www.02138mag.com

Global Warming

by Lindsey McCormack
Winter 2007 , Page 40

winter07 smarts kuraishi Sarah Mahmood and Mudassar Khan, a Pakistani-American couple in Fairfax, Va., were planning their zakat, the traditional tithe Muslims make for Ramadan. They wanted to give directly to an anti-poverty project but worried that donating to an Islamic charity could bring unwanted scrutiny from the federal government. Then Mahmood came across a website, GlobalGiving, that not only featured a list of grassroots projects in the developing world but even had a zakat calculator. “Many Muslims are concerned about the safety of online charities,” she says. “But going through GlobalGiving, I was confident that everything was approved. I loved seeing how far a little amount of money can go.”

With GlobalGiving, the relationship doesn’t stop with the donation. “You make an investment in someone’s dream,” says co-founder Mari Kuraishi, “and they report back on whether they were able to achieve it.” The site features some 400 projects, vetted by a GlobalGiving partner organization and checked for compliance with tax and anti-terror laws. Project leaders pitch their organizations using photos, testimonials, and progress reports; many have no directly relevant formal training. “This is about economic democracy,” Kuraishi says. “Being a social entrepreneur should not be an elite calling.”

Kuraishi, the daughter of a Japanese cosmetics executive, went to high school in West Germany, studied Soviet history at Harvard, and was a World Bank executive when she and a colleague launched GlobalGiving in 2002. She sees international development as a marketplace of ideas: Projects rise to the top, she says, because donors tend to fund those they think can succeed. Since going live, the Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit has funneled some $3.5 million to 720 initiatives—from a radio station run by teens in Sierra Leone to a women’s shelter in Iraq to a night school in Nicaragua.

GlobalGiving is a child of the eBay phenomenon—the revelation that more than 100 million strangers online could learn to trust each other. And talk to each other: Project leaders share strategies, and donors give feedback. For Kuraishi, those interactions are a philanthropic goldmine. “Many social entrepreneurs don’t know how donors perceive them,” she says. “It’s an opportunity for a real learning cycle.”

Some donors monitor and suggest improvements to the projects they support; in turn, GlobalGiving plans to allow project leaders to rank donors, rewarding those who give valuable feedback and consistent donations (which can be as small as $10).

For the wired and intellectually curious, it’s an addicting activity for the holidays—whether Ramadan, Diwali, or Christmas. “Social philanthropy has to be about more than the transaction,” Kuraishi says. “It’s not just that you’re buying off your guilt; you want to get involved, have a relationship—and a conversation.”