Great Nonprofits

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Obligatory pitch to general media

We sent out the following press release today to about 130 media contacts which, according to our database, are interested in nonprofits. This media list includes journalists at Newsweek to those at local newspapers. The benefit to GreatNonprofits aside, I'm curious to see how many responses we get from these journalists. It's an interesting experiment because one of the reasons why we created GreatNonprofits is the absence of serious media coverage about the nonprofit sector and local nonprofits by the general media. The general media coverage nonprofits and giving is usually in the context of

a)some big scandal b)celebrity endorsement of nonprofit (any story with Angela Jolie in it) c)super-rich giving - those Richard Bransons of the world

We were lucky that last year, that Jane Bryant Quinn of NewsWeek was interested in nonprofit evaluation and wrote about us in her article about how to find good nonprofits to give to. It'll be interesting to see who picks up on this story this year. I'll report back to you on that. Here's the press release we sent:

First "Zagats-like" Guide to Nonprofits Launches New site with consumer reviews about nonprofits to help people find worthy nonprofits.

(Dec 10)San Francisco, CA- This season, donors who are looking for worthy nonprofits to give to or volunteer for have a new site where they can check out reviews of the nonprofits by people who have had a direct experience with it.

The site, http://www.greatnonprofits.org, harnesses the Internet's ability to aggregate user-generated content and follows the model of restaurant, movie and product reviews made popular by Zagats, Amazon and Epinions.

"People interested in giving or volunteering can now read reviews of nonprofits submitted by real people who have seen first hand the results. This will help people make giving or volunteering decisions," says Perla Ni, CEO of GreatNonprofits. "It is a bold step forward for philanthropy."

Users on the site can browse hundreds of profiles and reviews of nonprofits and write their own reviews of nonprofits they have interacted with.

"The consumer review sites have helped tens of millions of shoppers make better buying decisions. Informed consumers shop more in aggregate," says Naval Ravikant, GreatNonprofits advisory board member and founder of Epinions.com. "Similarly, GreatNonprofits, by giving authentic, unbiased reviews will create greater trust and faith in charities, and increase the level of giving overall."

At Greatnonprofits.org, donors can read personal stories, see photos, and videos showing how people have volunteered with, worked with, donated to, or benefited from the work of nonprofits.

Pittsburgh is the first city to participate in the pilot. Through the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, over 300 nonprofits are participating. Reviews of nonprofits have been written by people who have volunteered, who have donated or who have benefited from a nonprofit's services.

Says Vivien Luk of The Forbes Funds, "We see GreatNonprofits as a way to connect the public with services provided by our local nonprofits and to better connect nonprofits with each other. This is also a great way to increase donations and volunteerism for our local nonprofits.

Ni says that GreatNonprofits complements other sites where people go to research nonprofits, such as Guidestar. "GreatNonprofits provides people with subjective, personal reviews– it's a complement to sites which publish data about nonprofits."

For Further Information: Perla Ni, CEO, GreatNonprofits.org perlani(at)greatnonprofits.org

by Perla N.

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