Ohio's fast philanthropy

The Columbus Foundation launched PowerPhilanthropy in March of 2008 and moved hundreds of thousands of dollars in under an hour (I wrote about them in this Future Matters 2008.1). This week they beat their own record - on November 18 they used up their entire match fund in 34 minutes, processed 650 gifts in the first 17 minutes alone and 1,000 gifts in 40 minutes.

Their aim was to move $1 million to area nonprofits in 48 hours and they did so in less than 25 hours – to hundreds of nonprofits. One of their donors was a class of kindergarteners - the teacher called one the foundation once the challenge was launched, the foundation staff person walked them through the giving process on the phone and when the gift (to the Nature Conservancy) got through the system and was matched, the entire group of kindergartners cheered!

So now we know what the kids will do, what will you do?

Tags: philanthropy, columbusfoundation, powerphilanthropy, matchday