Diane Mastrull: A new website links givers and charities

Like many people the day after Thanksgiving, Blair Souder wasn't feeling well. But his distress wasn't related to overeating.

It was from watching television footage of bargain-hungry buyers on Black Friday, the launch of the Christmas shopping season.

"People are fighting each other for DVD players at Target," the 48-year-old Chester County father of two recalled of that scene last November.

It was a disturbing contrast to the few weeks he had just spent in Nepal, where he had done some hiking and had become enthralled with the simple, peaceful existence of the Sherpa people.

"It just really struck me that all this stuff that we think we need or that we think we need to give . . . has really nothing to do with how happy and peaceful we can feel," said Souder, a former General Electric Co. marketing executive with degrees in chemical engineering, business administration, and psychology.

That realization has led to Souder's forming a Web-based business with a brother in California, Kirk, that Souder hopes will "create a new vernacular for how we celebrate things."

ShiftMyGift.com launched last Monday, offering people a way to celebrate any occasion - birthday, baby shower, wedding, graduation, new home, the sun rising - by rerouting money that would have been spent on gifts to needy causes. So, for instance, instead of buying your husband an iPad, you visit his registry page on ShiftMyGift.com and make a donation in his name to any of the nonprofit groups he has listed there as his preferences.

Among the motivational reasons the site offers for donations instead of gifts:

"Your friends don't have to slog through the malls finding you stuff you don't want. Your friends get a tax deduction. The environment loves you for not using gas, packaging, and wrapping paper."

Souder says his site is different from donation sites such as Facebook's Causes in that ShiftMyGift does not raise money. Rather, it aims to serve as a simple-to-use digital link between donors and organizations that rely on charitable giving.

"I see it as a movement as much as I see it as a website," Souder said last week at his home office in Lincoln University, where he also runs a consulting business to help create more-engaging work environments.

What influenced the physical design of the ShiftMyGift site, Souder said, was his own experience last year of not being able to find a donation site that was simple to use and allowed him to find any nonprofit organization in the country in one place.

As a result of a partnership the site has with Guidestar, which maintains a database of registered U.S. nonprofit groups, users of ShiftMyGift.com will have access to a list of 1.2 million organizations.

If already in the Guidestar database, nonprofit groups do not have to register with ShiftMyGift to qualify as a gift recipient. However, registering will enable them to create their own ShiftMyGift landing page on that website.

Souder also plans to feature a variety of charities on his company's website at any one time. The current criterion for a nonprofit to qualify for such recognition, he said, is the ability to promote the site to more than 50,000 people. He said he had no plans to sell advertising on the site. Its only income is from a $1.49 service fee tacked on each donation.

"I'll be happy if the site breaks even and allows me to hire people to help support it and grow the awareness and movement, and therefore the impact," Souder said.

The nonprofit community, always in search of new funding streams, is enthusiastic.

"We try to stay on the cutting edge of social media and provide our donors and followers any avenue they want to use," said Melanie Mullinax, communications manager at Project HOPE, an international health-education and humanitarian-assistance organization. She said she intends to widely promote ShiftMyGift to Project HOPE's more than 100,000 donors.

Philadelphia-based Back on My Feet, which uses running to build physical and emotional well-being among the homeless, is about to open its eighth chapter, in Atlanta, and considers ShiftMyGift "a unique call-to-action and a one-stop-shop for occasion-based giving," said spokeswoman Rachelle Damminger.

At the National Wildlife Federation, Kristin Johnson, senior manager of online editorial, said she was "really excited" about the more personal touch ShiftMyGift brings to fund-raising.

Having supporters encourage family and friends to skip gift-buying and divert that money instead to the federation is "more powerful than if we ask their friends and family for a donation," Johnson said.

Souder said success for ShiftMyGift will be defined in stages - for instance, when major giving milestones are reached, such as $1 million in shifted gifts.

And when he stops getting wallets for Christmas.

"I have four," Souder said.