Firstgiving.com Reaches $100 Million Raised for Charity
SOMERVILLE, Mass., July 13, 2009 — Firstgiving.com, a leading web-based fundraising platform for nonprofit organizations, today announced a major milestone. Since 2003, Firstgiving has helped over 1.8 million people raise more than $100 Million for over 27,000 different nonprofit organizations. These funds have helped disease research, education, housing, healthcare, animal care and many other very worthy causes all across the United States.
The ability for individuals and nonprofits to set up a personalized fundraising page via Firstgiving.com technology helps simplify the process for fundraisers as they send links to their pages to family, friends and networks around the globe and ask for support to raise funds for any certified US nonprofit organization. The activities can be NPO initiated or chosen by the individual fundraiser.
Giving USA did a major industry analysis of some $306 Billion in philanthropic fundraising in 2007. The traditional giving process contributed significantly to health and human services (7.6 and 9.7% respectively), but religious fundraising far outweighed any other area (33.4%). Firstgiving’s fundraisers and clients raised money for the same areas, but nearly 61% was raised for healthcare, human and community services. Rather than giving to a large religious organization that then distributed funds, the online donor and fundraisers go directly to the source. Online giving has enabled individuals to become advocates for the causes that have personally touched their lives.
While a great majority of the fundraising came from traditional sporting events (almost $50 Million from walks and races alone), millions were also raised in very non-traditional ways. From mustache growing contests to fundraisers in honor of celebrity birthdays, millions were donated to deserving NPOs by the sheer will of the individual fundraiser to create and implement their personal fundraising goals.
Firstgiving fundraisers and donors are making an impact on many areas of charitable giving, providing thousands of NPOs with significant funds raised online. Following are some details of how the $100 million has been distributed:
