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Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Lazy Corporations Give to Mega-Charities

An article in the Jan. 15 issue of NonProfit Times explains that cell phone companies have approached CARE and the American Red Cross to offer text-messaging donation processing in the wake of the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Even Google started directing visitors to the Red Cross site after Katrina, until we pointed out to them they'd do far better to point users to the charities that buy Katrina keywords on Google!

Why do so many corporations only think of the Red Cross when they think of a charity to support? I think it's laziness. When I was young, there was a saying among data processing professionals that "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." They meant that, while and IBM computer may not be the best, if there were problems, well, you bought IBM, who could blame you? That was when IBM's competitors were Digital Equipment, Univac, Burroughs, and other names you haven't heard in 20 years. Of course, all that lazy buying of IBM made IBM fat and lazy, and look where they are now (are they still in business?). It's not like the Red Cross is free of mistakes.

NetworkForGood is an organization that certainly knows its fat corporations -- it's funded by AOL, Yahoo! and Cisco Systems guilt money (back when AOL had both money and a concience). However, its technology and culture allow big and small nonprofits to compete on a level playing field.

So, we're gonna do our part. From now on, we may talk about the Red Cross, but we're only going to link to Network for Good or similar platforms that offer a true marketplace. Or, like we suggested to Google, to our own clients like Operation Blessing, USA for UNHCR, PlanUSA, Save the Children, or the Catholic Medical Mission Board.

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