Mimi Ghez's Blog

Over 1.4 Million Giving Opportunities

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:09:15 GMT

There is certainly no shortage of great projects and organizations to give to, and we want to provide you with opportunities to support the ones you care about most. From your local church to International relief organizations such as the American Red Cross, our catalog includes over 1.4 million giving opportunities for just about any interest-- and we're constantly expanding. Through partnerships with local, national, and international organizations, we'll be adding organizations and individual projects to our catalog to provide you with an unparalleled giving experience.

Why obsess over a huge catalog? It's pretty simple, actually. Lots of opportunities, combined with information on your unique interests, helps us do a better job of personalizing your experience and introducing you to organizations working in areas you care about. It also helps givers who want to support less popular causes by providing a place where they can give as well. Do you care deeply about the psychological well-being of the South American Horned Frog? There may be someone out there looking for your support (and we'll help you find them).

We have a few ways to find an organization in our catalog. To find by name, enter all or part of the name in the search box at the top of any page and you should find it in the search results. You can also browse charities that have been evaluated by Charity Navigator by clicking the blue "Rated Charities" tab-- you can then filter results based on the location of the organization, their geographic focus (regional, national, or international), size, rating, and category. Finally, we put together several Giving Guides to introduce you to a theme and highlight a few exceptional organizations working to further that cause. Organizations that make this list have proven to be innovative and effective, so they might be worth a look.

Learn more at the Razoo Giving Marketplace.

Serving the "Committed Giver"

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:09:15 GMT

Sometimes giving to charity is more complicated than it should be. It can be intimidating to sort through all the choices and see through the marketing speak to figure out which organizations are really making a difference.

If you agree with this, you've come to the right place.

We're here to make giving enjoyable and rewarding. At Razoo you'll find a wealth of information on the site to help you through the process, and we also have real people who want to help if you get stuck. Whether you need help finding a place to donate, don't understand the ratings system, or the site just isn't working as you would expect-- please email us anytime.

We'd also love to hear wat you like about the site or what we can do to make it better. There's a feedback link at the top of every page on the site and you can email us anytime.

Learn more at the Razoo Giving Marketplace.

The power of Strategic Giving

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:09:15 GMT

Many of us are not exactly organized when it comes to our charitable giving. We may have our favorite organizations that we give to regularly, but we also support a handful of projects throughout the year that are interesting and worthy. We'd like to think that we are making good decisions and using our resources to help the things that matter the most to us, but without a good plan and some organizational tools it's hard to know for sure.

Following a plan and tracking your giving is a great way to make your life easier and your giving more effective. Simple budgeting tools will help you make decisions on how much to give (those are in the works), and our reports can help you see who and what you are supporting. This also makes life a little bit easier at tax time when you can go to one place to get all of your receipts.

We make it really easy to give regularly to organizations through Razoo, so you can put some (if not all) of your giving on auto-pilot. Simply tell us who the money goes to, how much, and how often-- and we'll take care of the rest. You'll get a receipt just like you would if you went to the site to make the transaction. Scheduled giving is a great way to check one thing off the to do list every month without actually doing anything.

Giving planning and management on Razoo happens in your pesonalized portfolio section (under the red tabs after you login). You'll see organizations you've given to in the past as well as those you want to keep track of for the future. Simply click on "Add to portfolio" when viewing the detail page of any organization to send it to your portfolio-- organizations you've given to in the past show up automatically. More budgeting and planning tools are on the way, and we'll let you know when they become available.

Learn more at the Razoo Giving Marketplace.

Protecting your security and privacy

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:09:15 GMT

We obsess over security and we're very careful to ensure that your personal and financial information is protected. Here's what happens when you make a donation. As soon as you hit "Submit", we encrypt your information to make it unreadable by anyone who might try to access it (and it's nearly impossible to get to that information anyway). Then we send it to our partner, Network4Good, over a secure connection to process the transaction. If you choose to set up a recurring transaction, Network4Good will store your credit card information to make future donations automatically (we don't store your credit card information on our system). Once the credit card is charged, Network4Good sends us a simple message that lets us know that everything went through fine. Nobody at Razoo ever sees your financial information.

We also encrypt your personal information (name, email, password, etc.) when you create an account on Razoo and then store that information securely in our database. And that's where it stays-- the only information we share with anyone else is the info Network4Good needs to process the transaction.

Of course all of this doesn't matter much if our partner drops the ball, so we made sure that Network4Good is obsessive about security as well. For more information on their policies, please visit their site: http://www.network4good.com/ (look for a link at the bottom of the page).

We feel really good about our privacy and security-- in fact all of our staff members use Razoo to make their charitable donations--and most of us are obsessive about online security. If you have any other questions about this stuff, please ask.

Find out more at the Razoo Giving Marketplace.

