Make The Difference Network Giving Guide

We believe that the vast majority of nonprofit organizations are operated by wonderful, caring people with the highest integrity and the purest of intentions in fulfilling the mission for which they were formed. We also believe that the vast majority of nonprofit organizations either operate as effectively and efficiently as they can or they want to operate more effectively and efficiently.

We believe that the effective use of Web technology and online donations can lower the cost of fundraising for nonprofits, thereby providing them with more money to provide services to their constituents.

Unfortunately, in the past, some nonprofits have not operated at the highest levels of integrity or efficiency and have caused public perception and trust of the entire nonprofit sector to erode.

It is our sincere intention that Make The Difference Network will be a tool that will empower nonprofit organizations to extend their message and raise more donations and will help restore trust and confidence to the entire nonprofit sector.

How to Make Wise Donation Decisions

Whether you’re using Make The Difference Network or donating to a nonprofit in person, the key to making wise donation decision is to have plenty of information and to balance your heart and the head

When you are at MTDN.com and you see a Wish that touches your heart, we encourage you to donate as often and as generously as possible and to tell your friends about the Wish as well. That’s the reason we started Make The Difference Network.

That being said, we also want you to make wise donation decisions by making sure you have all the information about the nonprofit organization to whom you will be giving the donation to and that you are 100% comfortable with your donation BEFORE you make the donation.

WMTDN is designed to give you easy access to information about both the nonprofit organization and the specific Wishes for which they are requesting donations. Our system is also designed to make it easy for the nonprofit to show donors and potential donors that they are good stewards of you donations by posting the results of donations they receive.

MTDN Provides a Cost-effective Direct Donation System

Since most donors want their donations to be used in the most cost-effective way possible, we built the MTDN Direct Donation System to provide nonprofits with a very cost-effective way to accept online donations.

Some other Web sites that help nonprofits take donations online, charge the nonprofit between 4.5% to 10% of the donation to process the donation for the nonprofit. MTDN never takes a percentage of any donation.

We built the MTDN Direct Donation System to allow us to connect a nonprofit’s own PayPal or Google Checkout account directly to each of their Wish Profile pages on MTDN. We felt that this is the most cost-effective way we could help the nonprofits take donations. This insures that all donations go directly from the donor to the nonprofit.

PayPal offers nonprofits a discounted rate of 2.2% for processing their donations.

Google Checkout is processing donations for nonprofits for no charge for all of 2008.

What MTDN Has Done to Make Your Donation Decisions Easier

MTDN has taken the following steps to make it easy for you make intelligent, well-informed donation decisions:

We have verified that every nonprofit organization member of Member of Make The Difference Network is a legitimate 501(c)(3) organization.

We have verified that MTDN member nonprofits are not on any terrorist watch list.

Because we believe that you are entitled to know everything about a nonprofit BEFORE you make a donation, we’ve provided each member nonprofit with a “Nonprofit Profile Page” where they can publish important information about their organization; who runs it, what they’ve accomplished, and what their goals are for the coming year. There is even a place for them to provide both their annual report and their latest IRS Tax filing.
We encourage every nonprofit to provide as much information as possible for donors and potential donors.

We require MTDN nonprofit members to provide their contact information so it’s easy for you to contact them when you feel it’s appropriate, whether it’s before or after you make a donation.

Each member nonprofit has agreed, as part of their membership Terms of Service Agreement, to keep their Nonprofit Profile information accurate and up-to-date.

Each member nonprofit has agreed, as part of their participation in MTDN, that they will use the donations for the purpose they listed in their Wish.

Each member nonprofit has agreed, as part of their participation in MTDN, they will post the results they’ve achieved with the donations they receive through MTDN. We’ve provided the nonprofit with an easy-to-use “Wish Progress Update” function that allows them to blog about the progress they’ve achieved on each individual wish, to post digital images showing the progress and/or to post videos showing the progress on each Wish.
Since the both the concept and the technology of posting Wish Progress Update are relatively new, many nonprofits are not yet used to posting Wish Progress Updates. (You might send a friendly message to any nonprofits who have gotten donations and not yet posted any Wish Progress Updates, asking them if they would please post a Wish Progress Update).

To make it easy to report suspected Fraud or Abuse, we’ve included a “Report Fraud or Abuse” button in the Profile ID box of every nonprofit. If you suspect that a nonprofit is conducting itself in an unethical or illegal manner, you can click the “Report Fraud or Abuse” button and it will alert us to a potential problem.

We do our best to insure all nonprofits conduct themselves with the highest level of integrity according to the Terms of Service that they agreed to as part of their participation in MTDN. That being said, despite our best efforts and intention, MTDN cannot guarantee that each and every nonprofit will always conduct themselves with the highest level of integrity.

