Nanette Alexander points Smartmobs readers to the website www.changingthepresent.org to look at.
She writes: “This is a nonprofit donation marketplace. There are a couple of things that make it worth watching. One, it is good way of giving dollars because you can decide where the money is going and two, they are building a social networking component to it. Right now, people can build profiles, wishlists, registries…essentially create an identity as an individual philanthropist. I imagine that in the future, the full networking capability will be added”.
Marikaya 
http://www.ChangingTheWorld.org has the participation of over 125 prominent nonprofit leaders as the heads of Sierra Club, Rainforest Alliance, Ashoka, Grameen Foundation USA, Sesame Workshop, FirstBook, and many others. And now we have yours. Thanks so much for helping spread the word about this remarkable new way to make the world a better place.
The concept of this is fantastic. What I don’t understand is how the dollar amount for a given charity is arrived upon? Is that by the non-profit or by ChangingThePresent?
I question this because I looked at some of the charities in the health space and for example they say one place that cataract surgery in India costs $100 and in another it costs $60 (links at end of post). I have no idea where these numbers come from, but it has been well documented that cataract surgery in India costs closer to $25-30. Again, this is a great idea in theory, but there needs to be transparency in the process.
http://www.changingthepresent.org/gifts/show/797
http://www.changingthepresent.org/gifts/show/955
Hi AJB,
I agree with you. TRANSPARANCY!!!!!!!
Another company that makes it possible to support non-profits online is Firstgiving.com. Firstgiving is a website that helps you create a personalized fundraising page for any non-profit registered through GuideStar (a national registry of nearly 2MM non-profits). Though Firstgiving does not give you the power to choose what you are exactly buying for a non-profit, it does give you a large selection of non-profits to choose from and so you can choose which one to support based on your interests. Through Firstgiving you can promote your fundraising campaign with a fundraising badge or widget. It’s a great way to mobilize your online community for a non-profit that you specifically want to support.