Helping your charitable giving go farther

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:09:15 GMT

Money is one of the most powerful assets we have at our disposal, so every dollar eaten up by fees represents a missed opportunity to help someone in need. Nearly every transaction costs money-- even those that are processed automatically over the web using inexpensive hardware and software. Most sites that accept donations take anywhere from 4 to 10% off the top to cover bank fees and other costs (often including a portion to cover their own operating expenses)-- and some take out more than that. For the committed giver, these costs can add up quickly.

We want to help givers make the biggest impact with their charitable donations, and waiving all transaction fees is one way we're doing that. Whenever you give through Razoo, 100% of your gift is passed onto the intended recipient. We don't take out anything. We're also working on some creative matching and sponsorship programs with some generous partners to try to reverse that equasion-- so your donation of $100 could actually result in $110 (or more) going to your selected charity or project. Now that's good math!

Learn more at the Razoo Giving Marketplace.

Some exciting changes at Razoo

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:09:14 GMT

Those of you who have faithfully followed Razoo and/or our Good Happens blog for the past several months will notice a significant shift starting today. We've been hard at work building a new marketplace to help donors make a bigger impact with their money, and today we are releasing our first major revision of the platform. The Marketplace is still quite young, but if you've seen the Alpha you'll notice it has some interesting new features and a pretty significant facelift.

To support this new platform we will be rolling out some new things and changing others-- and this blog is one of them. We've taken a break from the "Good Happens" content for the past few months and we'll be using this blog to open up the world of Razoo to the public. We'll share our take on Philanthropy, our vision for Razoo, and our progress as we grow. We want to be as transparent as possible about what we do and hope you find it interesting enough to join the conversation.

Oh, and here's the link to the site-- let us know what you think!
http://alpha.razoo.com

Ditch the Bottle, Save the World and Win Something!

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:26:01 GMT

In a previous blog post I mentioned that Americans toss almost 38 billion water bottles in the trash every year. To combat this environmental waste, Brita (you know, the folks who make those cool water filtration products for your home) and Nalgene (check any college student's backpack for one of their fashionable water bottles) teamed up to create the FilterForGood campaign.

The success of the campaign is determined by the number of disposable water bottles saved from ending up in your local dump. The environmentally conscious endeavor requires participants to pledge to reduce bottled water waste by using a reusable water bottle (Nalgene, encouraged) or filtered water (this is where Brita's pitchers and faucet mount filters come in.)

I was very excited when I learned about the pledge, so naturally I signed it online and began taking steps to become an active participant. The FilterForGood folks were stoked too and sent us some reusable water bottles for the staff to use along with a few faucet-mount filtration systems to give away.

Get Free Stuff, Save the Planet

Leave a comment at the bottom of this entry describing ways you plan to get the word out about reducing disposable water bottle use. The top three comments will receive a Brita faucet-mount filtration system. Oh, if you're wondering who will be judging the comments, look no further than Razoo's celebrity panel of super heros and rock stars, of course. ;-)

To track the success of the campaign you can view how many water bottles have been saved by using an interactive map on the campaign Web site.

Links of Interest

Take the Pledge

Join the Razoo Cause

Leave a Comment

You Can Help Feed the World Today!

Mimi Ghez — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:26:00 GMT

The other day, Razoo'er Roshani Kothari notified me about a post on the growing global food crisis. The increasing number of food riots in Africa and Asia along with a dramatic rise in food prices have elevated the exposure of this international problem.

According to the post Roshani directed me towards, "The United Nations said this week that 100 million people are now urgently at risk of not having enough food to eat -- and that includes people on every continent of the world."

Photo Source: wmnet.org.uk

Sounds pretty scary, huh? Luckily, there are things you can do to help fight this problem. Check out the OneWorld group on Razoo so that you can educate yourself, spread awareness, and donate time or your expertise.

Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Prize 2007

Mimi Ghez — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:28:28 GMT

The Legatum Prosperity Africa Prize is a program which "seeks to recognize and reward the best of small business in emerging markets." The grand prize winner received $100,000 for training and business development.

Check out the trailer for Unlocking Africa, a documentary on the Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Prize program. More info on this awesome endeavor to come!

Ditch the Bottle, Save the World and Win Something!

Mimi Ghez — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:21:45 GMT

In a previous blog post I mentioned that Americans toss almost 38 billion water bottles in the trash every year. To combat this environmental waste, Brita (you know the folks who make those cool water filtration products for your home) and Nalgene (check any college student's backpack for one of their fashionable water bottles) teamed up to create the FilterForGood campaign.

Get Free Stuff, Save the Planet

To track the success of the campaign you can view how many water bottles have been saved by using an interactive map on the campaign Web site.

Links of Interest

Take the Pledge

Join the Razoo Cause

Leave a Comment