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September 08, 2008

New Web Site Recommends Charities to Donors

A new Web site enables individual donors to get a customized list of charities that match their interests.

Created by the Berkeley Center for New Media at the University of California, the Donation Dashboard site works by using software similar to what Amazon.com and other commercial sites use to recommend books, movies, and other products to customers, based on their previous purchases.

Visitors to Donation Dashboard first rate 15 charities — each presented with a brief description of its mission, accomplishments, and the percentage of its budget spent on charitable programs – -in terms of how interested they are in giving to the organization. Based on donors’ ratings and statistics from other users whose preferences are similar, the site provides a list of charities likely to meet a donor’s interests.

Ken Goldberg, who heads the Berkeley center unit that developed Donation Dashboard, says that as more and more donors use the site over time, its ability to match people with causes will improve as information on people’s preferences is entered, and the interests of their peers can be factored into its recommendations.

Since Donation Dashboard made its debut in May, 1,600 people have provided 25,000 ratings of the 70 charities in the site’s listings. Mr. Goldberg says the site may expand the number of charities that it can recommend if it can attract enough interest and software-development support.

— Holly Hall

Monday September 8, 2008 | Permalink

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