SiliconBeat

Earlier this month, I interviewed Mari Kuraishi, one of the founders of the GlobalGiving Fund. She and Dennis Whittle, chairman and CEO, left their jobs at the World Bank back in 2000. The idea was to create an online marketplace to connect donors with philanthropic projects around the world. The fund continues to grow, but not necessarily in the way originally planned. Kurishi and Whittle have had to make adjustments and do some rethinking along the way. I’ve uploaded a podcast of our conversation, but I wanted to just share a few highlights:

• The pair wanted to harness the power of the Internet to draw in a wider range of donors than typically give to charitable causes. In a sense, they were trying to take advantage of the dynamic that Barack Obama has tapped into with his presidential campaign: Far more donors giving smaller amounts can still be a powerful force for raising large sums of money.
• The GlobalGiving concept originally started with a completely open platform. Anyone could post any project and ask for funding. But that turned out to be too chaotic and confusing to donors.
• So they restructured the format so that they only post projects that they have vetted or have been recommended by certain, trusted partners. The idea was to build a greater level of trust and confidence to attract donors.
• GlobalGiving has now raised more than $8 million in donations since 2001, with much of that coming in the last couple of years after the model was revamped. That money has come from 12,500 donors and has gone to 1,016 projects