can add your nonprofit's online profile. That's not a bad idea as they are planning a Minnesota Match Day in November which I assume means that your nonprofit can somehow tap into some matching funds for contributions.

To get your profile on GiveMN.org, you first find your profile at www.razoo.com (or create a profile there). Minnesota profiles at Razoo will automatically be transferred to GiveMN.org.

The site will offer nonprofits zero transaction fees. That's why your nonprofit should be at the site and why donors should give via the site. For donors, it will also offer a profile page for tracking your giving to any nonprofit in the U.S. that accepts credit card donations. (I'm assuming you have to contribute via Razoo if the nonprofit is not Minnesota-based.) There are other features for donors too like engaging "in an active, donor-centric online community with opportunities for collaborative giving and tools that integrate with other social media." That sounds interesting.

The site includes the Razoo nonprofit search engine tweaked for Minnesota nonprofits. Feelings at the presentation were mixed as to how valuable a giving search engine really is in terms of seeking a nonprofit to give to. Most of us already know who we want to support and if not, Google offers an easy (and likely more comprehensive) way to find organizations.

Many nonprofits use Network for Good as their online donation site. It's free to list there but there is a transaction fee for each donation (in the area of 4%, I think). GiveMN.org will use Network for Good's donation engine on the back end but no fees will be deducted. It's really a no-brainer (my opinion, at least) for nonprofits as to whether or not to participate and then to promote giving at GiveMN.org. There's no reason you can't leave all your other donation sites in place (even at Network for Good) and add (and promote) GiveMN.org.

Posted via email from Peter's posterous

- posted by Peter Fleck @ Permalink 11:30 AM [to Del.icio.us]