Online donations boost U.S. charities

Online donations boost U.S. charities: "Online donations boost U.S. charities
June 27, 2005
By Jim Hopkins

Gannett News Service

Charity begins at home, especially when it's the home page. Online donations to the United States' biggest charities surged 63 percent last year from 2003, a new study says, as the tsunami relief effort and Howard Dean's presidential campaign underscored the value of Internet fund raising.

The 164 groups surveyed by the Chronicle of Philanthropy included Doctors Without Borders USA, which helped victims of the December tidal wave that devastated Asian nations, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The groups raised a combined $166.2 million online, the trade journal said.

That was less than 1 percent of the total raised by most of the charities. But Chronicle Editor Stacy Palmer says the big growth from 2003 will spur more online fundraising this year as donors grow more comfortable with e-charity.

'We really seem at a stage where growth is happening in a fairly spectacular way,' she says."