It is up to you, the individual donor, to be 100% certain that you are as fully-informed as possible about the nonprofit and are totally comfortable with each and every donation BEFORE you make it.

Here are some suggestions that may help you make better donation decisions.

We suggest you take all or part of the following actions, BEFORE you make a donation of any size to any MTDN nonprofit member.

Check out their MTDN Nonprofit Profile page. We’ve made it easy see who leads the organization, what they’ve accomplished and what their future plans are. If the nonprofit hasn’t posted enough information, send them a friendly message requesting the information you want.

Read their IRS Form 990 or their Annual Report. If you want to see how the nonprofit performs from purely a dollars and cents perspective, read their IRS Form 990 or Annual Report located on their Profile page. We’ve provided them with a place to upload it on their Nonprofit Profile. If they haven’t posted their Form 990 please send them a message requesting that they post it on their MTDN Profile (Please remember that the IRS doesn’t require some smaller nonprofits to submit Form 990).

General guidelines by Better Business Bureau’s Standards for Charitable Accountability www.give.org state that a nonprofit spent 65% or more of their income on programs and services. We believe that this is a fair number, but there are times, especially when a nonprofit has a smaller budget, that the percentage may be lower than 65%. We believe that you should use 65% as only one of the many ways you would evaluate the effectiveness and impact the nonprofit has on the world.

Another general guideline for nonprofit effectiveness is the percentage of their income they spend on fundraising. According to the Better Business Bureau’s Standards for Charitable Accountability, www.give.org a nonprofit should spend no more than 35% of its income on fundraising. Since one of the major reasons we started MTDN is to help lower the cost of fundraising, we would love to see a smaller percentage go to fundraising and a larger percentage go to programs and services.

Visit the nonprofit’s own Web site. Their Web site address is posted in their Profile ID box located at the top left-hand column of their Profile page. You may find lots of valuable information and insight on their own Web site that is not on their MTDN Profile page. If they have a newsletter, you may want to subscribe to it so you can get a feel for what kind organization they are and what they do on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Call them. You may want to call the nonprofit and talk to a real-live human being and get an additional perspective of their organization.

Sign up for Wish Progress Updates. If you want to be updated on the what the nonprofit does with money that is donated for a particular Wish, then go to that Wish and subscribe to a Wish Progress Update which is located in the Wish Progress box. We’ve given the nonprofits the technology to easily keep donors informed on the progress they’ve made utilizing the donations. They can blog about the progress, post a digital picture or even a video. You can track which Wish Progress Updates you have subscribed to by clicking on the “Wish Alert” button in your “Giving Center.”

** Please remember two things about the Wish Progress Update function:
- One: Since we’re in the early stages of the Web site, many Wishes have not received donations so there may not be any progress to report.
- Two: Having a Web site with the technology to list specific Wishes and the ability to show progress or results of donations to those Wishes is a totally new concept and may take some time for nonprofits to get in the habit of posting progress or results. You may choose to send them a friendly message via the MTDN Messaging System encouraging them to posting their progress. If enough donors gently encourage a nonprofit to use the Wish Progress function, they’re more likely to take the time to do so.

Visit Guidestar and learn more about the nonprofit. Even though we use Guidestar, the leading resource for information about nonprofits, during our vetting process, you may choose to look up the nonprofit at Guidestar and learn more about them. Membership in Guidestar is free, but you will have to register to be able to view most of the information.

See if the nonprofit is rated on Charity Navigator. If you want to see if an outside organization has rated the nonprofit you are making donations to, you may choose to visit CharityNavigator.org. They are an independent charity evaluator and rate the performance of over 5,000 nonprofit organizations. They have a set of evaluation standards which you may or may not agree with, but it might give you another perspective on the nonprofit you are checking out.

Visit www.give.org. You may choose to visit www.give.org, which is operated by the Better Business Bureau. They have developed a set of standards called the “Standards for Charity Accountability” that might be helpful as you decide where to make your donations.

Ask your friends. Send a message to your friends group and ask them if anyone has had any experience, positive or negative with the nonprofit that you are thinking about donating to.

We urge you to take whatever actions are necessary for you to be fully-informed and totally comfortable BEFORE you make any donation.

After You Make a Donation

You need to be a MTDN member in order to make a donation. After you make a donation, MTDN will automatically send you a “Thank You” on behalf of the nonprofit.

To help you keep track of your donations, we track all the donations you make through MTDN in the “My Account” section of your profile. When you log in to MTDN, click on the “Donations” button located in your “Giving Center.”

Thank you for supporting our nonprofit members with your wise and generous donations.