9/8/2010
By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times business reporter
Online giving has revolutionized philanthropy in the past several years. Now it's about to redefine the 64-year-old Seattle Foundation.
As the foundation grappled with the question of how to attract new donors, its investments went south in the recession and the need from nonprofits skyrocketed.
Today it's launching a new website that supports financial transactions and takes the stories of people it's helping in the community directly to a wider audience through the Web, part of an effort to adapt its work to changing expectations for philanthropy in the digital age.
"The Web über alles," said Norm Rice, the former Seattle mayor who has headed the foundation for a little more than a year. Rice and the foundation's board envisioned a site that could serve as a central platform to connect local nonprofits and potential donors.
"There is clearly a large desire by our donors to be informed and engaged," he said. "A website that allows them to explore, to investigate and to change is highly compelling, especially for new donors who have a whole different experience in computers and technology."
The Seattle Foundation works as an umbrella organization, making grants for about 550 individuals and families, who donate their assets and advise the foundation how they'd like to give, rather than running their own private foundations. The Seattle Foundation also manages 650 other funds set up as bequests or endowments, for a combined $597 million in assets and about $48 million awarded in grants each year.
The foundation regularly reviews hundreds of nonprofits on behalf of its donors, and the information it usually provides to them internally, such as evaluations of grantees, now will be part of its new online Giving Center.
Visitors to the site can search 675 nonprofits by location, mission, key words and other criteria to match their interests. The site also shows how a nonprofit's work links to the Seattle Foundation's overall strategy.
The strategy is to focus on seven elements that make Seattle a healthy community: arts and culture, basic needs, economy, education, environment, health/wellness and neighborhoods.