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"The holidays are here, meaning more relatives, more fruitcake, and (of course) more giving. Nearly 25% of all charitable giving happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and no, that doesn't include the socks your mom gives you. While sites like Kiva and Causes are gearing up for the uptake of donations, the question must be asked - why aren\u2019t more people more charitable more often? Why isn\u2019t philanthropy fun, rewarding and\u00A0easy? What gives? (get it?)\r\nToo many organizations asking the wrong questions\r\nFor starters, there are a bazillion different organizations engaged in complex charitable work. Evaluating that work and making an informed decision on who to support is a tall task, too tall for most. Instead, the majority of donors rely on anecdotal experiences and the recommendations of friends and family. That\u2019s hardly ideal for organizations needing to fundraise year in and year out.\r\n\r\nPhilanthropy can also be surprisingly negative. We\u2019ve all seen it \u2013 grainy pictures of abject poverty, used as nonprofit marketing ploys to inspire spontaneous charity. We're shown starving children, dying villages and\u00A0people without shoes. We're told &amp;quot;It\u2019s a terrible world! And you\u2019re not doing anything! Are you? So for only $X you can\u2026&amp;quot; you get the point. Even the Salvation Army\u2019s bells ring of Catholic indulgences. The point is that while organizations have good intentions, their way of asking for support can be unpalatable, which makes giving harder.\r\n\r\n\r\nToo little feedback\r\nOnce you\u2019ve given to an organization, then what? Maybe you\u2019ll receive a newsletter about their work, maybe not. If you do, chances are you\u2019ll read about \u201Cdeliverables,\u201D the quantitative data that sounds good but means little (\u201Cacres saved,\u201D \u201Cchildren served\u201D). Yes, it matters how many acres of rainforest your money helped conserve this quarter. But whatever that number is, it doesn\u2019t mean as much as it should: it doesn\u2019t involve you in the mission, it doesn\u2019t communicate the organization\u2019s actual work, it doesn\u2019t do anything. Without that something - an organization\u2019s story - donors feel lost, inconsequential. That\u2019s not the rewarding feeling they deserve.\r\n\r\nPut another way, donating to an organization is an investment in that organization\u2019s mission. What return do most donors see?\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Times They Are A-Changin\u2019\r\nLuckily, the tide is turning on philanthropy. Twitter and Facebook have made connecting with organizations and their missions significantly easier (see the HeroRats twitter account for a particularly cute example). Charity: water, an NYC-based nonprofit, has been wildly successful with \u201Cmycharitywater,\u201D an online portal they built where donors can track contributions and the resulting impact. Services like Catchafire, Swipegood and Sparked are thinking up new ways to give and volunteer. It\u2019s a wide-open market.\r\n\r\nOf course, the true test of new approaches is whether or not they actually help. The jury is out on how much money new services can raise for nonprofits, or whether or not donors find them rewarding in the long-term. Best case scenario? More people give more often to more organizations, as mediated by rewarding tech platforms. Worse case? We're stuck with cute pictures of rats.\r\n\r\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/21/giving-aint-easy-but-it-should-be/>