GivingTools.com

In October I wrote:

I own the domains www.GivingTools.com and www.GivingTools.org. I don’t have any plans to use them. I’m not interested in selling them, but if you would like the domains AND you have an interesting project that you would use them for, let me know and I’ll consider giving them to you.

I’ve now completed the transfer of the GivingTools domains to the Nonprofit Knowledge Network.

Nonprofit Knowledge Network (NKN) is a social venture with the mission of improving the donation decision process for ordinary individuals by tapping into the knowledge of experts in the nonprofits sector – foundation program staff, academics, and practitioners – and providing this knowledge to individuals, free of charge. Our goal is to change the donation decision paradigm, from picking organizations with your heart, to picking issues with your heart and then organizations with your mind.

We are pursuing two paths to reduce barriers for ordinary individuals to becoming strategic philanthropists. The first path is taking steps to make it easier to give to multiple nonprofits, to track those gift, and to take the greatest advantage of allowable tax write-offs for charitable gifts. The second path is working to consolidate expert opinions across multiple social issue areas so that individuals can benefit from the vast knowledge of experts in the nonprofit sector when making decision about which nonprofits to support.

Currently, the NKN team consists of five Stanford MBA students with background in education, policy, business. These five people are Erik Bengtsson, Howard Bornstein, Chris Herndon, Christine Hung, and Deyan Vitanov. Short profiles can be found at www.nonprofitkn.org.

If you would like to learn more about NKN, contribute to or become part of the NKN Team, or have NKN provides services to your company’s employees, please contact Bornstein_Howard@gsb.stanford.edu.